New Blog
There is a new blog, It will start out on WordPress, but may go somewhere else later. It is called Forty Four Words. The posts will have a limit of forty four words.
The word counting began with 22 words. 22W is still in delightful business, but they long ago gave up on the 22 word limit. PG thinks this is a shame. The 22 word limit forced you to think, to concentrate your thoughts into a tight format. The owner of 22W chose to run his blog differently.
The owner of 22W is Abraham Piper, the son of famous preacher John Piper. Many of the comment threads at the old 22W were about religion. One day PG tried to express his beliefs in 22 words.
PG decided that this label thing was not going to work. Labels belong on jars, and PG’s hair is a half inch over jarhead level. The best solution was to write a list of beliefs. The good news here is that numbers do not count against the total of 22 words. 1. My beliefs are my business. 2. Practice outweighs belief. 3. G-d probably exists. 4. G-d does not write books. 5. Jesus has nothing to do with Life after death.
This is 25 words. Three words need to go. Line 4 states that G-d does not write books. This implies that G-d does, indeed, exist. Line 3 can be eliminated, and the answer reduced to 22 words.
As you may have guessed, this post is not regulated by a forty four word limit. Chamblee 54 is not going anywhere, except maybe to a privately hosted domain. There are lots of issues that do not lend themselves to short posts.
PG has been entering the Trifecta writing challenge. Many of the posts here specify 33 words. PG wrote a few, and was impressed at how quickly such a post could be knocked out. You can express yourself very well in 33 words. There is a sense of poetry in short posts.
Forty Two years ago, a few hippies at Cross Keys High School decided that forty four was a magic number. It was the uniform number of Hank Aaron. Forty four is two times two times eleven. The second lowest even number, squared, multiplied by the lowest two digit prime number. Eleven is two ones, that add up to two. You can go on and on about this, probably for more than forty four words.
So the blog has joined the blogosphere, along with a few thousand more today. Very few of those will make more than ten posts. The hope is that Forty Four Words will hold up, and be a good compliment to Chamblee 54. The new template is going to take a bit of getting used to, and will only handle pictures 700 pixels wide. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Idle
Over at the one star blog, there is a post this morning, If you’re going to snip, you should snip this verse. The thesis here is that if you are going to edit the Bible, that you should redact Genesis 1:1.
“A well-known actor… tries to ameliorate his guilt over pursuing his slavery to unnatural desires by snipping out unwelcome passages from Gideon’s Bibles in motel rooms. This is vandalism as therapy, evidently yet another pursuit of the idle rich.”
The link is to a 2007 article in a production called LifeSiteNews. “British Actor Ian McKellen who has used the mega-stardom he achieved playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films to promote homosexuality, has admitted to ripping out pages of hotel bibles that refer to homosexuality… “Yes it is true,” responded McKellen it’s even tones. “Its Leviticus 18:22 that I object to, or is it 22:18, I’ve always got to look it up. … “I think it’s rather obscene and pornographic, and shouldn’t be there, so I remove it.”
Now, whatever one thinks of snipping and clipping by Sir Ian, one word that should not be used is idle. A movie actor spends long days on the set. He is up early for makeup, must wear an uncomfortable costume, and every scene is filmed at least a dozen times. Nor is the road to movie stardom an easy one. Sir Ian started out in live theater, with long hours spent in rehearsal, and eight performances a week. For every Sir Ian who hits the big time, there are a thousand players, of equal talent, who wait tables during the day, so they can perform at night. This is not the lifestyle of “the idle rich.”
Such A Pansy
Louie Giglio was being discussed on the Allen Hunt Show Sunday night. A lady did not think Mr. Giglio should nothave withdrawn from his chore of praying at the BHO inauguration. The lady said “He was such a pansy about it”.
PG called the show to make a comment about the lady. After getting the busy signal a few times, PG talked to the screener. The comment was that the lady, when discussing Louie Giglio, said “he was such a pansy about it.” Pansies, in fact, are very tough plants. They thrive in cold, nasty weather. Mr. Giglio, in withdrawing from consideration of doing the prayer, was the opposite of acting like a pansy.
At first the screener said he would pass along the comment to Mr. Hunt. PG said he would not mind waiting, and the screener said he would have to wait for a half hour. PG said this was not a problem. The screener said to keep the radio turned off, and to get quickly to the comment.
After a few minutes of chatter, Mr. Hunt went to a commercial break. He said that the subject would be Lance Armstrong when he got back. The screener got back to PG, and said that the show would not be discussing Louie Giglio any more. PG said that Mr. Hunt just didn’t want to hear any opposing viewpoints. The screener said we are not like that, and hung up.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This was written like Arthur Clarke.
Application For Baptism
Passion City Church has been in the spotlight recently. Pastor Louie Giglio univited himself from participation in the second inauguration of BHO. The website for the facility has an “Application for Baptism.” PG decided to answer their questions.
Please state briefly how and when you placed your faith in Christ as Savior and began to follow Him with your life.
I learned the truth about Jesus one day at work, My neighbor was an aggressive preacher. One day this aggression turned on me, and I was shouted down and humiliated. When he was through with his tirade, he went back to his desk. A minute later, the phone rang. The aggressive preacher screamed “I never felt better in my life”. It should be noted here that Jesus and Christ are two very different terms. The person known as Jesus may, or may not, have been the Christ.
Do you believe you are going to heaven? Why do you believe that?
What happens to the dead is none of living people’s business. The answer is to have faith in G-d to take care of you when you die. When you scream about salvation, you are betraying a lack of faith in G-d. Whatever G-d wants to do with me when I die is her business.
Why do you want to get baptized? Have you been baptized before? Please explain.
In the Southern Baptist Church, pre adolescent children are pressured to join the church and be baptized. The good news is that this is better than what Catholic priests like to do with children. When it was my time to be pressured into joining the church, I was uncertain that it was the right step to take. After all these years, I am curious what I was missing.
Baptism is a public declaration symbolizing death to our old way of life and an entering in to the new life we have received in Christ. Though not perfect, does your life today reflect the change Christ has made in you?
My life is the same today as it was before I learned the truth about Jesus. I try to treat my neighbor with kindness and honest compassion.
Faster Faster
Many of us spend a lot of time driving. Here are a few thoughts.
1- Find another way to show how bad you are. This is mostly a masculinity thing, but it just might apply to a few ladies. Driving hard and fast is the easy way to prove your toughness. All you do is push the gas pedal. You don’t have to go to the gym, have lots of sex, or go into battle. Just drive fast, and with no concern for your neighbor.
2- Slow down. There is no need to go so fast. When you go somewhere, allow yourself enough time to get there. The faster you drive, the less reaction time you have in an emergency.
3- Stay far enough behind the car ahead of you to stop in an emergency. This will be less stressful for the person in front of you.
4- Pay attention to the road. This is where the cell phones become a problem. You should be focused on the road ahead of you, and not what your phone mate is telling you. Your minutes will be just as good when you get to your destination.
5- The three rules of the workplace apply here…. show up, stay awake, and don’t kill anyone.
6- Keep your car in good condition. The tires and brakes are key items, but also keep the engine running smoothly. Sometimes you need to accelerate.
7- Keep your temper. Driving while angry is a cause of many accidents, especially when combined with alcohol or religion.
8- At the risk of saying the unthinkable, some think a bit of alcohol is not that terrible. Of course, when you drink your judgment of how high you are is distorted, so it is tough to tell when too much is consumed. The law takes a much, much sterner view of this.
9- Use your turn signals.
10- Show concern for the well being of your neighbor. Use common sense.
This is a repost .
Pastor Giggly
This post was going to be about used chewing gum. However, on the way home today, radio whiner Erick Erickson said that all americans must have opinions about a certain issue. Perhaps there is a connection between the two issues.
The ABC (already been chewed) gum was left in a urinal strainer this morning. The first reaction was to think that this was gross. The second thought is to wonder why urinals need strainers anyway. The original purpose was to keep cigarette butts out of the pipes. However, people go outside to smoke now. Maybe someone is worried about men doing number two standing up.
The strainer was from a supply company called Uline, and featured the company’s utilitarian logo. Another strainer if from the festively named Swisher brand. The Swisher strainer has the motto, “say no to drugs” printed on it. These are popular at bars, where men excrete used drugs on that phrase.
The story americans are required to care about is Louie Giglio, Pastor Under Fire For Anti-Gay Sermon, Withdraws From Obama Inauguration Ceremony. According to E.W. Erickson, the preacher gave a sermon, where he said to show love and compassion to gay people. However, the Bible says to oppose the “Gay Agenda,” whatever that is.
The speech was given a few years ago, when DADT was in effect. According to the magic book, gay people are not moral enough to go kill, for G-d and country. It is not known whether the men, women, and children killed by the armies of straight americans are gay, straight, or preadolescent.
How does this compare to a piece of ABC gum in a urinal strainer? Perhaps, like the strainer, the idea of having a prayer at a Presidential inauguration is obsolete. If we are an inclusive country, why was a professional Jesus worshiper chosen to say grace over the inauguration? Why not have a Muslim speak, or a Rabbi? It is always Christians who give these meaningless, symbolic prayers.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Thou Art That
It started out as joke comments. Thank G-d for secular humanism. ~ You’re welcome. PG got to thinking, and wondered what the punch line was. Is there a difference between G-d and man?
In “Zen and the art of motorcycle repair” the author contends that the division of G-d and man, subject and object, is the dirty work of Aristotle. PG is not philosophically grounded enough to know, but suspects that unity is better than division. Is the earth a unified whole, “thou art that”?
Now, the truth just might be that G-d is separate from man. While unity may sound appealing, it might not be the way things operate. Just because a belief makes you happy does not mean that it is true. Let no man bring together what G-d has rent asunder.
If there is a division between G-d and man, then where does the boundary lie?
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This is a repost. Is it art?
Jesus Leave Me Alone
Jesus, leave me alone.
You poison faith with the plan for life after death.
Stop your bleeding. Get along with your neighbor.
Tell people to find another way to G-d.
You are obsolete.
Did Jesus Go To Hell?
This is a repost. In 2012, Tim Tebow is playing for the New York Jets. They have a losing record, and will watch the postseason on TV. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
A blogger named Older eyes put up a post about Tim Tebow and Bill Maher, who recently had a twitterspat. It went like this. “Maher Tweeted: Wow, Jesus just f—- TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler, “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them” … To Tebow’s credit, he ignored Maher, Tweeting only, Tough game today but what’s most important is being able to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone GB² (according to Tebow’s website GB²=God Bless+Go Broncos).
PG … who forgives Denver for Super Bowl XXXIII … felt obliged to pile on. He left this comment: 1-In all probability, Jesus was not born on December 25. The celebration of his birth was grafted onto a pagan festival day. 2- It sure was fun watching Buffalo run those interceptions back for touchdowns. 3- There is no good choice here. In both cases, you have the option of turning the TV off, or switching away from twitter. If you are in enforced contact ( a work or family situation) with someone who will not shut up, who repeats his obnoxious opinions with disregard for his neighbor, then you do not have this option. 4- Jesus said, when Satan was through talking to Hitler, please leave me out of this.
This got PG to thinking. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, that might have been the result. Did Jesus go to hell?
The party line is that Jesus paid the price for the sins of mankind. Is forty four hours in a cave enough? When you consider the billions of lies, murders, and fornications, you have to wonder. Maybe Jesus is taking the place of man in hell, paying the price for your sins.
Putting G-d Back In Church
It could have been predicted. Before the bodies are buried, attention happy entertainers are telling us why the shootings in Connecticut happened. Mike Huckabee, has shared his thoughts. “We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed G-d from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?”
Maybe the problem is not that we have removed G-d from our schools. Maybe the problem is that we have removed G-d from the church.
The dominant religion in our culture is Christianity, or Jesus worship. The first commandment says to worship no G-d except G-d. There is no exception made for the reputed son of G-d. There are other items given G-d like status in the Jesus Worship Church. The first commandment is a good rule, and when you violate it there is going to be trouble.
Arguably, Christianity is not a religion, but a scheme for life after death. Instead of worshiping G-d, the faithful show that they do not trust G-d to take care of them when they die. Instead, they think that belief in Jesus will get them into heaven, instead of hell. The louder this is said, the more truth it is thought to have.
Another problem with the salvation focused church is violence. Christianity is a violent affair. The verbal abuse fromt he pulpit. The verbal abuse of those who disagree with the scheme for life after death. The central event of Christianity is the gruesome murder of Jesus. The blood gushing pictures of this event decorate the tee shirts of the believers. The cross where the murder took place is celebrated as the symbol of Christianity. Gross.
Newtown
As you may have heard, there was a shooting in a Connecticut school Friday. Speculation about the cause has been rampant ever since. Some say we need more gun control. Some say we need more care for the mentally ill. Some say it is because of G-d, or lack thereof. This post is not going to pretend to know the truth. The purpose today is to report on some out of control internet chatter. Pictures are by Chamblee 54. This was written like James Joyce.
Facebook Fagans have been passing around a speech about the tragedy, supposedly written by Morgan Freeman. It blames the media for the shooting, instead of G-d or the NRA. Blaming the media is always a crowd pleaser. An outlet called examiner “happened to stumble across the words of Morgan Freeman and his thoughts on the event on Friday as well as other mass shootings.” This is not the same as showing a source.
Another medium, the Inquisitr, has a story about the story, Morgan Freeman’s Newtown ‘Statement’ Almost Definitely A Hoax. The feature points out a few holes in the logic of the commentary. Even if the actor did say these things, why should we pay attention? Sounding good, while reading a script, does mean an entertainer is smarter than you.
The Inquisitr story has a screenshot, which may have the origin of the speech. It is one of those facebook things where the last names are blacked out. UPDATE: In a Reddit thread about the Morgan Freeman Newtown shooting quote hoax, Redditor Quintilian751 claims that the attribution to Freeman began as a joke among friends about finding a way to make the remarks a man named Mark from Vancouver made after the Sandy Hook tragedy go viral on the internet. The commenter provides a screenshot of the original quote by the man, and subsequent joking about attributing it to “Morgan Freeman or Betty White.” While the screenshot is not definitive proof the quote stems from here, the timeline also precedes the quote’s popularity and may well be the source for the spurious remark.
It has been noted that the actor in these shootings is “almost always” a white male. Don’t worry about Seung-Hui Cho or Nidal Malik Hasan. (The shooters at Virginia Tech and Fort Hood.) The examiner truthseekers have a commentary about this, Connecticut shooting, white males, and mass murder. If you roll your mouse over the bottom of the page, you hear an ad for “Cuddl Duds”.
I want to say this next bit very carefully. It is absolutely true that white men have lost a lot of power in the last few decades. Inasmuch as these shooters are angry about feelings of powerlessness, their feelings are at least understandable. However, white men needed to lose a lot of power. Without exaggerating, one could say that a history of America is a history of white men lording power over… pretty much anyone who wasn’t a white man. If America was ever going to truly be a land of equality, white men needed to lose their power.
The thing is, losing power hurts. That’s the “aggrieve” part of aggrieved entitlement. It’s one thing for a bunch of white men to feel hurt because they are no longer the kings of their own private castles, rulers of all they survey. It’s another thing for them to feel like they’re entitled to power, and more importantly, entitled to punish others for taking it away. And that — aggrievement plus the feeling of entitlement — is what may well drive people like Adam Lanza to these horrific crimes.
Facebook is good every once in a while. A Georgia Pediatrician wrote this:
My heart goes out to the parents and families of those lost. Another sad day in America. As a pediatrician, I have experienced families losing their children to illness – an event that in most instances there is knowledge of the event going to happen. This is totally different. The shock is massive and devastating and we all need to hold them in our thoughts and prayers as they and their community go through this tragedy.
As to cause, I know there will be much speculation. The thought that first comes to me is the continual devaluation of life in our society – wars, gun-worship, not caring for those outside of “society”, allowing homelessness in our society, devaluing individuals because of their appearance or status, etc. But for this age person, the perpetrator – one major issue is the ever presence of one-shooter video games – our military’s major recruitment tool. We have allowed the depersonalization of killing. We have also allowed easy access to automatic weapons and large clip magazines for which there is no justification. Preventive health is not just vaccines. It is also creating an environment that is safe to the community as well as troubled individuals. We have much to do.
Bad Jesus
There is now a facebook group, “I don’t care if it offends you, I’m saying MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!”
Merry Christmas used to be a greeting of good will. It meant, I am happy that you survived the year, have a nice holiday. It was not an in your face gesture, designed to express a religious opinion.
Christmas used to be a time of peace on earth and good will towards men. There were parties, gift giving, and holiday time from school and work. The religious part has always been there, but if you wanted to ignore it you could.
Now, the Jesus Worshipers want it all. The fact that our culture is dominated by Jesus worship is not good enough, they want it all. And they don’t care if it offends you. Peace on earth and good will towards men are for weaklings.
We don’t know when Jesus was born. Some scholars say he was born in the spring, but it was a long, long time ago. When the early Christians were trying to convert the Romans, they decided to have a birthday celebration for Jesus at the time of a pagan holiday. It is the winter solstice, the time of renewal at the end of the year. It is an ideal time for a religious feast.
Many people, PG included, have been hurt by Jesus. Jesus worship is an aggressive religion, and if you don’t agree, you can expect to be insulted and humiliated. As society becomes more and more secular, the Jesus worshipers get more aggressive. Many people have come to see the birth of Jesus as something to be mourned, rather than celebrated.
PG used to enjoy saying Merry Christmas. To him, it was a greeting of good will. Now, it is taking sides in a nasty fight. Maybe the proper thing to say is have a nice day.
And now for something completely different. PG found this recently, and it is not original to him. If you really need a link to the original, we will look harder.
When I was young and impressionable, I heard the Co-Adjutor Archbishop of Bombay preach on the subject of Christmas.
He made the point that the adjective “merry” actually means “to be showing the influence of alcohol”, that is to be at least partially drunk. So to wish someone a Merry Christmas is really to wish them a Drunken Christmas.
And he went on to point out that as drunkenness is a sin, and moreover it is illegal to ply an infant with alcohol, a “merry Christmas” not only treats the birth of Christ as an occasion for sin, it also excludes the guest of honour Himself from the celebration.
That is a perversion of the meaning of Christmas — yet how often do we hear “true Christians” insist on saying “merry Christmas”? Why don’t they just wish the world happiness and joy?
While trying to find the source of the above merry quote, this popped up. Some times a full length quote is the way to go.
It’s hilariously ironic that Boggs would use a Christmas tree as a means of combating the “war on Christmas.” After all, the Christmas tree has distinctly pagan roots and stands mostly outside of Christian tradition. Indeed, there was a time when Christmas itself was a controversial subject among Christians, many of whom wanted nothing to do with a celebration that hearkened back to the pagan festivals of old (if we’re going for accuracy, the Persian god “Mithras” is the real reason for the season). If anything, Ms. Bogg’s Christmas tree has the opposite effect: it reminds me that early Christians were a fairly opportunistic bunch, and would happily co-opt pagan celebrations if it meant that they could save a few souls (see: Easter).
That aside, the yearly outrage over the “war on Christmas” reminds me of one of the things that really bothers me about contemporary conservative evangelicalism, namely, it’s tremendous hostility to religious pluralism. “Happy Holidays” is a fundamentally inclusive greeting. It’s a way of respecting non-Christian Americans and acknowledging the fact Christmas coincides with other religious holidays equally worthy of respect (like Hanukkah, for instance). When someone wishes you “Happy Holidays,” they are saying something roughly the same as this: “I’m not sure what your religious beliefs are, but whatever they are, I hope you enjoy the holiday season as much as possible.”
This is the furthest thing from “offensive” that I can imagine, and yet, there are many Christians who are apoplectic about the change. From what I can gather, the offense comes from the fact that they have to share the holiday. It’s not enough that Christmas and Christianity are in every other way privileged above other religious celebrations, no, we have to actively avoid acknowledging the existence of other religions. “Religious freedom” for them isn’t the right to practice as they see fit, it’s the “right” to banish every other religion from the public square, or something to that effect. It probably isn’t my place to say this (since I’m not the ultimate arbiter of right belief, or something), but the stunning lack of charity and understanding inherent in this approach to other religions and other people strikes me as a pretty clear-cut example of what Jesus specifically asked us not to do.
This is a repost.
The pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
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