A couple tidbits I thought were interesting from TYWKIWDBI. And I checked: they’re true!
The triceratops and man lived closer chronologically than a triceratops and stegosaurus.
Cleopatra lived closer chronologically to the moon landing than to the building of the pyramids.
This isn’t meant to be a link-thru to a source. I just liked this turn of phrase so I’m saving it.
a “deep pit of self-righteousness and suicidal despair.”
How do we need to behave inorder to demonstrate to the world who God isor that he is not trapped insome cultural or intellectual box of our devising? For example, given the amount of hatred that exists between Christians, it would make sense to call believers to love those across the various sectarian divides as a way of concretely and prophetically demonstrating that our God is bigger than our pettiness might otherwise lead people to believe. Or we might argue that by loving Muslims we demonstrate in the most powerfulway possible that our God is God of the whole earth and not of Christians only.
From the post Should We Still Love Our Enemies?
Concerning the Christian cliche, “May I tell you a little about my faith?”
Christian evangelism often is the equivalent of a randy young teenager trying to get in good with his new girlfriend. When your personal agenda is more important than the humanity of the person you’re talking to, most people can sense the opportunism from a mile a way.
If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard. — Proverbs 21:13
The Slacktivist discusses recent quotes from some people concerned that providing subsidized health coverage for poor people is what makes health care so expensive.
The Republican privilege-principle of Tyler Cowen, Bryan Fischer and Rick Perry isn’t just morally monstrous, it’s also bad economics.
“We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor,” says Cowen.
“There is simply no way to control the cost of health care if hospitals are obligated to provide healthcare to all regardless of their ability to pay,” says Fischer.
But they’re both wrong. Poor people aren’t the source of the runaway cost of health care, and — even though there are so many of them — denying poor people access to health care still wouldn’t save much money.
It’s sick people, not poor people, who are responsible for the high cost of health care. There’s no savings to be had from excluding the poor, but trillions can be saved by excluding the sick.
Insurance companies figured that out a long time ago. That’s what all that “pre-existing condition” stuff was all about.
via To save money, don’t exclude the poor, exclude the sick.
The Slacktivist discusses negative tweets and Facebook postings in response to the multi-colored Oreo cookie commercial meant to appeal LGBT customers.
…LGBT people are existentially controversial. …
The cookie endorses no candidate, advocates no piece of pending legislation, favors no political party. But it reminds others that LGBT people exist , and that is perceived as a horrific insult by those who would prefer they didn’t.
It boils down to something like “My right to be offended by your existence trumps your right to exist.” That’s a pretty dark and creepy place to wind up at in response to such a fabulously festive cookie.
via My right to be offended by your existence trumps your right to exist.
Oh my, this reads like my eulogy.
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
via Magnificent Glow.
Say you have a city councilman who lives next door. Or maybe he lives next door. That’s the weird thing: you never actually meet him. You’ve seen the councilman written about in the papers and you’ve seen the billboards at election time touting the many outstanding things he’s done for your family and community. The councilman himself apparently exists. But is he really living next door?
Maybe, from time to time, you think you catch a glimpse of him in the house through a window. Maybe, now and then, you think you see his car speeding away from your street, but you never see it while it’s pulling out of his driveway. Is the councilman, whom you’ve read about but have never seen for sure, really your neighbor?
What does “I believe in…” mean? You can “believe in” concepts like God, or the love of your spouse, or the goodness of humanity. In popular vernacular you can also “believe in” more concrete, fact-based formulations like evolution, or the monogamy of your spouse, or the success of a particular school of economics.
The difficulty for me comes in the fact that we use the same term — “believe in” — for matters of pure inclination (the very idea of eating raw meat is gross to me) and also for matters where we mean “I have been convinced by the evidence” (I got sick eating raw meat and so believe it’s unsafe).
Would “I operate as if X is true” serve as a functional replacement for “I believe X”? Then believe in God is operating as if God is really there; He’s a fact. Belief in evolution would be to operate as if evolution is a fact. Belief in a political position would not simply be the belief that the position represents the best course of action, but would also entail taking that action!
So is a held belief that doesn’t have any operational component in effecting how you act really any belief at all?