Amen to all that you said, Tom. It's rather hopeless. The lack of any meaningful change to gun laws after a classroom of innocent 1st graders and their teachers were slaughtered was enough for me to know that no one, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN THE HOUSE OR SENATE, gives a rat's ass about protecting us from gun violence.
Amen to all that you said, Tom. It's rather hopeless. The lack of any meaningful change to gun laws after a classroom of innocent 1st graders and their teachers were slaughtered was enough for me to know that no one, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN THE HOUSE OR SENATE, gives a rat's ass about protecting us from gun violence.
I agree Nancy. Sandy Hook was the low water mark. After that I knew nobody with an R after their name gave a shit about our children, or anyone else. And for all of us, if we haven't experienced a mass shooting, it's just a matter of time. Every day, the odds go up that it will be my child, or yours. Nobody is safe, no idylic small town, no school, or bowling alley, or movie theater is safe. Voting them all out is the ONLY answer.
And when Alex Jones started his most vicious lying rants I thought, well nobody will buy that crap. Almost eleven years later, and he is a rich hero to so many. Are we as sick as Germany was?
having read this, I feel much better because this is exactly what I've been sounding like and I thought maybe I was going crazy. this is aside from stressing out about forgetting stuff and thinking the dementia has finally arrived (if you have similar worries, I recommend NOT deciding to give yourself "tests" at that moment because you will certainly FAIL THOSE TESTS).
about two in the morning, trying to seize the famously brief Ambien Window, it occurred to me that it was possible Johnson was one of those "Young Earth Creationists." so I checked today and there it was...he's had guests on his radio show many times who are, in fact, grown people who will tell you that Genesis is historical fact and there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark and what we call fossils are just the gunk left over from the flood. there's a theme park about it Down South (where else?) and its "creator" is Johnson's buddy because Johnson thinks it's wonderful and will enlighten millions of happy families. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
what's odd about this particular horrifying shooting is that the shooter doesn't seem to have been a Right-wing fanatic but seems to have been properly psychotic (with more information, this might change...his "background" COULD be that of a Right-wing prick).
ain't it something that this piece of shit gets "elected" and the same day there's a particularly scary slaughter of innocents ("The ceremony of innocence is drowned..."). what I mean is that this shooting was preventable. not even TFF would have wanted him to have a gun. or that's what I think right now...in a minute I'll probably be thinking the opposite. and yeah...I changed my mind...TFF doesn't give a fuck even if he once said that mass shooters always have a serious psychiatric diagnosis. but, needless to say, life doesn't quite work that way. at least not in the USA in 2023.
Yep, I have those worries. I used to think those nuts were a fringe, now they could rule us all. There are no fools like religious fools, the self-righteous shell cannot be penetrated, ever, in my experience. It can rightly be said that any mass shooter had mental health issues, but isnтАЩt it incumbent on the sane to stop the insanity. We put up all kinds of barriers to keep society safe, called the common good, I think. But the worship of guns is right up there with the worship of fools.
I have a postscript question...if Genesis is historical fact, which fucking creation is the real one...there are two of them in Genesis and they're DIFFERENT.
I hate to admit how old I was when the bull Schitt became too heavy to bear. God gave us all a brain, too many waste theirs. As Mark Twain said тАЬThe easy confidence with which I know another manтАЩs religion is folly, teaches me to suspect that my own is also.тАЭ AinтАЩt that the truth.
David, Genesis is not meant to be historical or scientific. It is story (ies), out of an oral tradition--(which may explain the two versions as often happens when stories are shared orally and then scribes write them down)...the way people use myth and symbol to explain and find meaning in their world and being. If you want to read something fascinating (in your Ambien Moment) about why we humans do that, read the classic by Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He traces the amazing connections we earthlings have in our core stories. George Lucas called Campbell his "hero".
The Hebrews adopted the Chaldean creation myth as "Genesis" during the Babylonian Captivity. Before that, the religion was entirely oral, and the priests were afraid it would be lost if their captivity lasted long enough, and so they wrote things down and cadged as much as they could (they were working fast) to get things going. Such is the "infallible word of god."
Literalism and lack of context are the problem. Jimmy Carter broke from his Baptist tradition over the inerrancy issue and a certain literal take on Scripture.
The guys ( and they were guys) who decided the Scriptural Canon had their own times and rational. Really good biblical scholarship, aided by archeology, sociology geography, historical criticism & literary criticism, use of language and modes of communication only came into its own in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Feminist critique has been added in this century.
We educated and thinking Christians have the responsibility to understand this Book in the light of new knowledge. The best faith is the faith that seeks understanding: the most dangerous is the blind , literal non-contextual use of it to beat people over the head, to control others, to weaponize and polarize.
I have a genuine loathing for Joseph Campbell. I liked him early in college, but when I discovered Erich Neumann, Campbell was unnecessary. check out "The Origins and History of Consciousness."
and eventually, Brendan Gill outed him as a Jew hater very convincingly (they had been friends).
I do KNOW all this stuff...I was sorta skazing Johnson and HIS cohort...this is what I would have asked HIM to his face because he has decided to limit what intelligence with which he MIGHT have been born.
I was raised by very Jewish agnostics (although I think my dad was a closet atheist) and consider myself a ridiculously New York City Atheist Jew. to be a NYCAJ growing up in NYC in the fifties was to be a Lord of the Universe.
I didn't experience actual antisemitism until I was working as a private vehicle chauffeur to earn pocket money just out of rehab. the offender was David Niven's daughter-in-law and I'd tell the silly little story if my fingers and mechanical keyboard weren't having a major quarrel this evening.
Sorry David. Did not mean to bring up bad memories and did not know about the anti- Semite Campbell!!!!
I do not always know when people are serious so I answer in good faith. As a person of faith I sometimes want to respond that we are not all evangelical crazies or blindly obedient to priests and Popes. Fully aware of the Sins of the Fathers but also fully aware of the goodness of true Christians, especially the women in my church. It is hard to get tarred with the sometimes broad brushes here.
Sounds as if youтАЩve had an interesting life. Glad you are here. Sorry again for tapping into the loathing gene!!!!
Yeah I was a big fan of Campbell back in high school along with a classmate or two; very fascinating discussions of the similarities in different culture. I jettisoned him when I learned about his antisemitism.
Almost all of the various creation stories from cultures around the world share eerily similar elements. Carl Sagan's book "Contact" did a nice job of speaking to this subject and delineating the fine lines and blurred lines between scientists and theologians who use critical thought processes. Great book; the movie was okay, but the book was great.
Wow you all are well read or have memories not as degraded over the years as I sit here after Quad Tendon Tear surgery today. I did some time in a Quaker School and a bunch of time in the USMC. I now find my religion hanging out in the woods, talking to Sammy my Cat. No formal religion for this former Episcopal Acolyte.
David, people forget the truth about the Bible - the ancient Hebrews wrote the Book of Genesis with its creation stories because Bronze Age shepherds and peasants had a very poor grasp of quantum physics.....
Yeah, whole lotta cribbing going on back then - and looking at the God stories in the OT, you can see the evolution (oh, did I just say "evolution"?) of God from Super-Zeus wrestling with Jacob to a more authoritative supreme being - and all that sex and violence.....worse than Mickey Spillane.
No no no. Keep your wits about you. There are many, just not enough. This is our last chance. We have to stay focused and serious. We know who the ones are that don't give a rat's ass. Support and give to the ones unseating them.
Amen to all that you said, Tom. It's rather hopeless. The lack of any meaningful change to gun laws after a classroom of innocent 1st graders and their teachers were slaughtered was enough for me to know that no one, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN THE HOUSE OR SENATE, gives a rat's ass about protecting us from gun violence.
I agree Nancy. Sandy Hook was the low water mark. After that I knew nobody with an R after their name gave a shit about our children, or anyone else. And for all of us, if we haven't experienced a mass shooting, it's just a matter of time. Every day, the odds go up that it will be my child, or yours. Nobody is safe, no idylic small town, no school, or bowling alley, or movie theater is safe. Voting them all out is the ONLY answer.
When Sandy Hook didnтАЩt give the impetus for change, I knew nothing would. Completely and utterly disgusting.
And when Alex Jones started his most vicious lying rants I thought, well nobody will buy that crap. Almost eleven years later, and he is a rich hero to so many. Are we as sick as Germany was?
I believe so...
Vote with a seven point six two NATO round? Maybe. Go the way their freaking God guides them.
wow. complete agreement here.
having read this, I feel much better because this is exactly what I've been sounding like and I thought maybe I was going crazy. this is aside from stressing out about forgetting stuff and thinking the dementia has finally arrived (if you have similar worries, I recommend NOT deciding to give yourself "tests" at that moment because you will certainly FAIL THOSE TESTS).
about two in the morning, trying to seize the famously brief Ambien Window, it occurred to me that it was possible Johnson was one of those "Young Earth Creationists." so I checked today and there it was...he's had guests on his radio show many times who are, in fact, grown people who will tell you that Genesis is historical fact and there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark and what we call fossils are just the gunk left over from the flood. there's a theme park about it Down South (where else?) and its "creator" is Johnson's buddy because Johnson thinks it's wonderful and will enlighten millions of happy families. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
what's odd about this particular horrifying shooting is that the shooter doesn't seem to have been a Right-wing fanatic but seems to have been properly psychotic (with more information, this might change...his "background" COULD be that of a Right-wing prick).
ain't it something that this piece of shit gets "elected" and the same day there's a particularly scary slaughter of innocents ("The ceremony of innocence is drowned..."). what I mean is that this shooting was preventable. not even TFF would have wanted him to have a gun. or that's what I think right now...in a minute I'll probably be thinking the opposite. and yeah...I changed my mind...TFF doesn't give a fuck even if he once said that mass shooters always have a serious psychiatric diagnosis. but, needless to say, life doesn't quite work that way. at least not in the USA in 2023.
what to do?
who the fuck knows.
mebbe Allie Oop?
heigh-ho dinosaur.
Why am I completely unsurprised about your discovery?
I just found this from Steve Schmidt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdkheuAoWDE
Steve has my utmost respect. Clear, level headed and knows his shit. A very caring human being as well. I read him every day
Perhaps in retrospect, I am a bit too charitable.
ЁЯШ▒ Thanks for that link, Mr. Levine. Scary, scary man. Fanatics generally are.
very welcome.
Straight shooter
Yep, I have those worries. I used to think those nuts were a fringe, now they could rule us all. There are no fools like religious fools, the self-righteous shell cannot be penetrated, ever, in my experience. It can rightly be said that any mass shooter had mental health issues, but isnтАЩt it incumbent on the sane to stop the insanity. We put up all kinds of barriers to keep society safe, called the common good, I think. But the worship of guns is right up there with the worship of fools.
I have a postscript question...if Genesis is historical fact, which fucking creation is the real one...there are two of them in Genesis and they're DIFFERENT.
I hate to admit how old I was when the bull Schitt became too heavy to bear. God gave us all a brain, too many waste theirs. As Mark Twain said тАЬThe easy confidence with which I know another manтАЩs religion is folly, teaches me to suspect that my own is also.тАЭ AinтАЩt that the truth.
Ol' Sam was, in many ways, full of wisdom (and cynicism).
Indeed, he could smell snake oil from across the country
he was a very great man.
Postscript Response:
David, Genesis is not meant to be historical or scientific. It is story (ies), out of an oral tradition--(which may explain the two versions as often happens when stories are shared orally and then scribes write them down)...the way people use myth and symbol to explain and find meaning in their world and being. If you want to read something fascinating (in your Ambien Moment) about why we humans do that, read the classic by Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He traces the amazing connections we earthlings have in our core stories. George Lucas called Campbell his "hero".
The Hebrews adopted the Chaldean creation myth as "Genesis" during the Babylonian Captivity. Before that, the religion was entirely oral, and the priests were afraid it would be lost if their captivity lasted long enough, and so they wrote things down and cadged as much as they could (they were working fast) to get things going. Such is the "infallible word of god."
Literalism and lack of context are the problem. Jimmy Carter broke from his Baptist tradition over the inerrancy issue and a certain literal take on Scripture.
The guys ( and they were guys) who decided the Scriptural Canon had their own times and rational. Really good biblical scholarship, aided by archeology, sociology geography, historical criticism & literary criticism, use of language and modes of communication only came into its own in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Feminist critique has been added in this century.
We educated and thinking Christians have the responsibility to understand this Book in the light of new knowledge. The best faith is the faith that seeks understanding: the most dangerous is the blind , literal non-contextual use of it to beat people over the head, to control others, to weaponize and polarize.
I have a genuine loathing for Joseph Campbell. I liked him early in college, but when I discovered Erich Neumann, Campbell was unnecessary. check out "The Origins and History of Consciousness."
and eventually, Brendan Gill outed him as a Jew hater very convincingly (they had been friends).
I do KNOW all this stuff...I was sorta skazing Johnson and HIS cohort...this is what I would have asked HIM to his face because he has decided to limit what intelligence with which he MIGHT have been born.
I was raised by very Jewish agnostics (although I think my dad was a closet atheist) and consider myself a ridiculously New York City Atheist Jew. to be a NYCAJ growing up in NYC in the fifties was to be a Lord of the Universe.
I didn't experience actual antisemitism until I was working as a private vehicle chauffeur to earn pocket money just out of rehab. the offender was David Niven's daughter-in-law and I'd tell the silly little story if my fingers and mechanical keyboard weren't having a major quarrel this evening.
mebbe laytuh.
Sorry David. Did not mean to bring up bad memories and did not know about the anti- Semite Campbell!!!!
I do not always know when people are serious so I answer in good faith. As a person of faith I sometimes want to respond that we are not all evangelical crazies or blindly obedient to priests and Popes. Fully aware of the Sins of the Fathers but also fully aware of the goodness of true Christians, especially the women in my church. It is hard to get tarred with the sometimes broad brushes here.
Sounds as if youтАЩve had an interesting life. Glad you are here. Sorry again for tapping into the loathing gene!!!!
Yeah I was a big fan of Campbell back in high school along with a classmate or two; very fascinating discussions of the similarities in different culture. I jettisoned him when I learned about his antisemitism.
Almost all of the various creation stories from cultures around the world share eerily similar elements. Carl Sagan's book "Contact" did a nice job of speaking to this subject and delineating the fine lines and blurred lines between scientists and theologians who use critical thought processes. Great book; the movie was okay, but the book was great.
Wow you all are well read or have memories not as degraded over the years as I sit here after Quad Tendon Tear surgery today. I did some time in a Quaker School and a bunch of time in the USMC. I now find my religion hanging out in the woods, talking to Sammy my Cat. No formal religion for this former Episcopal Acolyte.
Neither one
David, people forget the truth about the Bible - the ancient Hebrews wrote the Book of Genesis with its creation stories because Bronze Age shepherds and peasants had a very poor grasp of quantum physics.....
Actually, they just cribbed the Chaldean creation myth during the Babylonian Captivity.
Yeah, whole lotta cribbing going on back then - and looking at the God stories in the OT, you can see the evolution (oh, did I just say "evolution"?) of God from Super-Zeus wrestling with Jacob to a more authoritative supreme being - and all that sex and violence.....worse than Mickey Spillane.
The fact is only that they were written. That's all.
You are not alone,David.
Outstanding.
No no no. Keep your wits about you. There are many, just not enough. This is our last chance. We have to stay focused and serious. We know who the ones are that don't give a rat's ass. Support and give to the ones unseating them.