Monday, July 14, 2014

Wittgenstein was Monumentally Smarter than Me.

Wittgenstein was monumentally smarter than me,
the Michaels Jordan and Jackson astronomically
more talented. Trump: more moulah & business
savvy; Paul Newman: better looking. My cousins
went to Harvard. My brother-in-law:cardio-vascular
surgeon. Mother Teresa: spiritual and compassionate.
(A listener, no doubt). My goodwife: selfishly unselfish
& thoughtful of others.

I on the other hand do narcissistic, solipsism,sealed-
in homeland security, reductive rip -off artistry &
moving violations against the whole good as
anyone bar none I bet you 5 dollars. This little
lite of mine.


195 comments:

  1. "The ‘experience’ that we need in order to understand logic is not that something or other is the state of things, but that something is: that, however, is not an experience." 5.552. Tractatus. Wittgenstein

    Who can read this sort of thing? The translation is useless.

    What he is saying is: the nature of logic is such that it comes before we describe anything, as to what it is like, before we experience it as to its qualities or behaviours. But the object itself is prior to logic. We can only talk about what there is. If we talk about what isn't, then we are not logical, or sensible, we are illogical or non-sensical. Logic is within the realm of the experienced, but only as objective existence, not as a happening thing.

    -- does this sort of thinking help with anything. I have no idea. -- The "is" is antecedent to logic, and logic is antecedent to "how". Does that say anything to you?

    Is it supposed to be anti-Plato?

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    1. My version HAP happens. We reduce it to our ways of talking (our logics: physics, chemistry, biologic, ... disciplines, traditions, common sense) all of which are representations of HAP and don't come close to doing HAP justice. Experience: from the 'going thru" (per) The illogical and nonsense is as much our experience as logic and sense, but we privilege logic and sense because it suits our control and agenda. I don't know about anti-Plato. Objective existence is a subjective idea. All I know and express is subjective.

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    2. Solipsism and the exemplar are central. They are real objects within the world, a border. With him.

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    3. I don't understand what you just wrote. I know what solipsism is--for me: a description of what it is to be a person. Exemplar? What's that?

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    4. Logic begins with the individual object, seen or unseen, the atomic sentence, simple not complex. The individual's field of vision seems endless to him, but it is not. It is bordered and fixed. Emotion and such do not belong to philosophy. It is psychology and soft science, so much, hence neither science, nor philosophy. Exemplar is the individual sample, not the general. It must be a German-cism. I finished the tractatus at midnight; I am done with him.

      He may indeed be saying you can't have ideas and forms without there being a thing. But what does he know. I don't think he would say: in the beginning was the word and the wars was God, and was with God and became man. I told you long ago that it is all about the incarnation and you laughed me out of the house. -- not the way one is supposed to talk.

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    5. When you say "what does he know" -- you are like the kid in class who say about a poem--why don't he speak so we can understand. Or the fellow in the art gallery who claims his dog could paint a better picture than the one on the wall. Witt was consicered one of the major philosophers and thinkers of the century--so I guess he knows something even if the What" doesn't correspond with what I know. I don't remember the incarnation incident but when any one says something is "all about" I'll probably tweak and twist. "The individual's field of vision seems endles to him but it is not." Right. Solipsism: We are sealed-in. Some know it. Some don't.

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    6. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAH1O6FLBg

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    7. Philosophy is limited. Some think it is unlimited. Witt's point.

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    8. Physics is limited, chemistry, biology, sociology, anthropology, theology... some forget their sense of limit. Witt had more points than that.

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  2. This book looks interesting. Author teaches at Harvard.

    http://www.amazon.com/Protestants-Birth-Revolution-Steven-Ozment/dp/0385471017/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1405572375&sr=8-4&keywords=protestant+reformation+as+revolution

    Ozment's defense of Protestantism now and then swells into fulsome praise, as when he asserts that ``Protestants are society's most spiritually defiant and venturesome citizens.'' A corrective to the intense anti-Reformationism of modern scholarship (``no other great event in Western history is more ignored by historians and the general public'') that shoots itself in the foot through excessive zeal--a charge, ironically, often hurled against the original Reformers.

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  3. Not quite following the significance of this. Conformists and Reformers have in common a response to the standard Without the standard to conform to or rebel from: anarchy.

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    1. `no other great event in Western history is more ignored by historians and the general public'. It seems like something one is not supposed to talk about.

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    2. "supposed"? "Ignored?" Why would it be ignored? I ignore what doesn't fit my purpose and agenda--or interest. Don't you?

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  4. Ignored because of prevailing metaphors?

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    1. That too--not even knowing one is ignore-ant, ignoring.

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  5. Reformation is different from revolution. It knows the past, works with it, on it, changes structures, sometimes abolishes structures but usually to fall back to a simpler or more original version. It keeps things and does not destroy or isolate individuals.

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  6. Reformation, Revolution, and Renaissance walk into a bar...

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  7. I have to go run errands all day. It might rain, so we don't have to water. That would be good. The North West Territories have been burning, so that it has been smokey for days, here.

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  8. Imagine the conversation between the 3 of them. Will they just Get Along? Will one dominate,one submit?

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  9. The Three R's. Could be exiting.

    The pope might finally give in. Francis says that one out of 50 priests is pedophile, and there was never the idea of required celibacy until the year 900, and the Eastern church has married clergy. One day they will admit that they banned Luther for nothing.

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  10. "God is not dead" is going to be available for purchase. People seem to think it a very good drama and useful discussion, judging by the comments.

    http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Not-Dead-Kevin-Sorbo/dp/B00KD5HFJG/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1405656860&sr=1-1&keywords=god+is+not+dead+movie+2014

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  11. I was at the mall today, and a young man from Ashdod, Israel tried to sell me skin cream. I let him lotion me and bought a little bit and had him translate some things into Hebrew. Ashdod was under attack today, I see in the news. Controversy arose over men- only-shelters. The young man's name was something close to shalom. I wished him shalom in the end and he offered to hug me. He was quite slick, but the purchase had already been completed. I hugged him. The cream has something from the Dead Sea in it--supposed to help with wrinkles.

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  12. Sorry about the unconnected posts. Ashdod is in the Bible. I am not sure that he knew it.

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  13. This story about the skin care salesman man and me, I am going to write up properly. It's a great memory with great layers and I have this gorgeous, heavy little container with the precious little ointment to symbolize the whole thing.

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  14. Yes. I have written twelve pages of notes by hand, but haven't decided on the direction, though I have the opening paragraph. I should let it guide me. It and my pretty, heavy, little container... Witt would say that the lotioning comes first and the ideal and logic afterward.

    Is it about logic or emotion?

    The Bible always comes around to joy and peace, which are in a sense both agitation and lack of agitation, affect-wise. And a transcending of present circumstances. Joy and peace need mediating. They are not logical, but have the logos for mediation. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Metanoia. Repentance. Renewal.

    Two more "R's" for you to walk into the bar!

    Reformation, revolution, renaissance, repentance, renewal.

    (Daily ablution. Daily baptism. Daily lotioning... Daily metanoia. Broken for view.)

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  15. You are stacking the deck: the last to are Reformation offspring.

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  16. Repentance and Renewal are sidekicks to Reformation. Now you got 5 in the bar--a 3 to 2 dynamic.

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  17. Repentance and renewal can't be sidekick to revolution or renaissance? No metanoia in revolution or renaissance? No revolution in putting the old Adam to death, so to speak?

    Did you know that the German flag is the flag of the regulation: from the dark of night, through the red blood of the struggle, to the golden light of the sun. Something like that. Irony is that the revolution in Germany went very smoothly. The political implications of the Reformation were much worse, since I t put the states at war with the Holy Roman Emperor, be it even supposedly of German nation (actually Charles was from Spain), causing horrible destruction. The Reformation was a greater convulsion internationally. Revolutions come and go. Freedom of conscience is generally opposed because you can't make people heel. Christ only is The Lord; this is the real revolution. Pope, Emperor, councils, philosophers and science of the day... pass away and must subordinate. My ego, too. -- that is metanoia, change of mind.

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  18. "Flag of revolution"-- I pad likes to change what you write.

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  19. Reformation speaks the vernacular: " one must ask the mother at home, the children in the street, the man in the market, and listen to how they speak and translate accordingly. That way they will understand."

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  20. "you have an ego big as a house," I tell my old man; "Yes but it's crucified." That's the reformation, reconfiguration, transformation, that strikes me as interesting
    --a consummation devoutly desired.

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  21. Speaking so others understand you can be a reformation for some. As Paul said, in public he would rather speak a few words clearly than many in the spirit. People are hoped to come to it and say: that makes sense, he is talking about me.

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  22. Charisma. It's a gift. Like grace. Dead & Alive. Love it dead so it don't wiggle while I do my business. Live is indeterminate, unpredictable. Nail it down . Hammer and nails. Hammer and nails.

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  23. I am in Oberman, page 171. He uses "radically new" and "revolutionary" on the same page: scriptures' central message over the ecclesiastical authorities.

    Hubby is up and reading the paper next to me. Nothing but dead bodies strewn all over the world. Maybe I will make him breakfast. Myself, I ate the first raspberries in a light rain earlier. Thankfully, it is not a protein day...

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  24. Between the National Post and ourselves, a good chunk of blame went to Obama. The National Post is sparing no words.

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  25. Scapegoats: we can't live without them--or explanations, blamations, reasons why, cause and effect, because and affect. Hammer and nails.

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  26. Love Obama unconditionally--me and Ann. He can do no WRONG--wrong: sure, plenty. But no WRONG.

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  27. My daughter is dragging me to her gymn. 7:30 is the last call. I said can't we at least bike there, since the weather is good. Now we have to bike there and back, also. You would think that just biking would be enough... Such fanatics.

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  28. The owner of the gym is an ex-army boot-camp person, very dedicated to his small business and fitness. He asked me if I was wearing my heart-rate monitor--of course not. I left it at home and was only wearing the watch. He had a point.

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  29. "I did not learn my theology at once, but had to seek ever deeper after it. That is where my spiritual distress led me; for one can never understand the Holy Scriptures without experience and tribulations... If we do not have such a Devil, then we are nothing but speculative Theologi, who handle their thoughts badly and speculate about everything with their reason, that it must be like this and like that; just like the way of the monks in the monasteries."

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  30. The GAZA SYNDROME
    Always The Forces of Good
    versus The Forces of Good
    Unless, of course, you’re
    biased, partial, have an
    ax to grind or team spirit,
    or an absolute knowledge
    of what’s Right & what’s
    Wrong. In which case it’s
    Forces of Good versus
    Forces of Evil and you
    stand on the side of Good
    because no body stands
    on the side of Evil.

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  31. What about ISIS throwing out and threatening Christians in Mosul. Where is the reporting on that? Sharia must govern the whole world, and not metaphorically.

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  32. And motivated by GOOD, yes. You couldn't convince them they are on the side of EVIL, I bet.

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  33. It is lately often said that Muslims are converting to Christianity by dreams they have. Dreams are integral for them. Jesus is speaking to them. Even the Lebanese Lutheran convert Pastor we have had a dream. Though it was the sermon on the mount that changed his mind: love your enemies. He had actually been hunting down enemies armed with a rifle. In the Lebanon it seems to be all about what faction or family you are from. Muslim on Muslim. Not a way to live and thrive.

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  34. Naked Pastor had a dream, too.

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  35. Traeume sind Schaeume.

    Say the Germans ain't rhymes.

    Dreams are foam.

    But Jesus said his words will last.

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  36. "Dreams are foam", is translated on the internet as "Dreams are lies", I see. I would not say that is quite so unequivocal, that I would use "lies". I would say dreams are foam, or maybe better, "froth", which is they are possibly transitory, but most definitely uncertain, or at worst misleading. They are the opposite of what is solid, true and reliable. They are not a good foundation.

    When people engage in dream analysis, it is a bit like a Rorschach test. You can do with them you please, and your dealing with that says more than the original thought or dream.

    "Traeume sind Schaeume" is a ruling metaphor.

    Personally, I find that dreams sometimes help me understand what is going on with me. There are things that I don't realize, that don't come into logical thinking or conscious thought, but that come up in a dream in the oddest way. Then you think: what was that? What was that about? And you can learn from it.

    In addition, a vision, a guiding hope or goal gives us flight and energy. But more than the goal, I think we are lifted by the company of like-minded and encouraging, experienced people. And yet more than that we need to really believe something. Without the belief it goes nowhere. But we want the belief to be solid and on good foundation. I can hope and imagine from the foundation.

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  37. AND! You need a devil to deepen your understanding and help you think!

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  38. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/07/22/as-iraqi-christians-flee-for-their-lives-barack-obama-remains-silent/

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  39. Damned (damaged and damaging) if I do.
    Damned (damaged and damaging) if I don't do.
    I'm damned (damaged and damaging). Accuse-able
    never the less. This is my conviction of sin and a
    relief of realize. Vulnerable and Wounded is the post-modern description. Barack can do no wrong. I remain silent. I clamor. Damned. Don't know many like-minded and experienced people aware of their vulnerability no matter what they do or don't do. Accusers R Us. Satanic. (Just describing here--how-it-is: not a condemnation.) .

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  40. I think not. It is your game.

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  41. Stuck in the cross roads (whatever you meant by that) is crucial, the crux of the matter, and excruciating. This is mere descripion--what it's like to be stuck in the cross roads. Frame it as game. Frame it as tragic. Crossroads carries archetypal and mythological connotations.

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  42. I use it in the sense Chesterton talks abou it. At some point you need a decision or judgement of the situation. It's not just "all good", etc.

    Steyn makes it his business to have an opinion. Preserving civilization and civilized behaviour is what we are after, no matter how we fail or have to weigh competing interests.

    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/07/23/mark-steyn-israel-and-ukraine-fighting-against-the-forces-of-terror-and-chaos/

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    1. Preserving civilization and civilized behavior is not what I'm after--nor does it wake me in the middle of the night. The archtypal significane of the cross roads is the rock and a hard place, devil and the deep; blue sees situation where one is torn between 2 loves, equally demanding obligations--and thus crucial and excruciating.

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  43. It just makes no sense to keep discussing things when you have no objective in mind. At that cross road you have to order your loves.

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  44. We can discuss your trip to the cleaners or kindergarten etc where no crossroad image is evoked. If you got your loves ordered, then the crossroad is not a crossroad because you'll just drive the way you loves call you. The "crossroad" is a crucial, excruciating, torn between loves and obligations agonizing situation where the objective is to realize the objective..

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  45. Such as? A Chinese pastor is sitting in a church bell tower with his Bible and hymn book to try to prevent the demolishing of the church building, as the Communist aparachnics are outdoing themselves in a competition for favours in the party? Or like the suicide bombers in Baghdad streets? What is the difference?

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  46. There is metaphorical devil and there is "real" devil. We know the metaphorical devil only from the "real" devil. The "real" devil lies, deceives, kills, destroys, adulterates, persecutes, maligns, ruins... "real" people.

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  47. No difference. Cross roads. Sit or leave. Blow oneself up or don't. Conflicting obligations--ways to go. Excruciating. Lose lose either way?

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  48. It's sick, is what it is. Exterminate all Jews and Slavs as inferior races...

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  49. I didn't realize we were talking about genocide.

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  50. "Good works are not repudiated, but their aim and direction have been radically ' horizontalized' [sola fide]: they have moved from Heaven to earth; they are no longer done to please God but to serve the world." (Man between God and the Devil, 192.)

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  51. Islam allows no metaphorical devil (discussion, unbelief, opposition). Islam tries to serve God and secure salvation by taking human life.

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  52. Genocide: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/07/nun-sign-of-genocide.html

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  53. When the came for the guitars, I stood silent--and said nothing.

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  54. No such thing as a real devil. Only metaphor. We are the real devil--our nature and behavior: which we throw off and project on some personification. Like Santa Claus.

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  55. There is a "real" devil, and metaphors are real, too, and bear the real. There is a real St. Nicholas, and there is Coca Cola's Santa Claus. The real came first.

    As Chesterton says: try cursing in the name of Thor. It does not work.

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  56. Many gods and devils--many prayers and imprecations. For you and many: a devil or more. Cursing in the name of Zeus. Zounds. Involved yesterday in a long back and forth among orthodox Presbyterians one music in worship---regulate, warranted: psalms for sure: hymns are suspect. The devils in the details. Really.

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  57. The devil lies, deceives, murders... yes, and riles people up over adiophra like that. We talked about that.

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  58. My brother then: child of wrath--enemy of God.
    .

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  59. We are all men and women "between God and the Devil". Be on guard. Seeking to devour. He will not let you look to Christ and believe in him. He will also want to wreck all sorts of havoc. Lutheran evening and morning prayer asks: "let your holy angel be with me that the wicked foe may have no power over me." Not a game and not a joke.

    Meanwhile, I will go sing my Lord Christ a lovely hymn, to spite the devil. One little word can fell him. (He seems not a dialectician, eh? Dialectician go on forever with words and grin and bear it.)

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  60. Makes me a victim, that kind of talk. Evil child of wreath and enemy of God because the devil made me do it. Caught between the devil and the deep blue see: crossroads, as it were ( where the devil hangs out and where the birth of the blues is said to originate.)

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  61. Makes me feel like a knight needing all his weapons of offence and defence.

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  62. That stance actually has given me strength and resilience in my life. And fun.

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  63. "Good for you " to quote an earlier assessment.

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  64. Do you find me relatively strong, resilient and fun?

    But I find that any kind of prideful talk and sentiment throws me off guard. Better to be watchful.

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  65. I've lost the gist of this conversation: I think the last issue was the nature of the reality of the devil: manner of speaking, for sure, an entity of beliefe among many, no doubt. Personally, the fear and hate and anger and resentment and jealousy I feel is representative and characterize my human nature and doesn't help me to blame the devil-- though all the arguing I do with believers and unbelievers stokes the devil in me and not the christ. I admit it. I hate goodies and feel more at home with the baddies: screwed up, lame, crippled in mind, skeptical and doubtful and proud--"wicked and lost, childern of wrath and enemies of God--as my Orthodox Presbyterian Pastor claims.

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  66. You did not answer my question.

    Here is a hymn some sang recently and put up.
    That is the one I will sing today. To spite you, the Devil, and restrictive Presbyterians, and then I will get to work.

    http://youtu.be/5_Ty3Hk-7IU

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  67. Bulldog tenacity. Resistant. Serious. Intense. Convicted. Close Mind-set Minded. Just describing how I find you. Says about me.

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  68. I love you and Jesus Christ, son of Mary and son of God died for your sins. XO.

    Awesome hymn; Thnx Bro...Shared..! I invited my Fb followers to sing along & get a good dose of Lutheran Theology...

    The uniqueness of this Hymn lies in its uncommon message.

    No other hymn in Christian Worship speaks
    so perceptively to the present-day human plight: people adrift in what seems to them a meaningless existence. No hymn is its superior for imaging in its stark ugliness the deep disorder at the root of this plight. No hymn expresses in such graphic poetry God’s coming into our hideously sinful environment to shout the message of deliverance from mankind’s self-inflicted bondage. No hymn prays more poignantly for a revived Christianity that glorifies God.

    O God, O Lord of heaven and earth,
    Thy living finger never wrote that life should be an aimless mote,
    A deathward drift from futile birth.
    Thy Word meant life triumphant hurled,
    In splendor through Thy broken world,
    Since light awoke and life began, Thou hast desired Thy life for man.

    Our fatal will to equal Thee,
    Our rebel will wrought death and night. We seized and used in prideful spite
    Thy wondrous gift of liberty.
    We housed us in this house of doom,
    Where death had royal scope and room
    Until Thy servant, Prince of Peace, breached all its walls for our release.

    Thou camest to our hall of death,
    O Christ, to breathe our poisoned air, to drink for us the dark despair
    That strangled our reluctant breath.
    How beautiful the feet that trod
    The road that leads us back to God! How beautiful the feet that ran
    To bring the great good news to man!

    O Spirit, who didst once restore
    Thy church that it might be again the bringer of good news to men,
    Breathe on Thy cloven Church once more,
    That in these gray and latter days
    There may be those whose life is praise, each life a high doxology
    To Father, Son and unto Thee.

    -Martin Franzmann

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  69. Copied from FB. Hymn text. Copying starts at "Awsome hymn..."

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  70. Georgeous! What a kicker at the end. Indeed, may be such. I think I've only sung it once before.

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  71. E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962


    my father moved through dooms of love
    through sames of am through haves of give,
    singing each morning out of each night
    my father moved through depths of height

    this motionless forgetful where
    turned at his glance to shining here;
    that if(so timid air is firm)
    under his eyes would stir and squirm

    newly as from unburied which
    floats the first who,his april touch
    drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
    woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

    and should some why completely weep
    my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
    vainly no smallest voice might cry
    for he could feel the mountains grow.

    Lifting the valleys of the sea
    my father moved through griefs of joy;
    praising a forehead called the moon
    singing desire into begin

    joy was his song and joy so pure
    a heart of star by him could steer
    and pure so now and now so yes
    the wrists of twilight would rejoice

    keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
    conceiving mind of sun will stand,
    so strictly(over utmost him
    so hugely) stood my father’s dream

    his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
    no hungry man but wished him food;
    no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
    uphill to only see him smile.

    Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
    my father moved through dooms of feel;
    his anger was as right as rain
    his pity was as green as grain

    septembering arms of year extend
    less humbly wealth to foe and friend
    than he to foolish and to wise
    offered immeasurable is

    proudly and(by octobering flame
    beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
    so naked for immortal work
    his shoulders marched against the dark

    his sorrow was as true as bread:
    no liar looked him in the head;
    if every friend became his foe
    he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

    My father moved through theys of we,
    singing each new leaf out of each tree
    (and every child was sure that spring
    danced when she heard my father sing)

    then let men kill which cannot share,
    let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
    scheming imagine,passion willed,
    freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

    giving to steal and cruel kind,
    a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
    to differ a disease of same,
    conform the pinnacle of am

    though dull were all we taste as bright,
    bitter all utterly things sweet,
    maggoty minus and dumb death
    all we inherit,all bequeath

    and nothing quite so least as truth
    —i say though hate were why men breathe—
    because my Father lived his soul
    love is the whole and more than all

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  72. http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.ca/2014/07/klee-abc.html

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  73. The Third Dimension
    Who’d believe me if I said, ‘They took and

    split me open from
    scalp to crotch, and

    still I’m alive, and
    walk around pleased with

    the sun and all
    the world’s bounty.’ Honesty

    isn’t so simple:
    a simple honesty is

    nothing but a lie.
    Don’t the trees

    hide the wind between
    their leaves and

    speak in whispers?
    The third dimension

    hides itself.
    If the roadmen

    crack stones, the
    stones are stones:

    but love
    cracked me open

    and I’m
    alive to

    tell the tale — but not
    honestly:

    the words
    change it. Let it be —

    here in the sweet sun
    — a fiction, while I

    breathe and
    change pace.

    Denise Levertov

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  74. It is quite delicious. But the metaphor and the object are both "real". Deem "honest" whatever you like. I think the Bible is as honest as it gets: stories told warts and all, sparing no participants. The only hero is God. Seems pretty honest, to me.

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  75. metaphor is literally a relationship between this and that, object and idea, map and territory, tangible and intangible. Representation and representation, idol and icon. . The bible may be as honest as it gets--the way people read and receive it varies and is relative Call god a hero if that helps, and the devil a horned creature. Metphors. Necessary and insufficient.

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  76. http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.ca/2014/07/should-god-really-have-said.html

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  77. The good&evil curse for disobedience and the origins of denial and cover-up. Some refer to this as Felix Culpa

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  78. And the first promise of the Messiah.

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  79. 15 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring[a] and hers;
    he will crush[b] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.

    Ever since then the believers have kept track of who begat whom, down the line, according to the flesh, expecting the Messiah to be born.

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    1. My goodwife Ann can not stand snakes, even pictures on on tv. My daughter Liz, picks them up and loves all animals The enemies are those of one's own household.

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    2. Enmity between the snakes offspring and the woman's offspring. Enmity in the household came soon after with fratricide.

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    3. We've been reading about Eli and Samuel from the treasury ( have it on I-pad now, as an app called "Pray Now", $8.99); my husband was distraught to find that Samuel's sons were also very wayward, like Eli's had been. After that Israel demands a king.

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  80. Here is a bulldog for you. Watch it to the end. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fjW_H1ydFas

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  81. Dogged. Bulldog. Professional.

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  82. I read something in the internet last night where they talked about "metanoia" as a psychological term. They talked as if Jung and Henry James (or William, you know the dude, I don't, keep forgetting or mixing up) had invented it. No mention of it as an old biblical concept. Jung said the mass person lives in desperation because of his outward turning and greed. The things he does not have bother him in their absence. He needs to break down, have a metanoia, and become more "spiritual", looking after his soul through dream interpretation.

    I guess this is where the average German speaking person, possessed of herd mentality intones: Traeume Sind Schaeume.

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  83. Idolatry is an old Biblical concept and as a result it can hardly be used in a modern, post-modern environment, and yet it descriptively describes all of us accurately--if the "judgmental" connotations could be washed off. Same with "sin" (being, essences) --for most an offensive description, Pity. Is what it is. The essenceof being (IE es, esse)

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  84. The other day, I met a man in church whom I have known for about 30 years but have not really talked to. We were talking about a mechanical problem with a door and I asked him if he was a trustee, since he seemed to be happy to offer solutions. No, no, heck no, he says, I am not even a member. -- you are not even a member!? You have been coming with your wife for many decades and you are not a member. He does not commune either. I said, how come not? Says he, I was not raised that way. My dad always said, look at all these people they go to church and get forgiven and the go and do it again. But not he, he is always honest--always! I told him, sorry to say, the rest of us here are all sinners.

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  85. All are sinners and fall short. Damaged and damaging if I do or don't do, damnit.. Reductionist. Injustice-doer. Rip-off artist an ongoing moving violation of the whole. Idolatrous .etc. Mere description: how-it-is. It's the denal and cover up that generates my toxicity. My creed and catechism and litany. No doubt.

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  86. Yet, it is not the essence. In the beginning it was "all good". Our humanity is fallen, wrecked, but talking about being restored to it, means something higher, better.

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    1. My orthodox Presbyterian call us wicked and lost, Children of wrath and enemies of God. Depraved. Abomination.

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    2. Yes, original sin is in us, but before that, very originally, it was good. That means something. Most of us still have a moral code and common sense without any teaching, even the atheists. But we tend to bend it to our desires.

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    3. Of course we bend it to our desires. Naturally.

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  87. I am so dumb, you know how I know this?-- It was a contoverted article after the reformation, all the Lutheran theologians were debating it, and it made it into the Book of Concord.

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    1. Don't know the IT you are talking about

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  88. May I quote the BOC when I have a chance? I have sort of dealt with it just above, I thought.

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  89. I don't think the Bible calls us an abomination. By nature enemies, yes. The will is bound, we can't by the slightest spark of goodness initiate a relationship with God; correct, contra Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. In English, people like to quote "the heart is desperately wicked". Luther has "das Hertz ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding"--"the heart is a stubborn and despairing thing." No doubt. And still it is of God's making and our heart is what He seeks to inspire with faith, love and hope--through word and sacrament, where we meet him now and here.

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    1. My old Nana used to play piano for the shelter bums, hobos, homeless, addicts "Brighten the Corner Where You Are. My dad would deliver a homiletic before supper. Doubt she was aware of Pelagianism (contra or semi) or how impossible to initiate a relationship with God or what an enemy she was or what a desperately wicked heart she had. .

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  90. I think we know how wicked and despairing our hearts are, except maybe for Pelagius; apparently he did not. In any case, anyone who respects the Bible knows from the first chapters of Romans, or say the entire Old Testament, except for Pelagius.

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  91. You and Flannery would just get along like anything.

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  92. Seems to me, you would not agree with Pelagius either. So you are not a heretic on that front, if it makes you feel any better.

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    1. Heresy is a description for me. Not a pejorative. I wasn't feeling bad on that score. Many of my ancestors were considered heretics.

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  93. At that point:your charming dogmatism. Since then, you're seen it as my manipulative efforts to do something or other, I'm not sure what. To be honest, I've had so much dogmatism from fundamentalists and atheists and Lutheran and Orthodox Presbyterian, and liberals and conservatives, and confessionals and progressives and reformer that I've lost my appreciation for it and instead have been struck by how universal and across the board it is--myself included: narcissistic solipsism bubble of belief and conviction. Original spin..

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  94. I knew you would have a cow at the mention of Pelagius. Add to that the book of Concord. Double cow.

    Arguing is the answer. Can't be, at some level. It is a contradiction, as useless as tautology.

    All nonsense is allowed, but orthodoxy must never be. As charming as Flannery and I might otherwise be, or not be.

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    1. Tautology and contradiction are both useful and instrumental considering the limits of language and representation. We need both. Orthodoxy is useful and instrumental too:and all my arguing partners rely on it, insist on it each one orthodoxalogical.
      . Flannery's charm consists in her extraordinary ability to express her orthodoxy in unorthodox imaginative cutting edge & shocking, astonishing ways.

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  95. You remind me of that man who goes to church for 60 years but does not become a member because church goers are all hypocrites.

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  96. Yes, I figured. At least he kept going to church.

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  97. Just one more hypocrite. Church is a good place for them, one of my pastors used to say. (No such thing as an honesty?)

    I am grateful for you, though. The other day, a gorgeous day, (we have lately had many), I was riding my bicycle up the riverbank), but had to stop and walk the rest to the top, and I thought about the elder men I have known, like my grandfathers and my father-in-law, and I was thankful for them... And I threw you in there for good measure.

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    1. Presbyter (elder) First Church of the Crippled & the Lame Shall Enter First. The cover-up can't be sustained & everyone is obviously walking wounded (vulnerable, damaged & damaging: damned), No hypocrisy possible.

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  98. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10204549927414768&id=1431008195

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    1. Didn't connect with anything

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    2. I'll check on the computer. It is going to be hot today. A young man is going to stop in today who wants to seek the nomination for the riding for the Conservative Party. His father is an obstetrician who delivered my daughter. I have heard his father speak on matters of health and industrialization. He seemed to feel he was spear-heading "environmental medicine" and taught at U of A. I am not completely sure what to make of it. Controversial from what I hear.

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  99. On Molly Z., Lutheran journalist and PK.

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  100. http://rare.us/story/meet-mollie-ziegler-hemingway-scourge-of-lazy-journalists/

    http://thefederalist.com/author/mzhemingway/

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/opinion/columnists/throwing-inkwells/?paging=off

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  101. Tell me what it is in these links that interests you.

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  102. Have't had a chance to look closely. What caught my eye was the beginning of the first one pitting emotions against thinking skills. But I do come across Molly all the time because of the Lutheran connection. Young conservative is arriving in three minutes. I am wearing a raspberry pink peasant top with Kaki capris on this sweltering day. I think the colors clash, but my husband likes it. I was thinking of changing to greenish top, but that would look a little boring.... Silly.

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  103. He was smart but seemed tired. His wife is a physician and they have a one year old. I thought they were evangelical but they are Roman Catholic. That's why my comment about the reformation and separation of church and state fell flat. We did agree that people are trying to shift from freedom of religion to freedom of worship, or else, even freedom from religion. That won 't work...

    Molly--I still haven't read much of her writing.

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  104. It is not the same situation here as in the States. Officially the majority school system is Public and the minority has rights to its own system. So, for example, in nearby St Albert, the public system is Roman Catholic. This is an anomaly and has to do with French and English. In that sense, theoretically, all the publicly funded schools are Christian.

    Most people don't realize this, nor would find it workable in today's context. What has worked, in terms of schools, is the permission of "alternative programs" within the public system. So we have Christian schools, music schools, Jewish schools, hockey schools, Muslim schools all within the public system. The young conservative affirmed this model. Of course, most places the RC still have minority rights and a publically funded system of their own. It's a long story. Parts of it are unfair. American style activists seem to want to rattle it by calling anything they don't like as American based or Christian, which is supposed to be prejorative. Oh, no, if you say, sexually transmitted diseases are a problem, someone is going to want to come down on you and say that that is a "divisive" thing to say. But that sort of thing is foreign to us. Albertans are much more practical.

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  105. Do Americans care what goes on in Canada as far as education is concerned? Do they express interest in Canada's sexually transmitted diseases? Worry about divisiveness north of the border? I don't think so. Why would they care to "rattle it"?

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  106. The confontationalism, the litigiousness, the loud-mouthed nonsense, is not Canadian.

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  107. I'll sue you because the coffee is too hot, only happens in Amerca.

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  108. You don't like us? Do you look down your Canadian gnosis at us? Or pity us maybe (bless our hearts)

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  109. We don't have to like everything about you. Most places in the world you can tell an American a mike away. When Bror came here, people said: he is American, isn't he. That was "supposed to" mean something. But I think it was Americans who said that. They also know themselves and each other. Canadians are too polite to say even that.

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  110. It's a harsh climate featuring many hardships and dangers. We have to help each other.

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  111. And then there is Gaza. Hamas has decided the entire population should serve as One suicide bomber. They stop at nothing.

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  112. I think on the whole Canadians sound like better people than Americans, no doubt, and Hamas must be among the worst people in the world--enduring many hardships and dangers, confrontational and loud-mouthed.

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  113. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KakxXN5Z-XI

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  114. Nice looking fellow. My Orthodox Presbyterian pastor posted this last week.

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  115. This is the only way Hamas' behaviour makes any sense. Our pastors don't post anything like this. Luther probably would not have shied away from it. The Turk was at the gates of Vienna. Literally. We could be there again soon, or are already.

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  116. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1403169.htm
    Arab and Palestenian Christians are usually caught in the crossfire, and even now ISIS is terrorizing Iraq, and we hardly hear anything about it. You do seriously wonder what is the matter with the media.

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  117. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/they.just.go.around.and.shoot.the.odd.person.dead.vicar.of.baghdad.on.isis/39113.htm

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  118. Do you have a point with these links?

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  119. There was a well done documentary on the poor army widows of Afghanistan. One said that no one has ever asked her about her feelings and life since her husaband's death. Some cannot get a widows pension because they have no male relative who will run the errands for her. Some don't remarry because they will lose their children to the deceased husband's relatives.-- All around it is just cruelty upon cruelty. Some weave carpets and never go out. The children stop going to school. The boys will be in the army, too, like their fathers were.

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  120. No point, at all, Sam. No point.

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  121. Look Jane: see Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, Run

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  122. The coverage of the events is the issue and the unbalanced reporting regarding events in the region. It makes journalism look like a puppet play.
    Kay asks here, why is it that some newspapers show greater support of Hamaz than Arabs do?

    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/07/31/jonathan-kay-this-war-was-supposed-to-isolate-israel-instead-the-opposite-happened/

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  123. Who is the puppet master then?

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  124. I read "Dark Angel" in an anthology last night.

    Journalism is also ruined.

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  125. Hiding in broad daylight, for a change. It is always the white devil we need to be careful of. The black devil we can see.

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  126. I've been wrestling with white devil Xtian more or less fundamentalists, pumped up with thei righteous antagonism against evolution and science. Makes me side with the black devil as advocate. Impenetrable, we all are--our mind-set salved and saved against any threat to our belief/bias. Makes sense.

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    Replies
    1. It's your thing, though. I just always wanted to be friends.

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  127. Also read the female Rosetti. She is quite righteous and in battle. I liked her, though.

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  128. The editor speaks about her Eros, though she declined marriage more than once. There is a virgin queen streak in her ( my words) but what about the poems?

    Can you understand the Song of Songs even just spiritually (pomegranates and all), without understanding Eros? Can the virgin queen understand Solomon, here? Why not. Perhaps more in the absence. Christina is certainly in favor of fortitude and chastity (in the wider sense, not celibacy).

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  129. Righteous has pretty much lost its positive connotation.

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  130. How is it that we never allude to the Koran when we want to talk about chastity and healthy sexuality? How is Eros like the longing for The Lord, the bridegroom of our souls? I do not think we would be encouraged to think of Allah in that way.

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  131. Don't know the Koran is why I don't allude to it. Can't remember having a conversation about chastity and healthy sexuality. Christ referred to himself as bridegroom--or someone did. When you say Allah, you mean God, yes? Jah. Jehovah. The Father etc. Psyche--female image for "soul" Christ as appropriate bridegroom. Many women are purported to cry out OMG , ecstatice--so the imagery makes good descriptive sense. Righteous in the best sense.

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  132. There we have a problem with our days: people know neither the Bible, nor the Koran, so that they could mount anything like analysis, defence or comparison.

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  133. There is a good, new book, very respectful, which lines up concepts and scriptures side by side.

    http://www.amazon.com/Comparing-Quran-Bible-Really-about/dp/0801014026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406906766&sr=1-1&keywords=comparing+the+quran+and+the+bible

    I have it, and I have read the Koran twice, but not lately.

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  134. Well, we do anyway (analyze, defend, compare)--and the bible readers may be more righteous (good and bad sense) than Koran reader. I see a lot of anti-religion (righteous indignation) among students and facebook
    posts. It's a righteous war going on--if not jihad. No love lost among the sides. '.

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  135. What do you long for, Sam? What is good?

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  136. To be a successful trouble-maker: disturber of the peace peace where there is no peace. I enjoy the process now--success is what I long for but know better. Can't get no satisfaction. Longing, yearning, desire ("of the stars, sidereal") : existential and no thing or direct object will fill it. Extra terrestrial.

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  137. It must be a means to an end. It can't be a universal good and "righteousness". If we were all aiming to be trouble-makers we would have nothing. It does not work on an ultimate level. That is why it does not satisfy.

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  138. What did Augustine say? Contra Pelagius?

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    1. Don't know what that means but Pelagius might have said Contra Augustine.

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  139. IT (longing, yearning, desire) is a feeling which is never satisfied. Like hunger and thirst. After righteousness If we were all aiming to be peace makers we would have nothing. No generalizing. I don't know anyone else with my trouble-making desire so don't think the "if we were all" concern is a problem There is no satisfaction--whatever things, events, accomplishments, direct objects one thinks is what one longs for. Longing is like breathing. Ultimate and ongoing.

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  140. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/saintaugus385403.html

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  141. We must have hope to have the longing fulfilled. This is why we have suicide bombers.

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  142. "Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee." Exactly. Can't get no satisfaction no no no

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  143. Of course we have hope to have the longing fulfilled--is why we have sex addicts and drug and religious compulsive obsessives and joggers and depressives and serial this and that--all hungering and thirsting after rightness. That's why I argue with fundamentalists and anti-science folk. Why I like to trouble and disturb and afflict the afflicted. Longing for satisfaction.

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  144. I must go water the garden in this heat. And start preparing for the fall in earnest, now that it us August. There will be four Preschool classes this winter, that will be 64 little children.

    Professor was here from Princeton for Music together. She said a primary school music teacher has to know at least 60 action songs by heart. I am sure I know thousands of songs, but not 60 action songs by heart...

    Did you see the three year old on viral FB who had the "existential breakdown". ( I don't want to become a hundred years old and then die!!! Wa, wa, wa!!! Wail!).

    I can see the soul in the preschoolers. The whole person is already there, trying to emerge. I try to give them only the best things. The elderly are the same. It is still the same person. This is why you can't change us, Sam. We are God's creatures.

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  145. No--the comfortable are comfortable and fortified. No way to change you. It's beyond me as my good old man would say. It's the afflicted (lame,crippled, fearful, anxious) I have hope for and identify with--walking wounded, damaged and damaging: damned for crying out. Kin.

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  146. The afflicted and the comforted are the same person. Singing in your grief is a Christian specialty.

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  147. I can tell the difference. Most can. The comfortable are covering there afflection successfully. The afflicted can't.

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  148. You are covering it successfully with aggression. Another defence mechanism.

    Access to each other is through mediation by the right kind of mediator, one who sympathizes with all of us.

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  149. Passive aggression mostly. Humor. Ridicule. Scorn. Play.
    Got to love it. Vocation

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