Jason Coleman

Once again I find myself wishing I was brave enough to post something to Facebook, but posting it here instead because I’m not. Friends of mine online have been making and liking posts about how the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings in Connecticut are somehow not surprising given that America has taken Christianity and prayer out of public schools. James McGrath steers us back from the imaginary:

The shooting in this elementary school was not carried out by some elementary-age child who had rebelled against God and, as a result, decided to kill lots of people. It was carried out by someone who came into a school where children, despite there being no formal religious activity or education imposed on them, were behaving in a civilized manner towards one another (as much as can be expected from children no matter their religious affiliation). And many lives were saved because teachers in that school, teachers who never imposed their religious views on the children, acted heroically to save their lives.

The claim that this has something to do with prayer being taken out of schools is absolute vile garbage.

via God and Tragedy in Secular Public Schools.

Discussing the case of the the police officer who was caught on video providing new boots to a homeless man with bare feet, and then how the man turned out not to be homeless after all and was seen begging in bare feet again just days later.

[Princeton religion professor Eric] Gregory said that while those who are receiving such direct aid might be complicated, selfish and difficult — so are we. He reminded me of something the theologian and author C.S. Lewis wrote: “Another things that annoys me is when people say, “Why did you give that man money? He’ll probably go and drink it.” My reply is, “But if I kept it, I should have probably drunk it.”

via Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: Should We Give a Homeless Man Shoes?.

Since we have a graduated income tax, “rich people” pay the same tax on their first $50,000 that the middle class does. And the same tax on the first $100,000 that the upper middle class does. And the same tax on the first $200,000 that the top 5% of earners do. So there’s this…

Republicans keep saying they’re trying to save small-business people like me from paying these higher income taxes. Don’t listen to them, Lord. I really, really want to be a small-business man who qualifies to pay a higher tax rate by actually netting more than $200,000 a year. That would please me greatly, and your help there would be much appreciated.

Amen.

via A prayer for higher taxes – Philly.com.

Here’s a link back to something written in May, 2012, which I didn’t read at the time but I recently found cross-linked from another article. It’s a pretty thorough going-over of the various forms that marriage has taken in the last several thousand years, mostly taken from Biblical commands about how marriage ought to look. 

So, let’s see if I can total all this up. Traditional marriage is one man with multiple wives, multiple concubines, wives conquered in war and wives acquired in levirate marriage, possibly including girls under the age of ten, but definitely not including anyone of a different ethnic group, in an arranged marriage with disposition of property as its purpose. That seems very different from “one man, one woman,” does it not?

Of course, it’s easy to say that marriage as an institution evolves—but then, if we admit that, we have to admit that sanctioning loving, same-sex unions is just another step in that evolution. Perhaps this is why the Tony Perkinses of the world simply ignore the Bible when it doesn’t suit their purposes, instead preferring to make pseudo-scientific (and wholly unsupported) claims about what’s best for children and society. The Bible’s truths are just too inconvenient.

via Traditional Marriage: One Man, Many Women, Some Girls, Some Slaves | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches.

Let me underscore that the last line is calling out how a study of the Bible is inconvenient for evangelical talking points about “traditional marriage”. The author is not calling the Bible itself inconvenient.

Speaking as a biblical scholar, inerrancy is a high-maintenance doctrine. It takes much energy to “hold on to” and produces much cognitive dissonance. I am hardly alone….

For many other evangelicals (scholars of other disciplines, pastors, and laypeople), inerrancy is likewise no longer a paradigm of explanatory power, but a fragile theory in need of constant care and tending to survive.

Peter Enns via Inerrancy: I think someone forgot to tell the Bible.

I’ve mostly run across the phrase “explanatory power” in the creation/evolution debate. It’s neat to see it cropping up here too, and being put to the same use: something along the lines of “my explanation incorporates more of the facts than yours does, and requires fewer miracles to boot.”

There’s no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that Earth might end on December 21, 2012. It’s a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and how nature works.

Neil deGrasse Tyson via cwl – There’s no greater sign of the failure of the….

Once upon a time, I suck.

Then end.

via memewhore.tumblr.com.

I misread someone else’s sentence tonight. More careful reading revealed that this is not what they said, but this is the thought that I liked.

No one is perfect, but that doesn’t mean they should be.

That makes me think something along the lines of: we aren’t perfect people who then mess up and fail to be perfect, we’re just not perfect people to begin with. Being imperfect isn’t itself a defect because we’re just not. There’s room to extend kindness and understanding to others because every one of us needs it from the start.

Read the whole thing for context (like what, exactly, is a memento mori?) but I liked this quote enough to want easy access to it again.

But back to this post. I have a memento mori–a skull on my desk. And on hard days at work I look at it and think: Remember the truth about all this stuff around you, all this stuff that is stressing you and everyone else out–all this striving, pushing, competing, assessing, goal-setting, excelling, climbing, and performing.

It’s all just Vanity of Vanities.

via Experimental Theology: Memento Mori.

Unusual usage of this blog, but here’s a recipe I ran across that I wanted to keep, and highlighting the text and clicking the WordPress “Post” bookmark was the easiest way to save it. May all my fellow cooks enjoy.

Posted by gazania (My Page) on Tue, Aug 14, 07 at 7:04

How about this one?

• Butter Cream Icing
• 1 cup butter (or margerine)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 3.5 oz vanilla instant pudding mix

Cream butter and sugar well.

In another bowl whisk pudding mix into

milk until it begins to thicken.

Add to butter mixture and beat at high

speed about 5 minutes.

via LOOKING for: Pudding Frosting – Recipe Exchange Forum – GardenWeb.