Town Quixote's

[Town Heretic]

The Thursday Morning Gazette​

Had a talk with TB about the necessity of precision...

considering that homophobia is much more than that I don't think it is an unfair label in most cases.

Homophobia - an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

It includes antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, and hatred of homosexuals

Expanding it to the point where aversion sits side by side with hatred renders it a bit useless as a definition...I don't have an aversion to people entangled with any sin, but I have an aversion for sin itself and an antipathy toward that bondage and its impact. I don't have to hate or hold in contempt anyone who is in the grip of death and absent grace...I can instead love and worry after them, speak plainly and compassionately to them and live in hope for them.

A rocky start with FT...

Few are below my contempt. You're welcome to all I can muster.

And as with your initial remarks aimed at Christians whole cloth, there's no apparent reason behind it.

...I have respect for your fundamentalists, at least they're bloody consistent.

You both seem to be. You know who else is consistent? The Klan.

A coupon based on religion, what a grand way to kick off a schism!

lain: Yes. I can imagine that's how the Crusades started.

And...

...What's the utility of arguing with a man that is unable to recognise that 90% is less than 100%?

The good news is that you don't have to stop doing what you never really got around to. lain:

You're like Chesterton without the creativity, aren't you?

And you're like Oscar Wilde without a sense of humor.

But we got at it eventually...

...I don't care about law in this argument.

When you use the language of the law it's reasonable, absent a qualification on the point, to address it in that fashion. Because unless you're speaking to discriminatory practice as a matter of law you have an even larger problem in that there's nothing inherently wrong with discrimination.

For instance, most clubs and associations are by their nature discriminatory. So are you. So am I. So is everyone...Not getting a discount isn't the same as being charged an additional amount in the way not digging a hole isn't the same as piling additional dirt on a spot.

Discrimination laws were initially passed to prevent exclusion. I'd argue that should still be the consideration. So if the prices charged for the items sold is demonstrably inflated, so that the charge to those not getting a "discount" could then reasonably be seen as an attempt to pass on additional costs and exclude indirectly, a particular class, I'd be with you.

I doubt that's the case here and there's no reason as yet to believe it's the case.

Had a word with CW...

Or some are lawyers with no functioning moral framework or conscience.....

I'm sure that's true. You can find sociopaths in all walks of life where there is power to be had and some even in the mental health profession, if you can believe half of what you read.

Managed a twofer in the religious coupon thread...

Since you agree it isnt discrimination, then i would suggest that those who feel it a bad business practice, not use that business, plain and simple and eat somewhere else where they like the business practice, instead of suggesting the owner conform his business to them.

Wait, you mean that people who don't like it don't have to actually sit there and be offended by the thought of it, aren't being harmed by it and that it in no reasonable way should impact how they feel about their own dinner?

I agree.

Ran into PP doing that thing of his again in the Missouri riot thread...

...the utter lack of media coverage for similar situations in the racial inverse.Yes. Frequent enough for there to be gross inequity in reporting relative to victim skin color.

By what factor? That is, I'm interested in any empirical study you might know of establishing the degree of distinction between both the frequency of occurrence and the disparity in coverage.

I understand how you feel about it, but I don't know how reasonable your feeling is.

...Oh, so now it's about power to implement change rather than some inherent factor.

If you've had any sort of background in sociology then you know the answer to that one. Racism finds most of its relevance in empowerment and discussions about racism are almost always about the impact of it on minorities by the empowered majority.

...As for high- versus low- context, I haven't addressed your posts because all you've referred to is Hall's anthropological works that are so prolific.

I asked you for your source material to see where you're getting your understanding from. Your terms needed a context because you weren't inclined to explain them, only use them like punctuation. Given you ducked that request repeatedly (and still are) continuing to use the jargon like some sort of authority in the mist... If I speak to and of a definition or a study gives me a particular point I cite it and/or reference it so we can speak meaningfully if you're unaware of it.

That's what anyone does who is confident in his foundation and understanding.

You don't do that. And it's reasonable to suspect that you either lack confidence in it or in your grasp of it and leaving it in that mist protects you and/or it from scrutiny. So for all I know you're simply abusing Hall's work like someone with a decent vocabulary and a survey course under their belt might or your source material isn't peer reviewed and established in its validity.

...You don't know what you don't know.

Who doesn't?

While in the NFL thread, kmo was getting picked...

No one picked me because I would've been too good and spoiled their fun. :noid:

I'm supremely confident at leas a portion of that was empirically true.

Then after I noticed the sky had fallen...

You think they don't know? I was banned.
Notice I'm back.

Guess what she's noticing now? lain:

I really don't care, I've undergone an extraordinary revelation over these past few months, you're nonsense is honestly beneath me now.

Have you met PneumaPsucheSoma? I'd pay good money to read that conversation cage match.

Tomorrow? I notice my shadow and it's six more weeks of summer.

 

[Town Heretic]

Cub Reporter Final for August :singer:

Thundering to the finish line we have multiple ties/winners for August's tale of the tape, with jerzy and GM crossing in a dead heat (18) six lengths ahead of IMJ, glorydaze, Res and Angel (12) taking a collective second place with Rusha straggling in to take third place some three lengths back (9).

What a day at the races. Congrats to Jerzy and GM! :first:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Thursday Afternoon Gazette​

After a brief bit with meshak...

I am saying Christians who claim to be saved and true are blasphemers

Oh, then you're insane. Thanks for clearing that up though.

Took up for a few of my right wing friends...

I think conservatives simply lack empathy to that which resides outside their realm of experience.

I think that may be true at the far end of that line, but in general there are studies that demonstrate conservatives are generous with both time and funds when it comes to charitable work, much of it going to people whose plights are outside of their realm of experience.

While FT was busy not answering my response in the Atheist thread...

Dear me.

I don't think it's in season yet.

I take no issue with discrimination, discrimination is the one thing the bigot cannot do.

lain:

Had a few words with GF in one of his many gay marriage threads (no, the other)...

...Every time it is pointed out that same sex marriage is a smokescreen behind which a secret agenda does its work - to stand Christianity on its head! - it is laughed off.

Same thing happens when you start talking about Yeti.

Pointed out a flaw in PP's cognitions...

It's sadly hilarious how all the liberals and atheists are racists crying racist about non-racists who are rational enough to see racism is inherent without having to incite it and promote it.

If racism is inherent in the human condition then it is only eradicated by application of principles that would run contrary to the status quo. That means racism is most often opposed not by conservatives, who are defenders of that satus quo, but by liberals.

And...

...The allegedly tolerant are the most voraciously intolerant I've ever seen or known. Bogus.

Imagine how that would look as an argument...I suppose we'll all have to. lain:

Said hello to GM...

Hateful and angry posters keep you on your toes!

:think: Though mostly theirs...

While in the misogynist thread...

I think as Nietzsche said all extreme ideologies have a desire to thwart and destroy reality.

And if there's one thing that springs to mind when considering Nietzsche it's moderation. lain:

Then...

Nietzsche was passionate. :AMR1:

And ironic.

I'll never forget my mentor who oversaw my honors' thesis on Nietzsche telling me, "Nietzsche was an anti-Christian who remained at his core a Christian."

Like describing Colonel Sanders as a vegetarian at heart.

Before Pure chimed in with...

Does an imperfect being really understand and accept that he is an imperfect being if he goes around assuming that his imperfect conceptions of God and morality are absolutely true and correct?

If he thinks he can encompass God he is irrational. If he thinks imperfection is a bar to any understanding of God he is equally irrational.

Tomorrow? Gender inequity, or Men are from Mars, Women are from somewhere north of Cleveland. :think:

 

[Town Heretic]

bump.

 

[Eeset]

You forgot to lock the thread.

 

[Town Heretic]

You forgot to lock the thread.

I wouldn't have to if you forgot to act like a troll. And no, I didn't forget.

 

[Eeset]

I wouldn't have to if you forgot to act like a troll. And no, I didn't forget.

You should apologize. You are falsely accusing me.

 

[Town Heretic]

You forgot to lock the thread.

I wouldn't have to if you forgot to act like a troll. And no, I didn't forget.

You should apologize. You are falsely accusing me.

She said, cementing my point.

The Friday Morning Gazette​

Been a bit. So let's start with an olde in the wake of a missing keystroke...

The world would be a better place if you did, in fact, use a coma.

:chuckle: Not bad.

Perhaps you meant comma.

But then you couldn't resist going back to the well... lain:

While tragedy was afoot in the NFL thread...

You, being a Florida fan, can't be unbiased. lain:

ESPN can't either now.

In fairness you're a Chiefs' fan and no Chiefs' fan can reasonably qualify as an entirely rational commentator on the sport.

Talked contextual turkey with al...

Sadly atheists don't have too much useable material for their cause, no miracles, no afterlife, probably nothing at all

Must be the worst telethon ever. lain:

And...

I look but I see disease, congenital dysfunction, death, conflict, parasites, cruelty, natural disasters... personally I'm not overly inspired by any of it.lain:

... sometimes it depends on perspective and how narrowly you focus. You strike me as a guy throwing the half filled or half empty bottle at the waiter.

Then, in the Redskins thread (no, really)...

If they changed their name to the Whiteskins, do you know who would have the biggest problem with that? Non-white people. They can't not be offended by any name.

Do they all like fried chicken? Lazy like children? Once you begin to broad brush the minority dismissively you've taken a step toward the sort of mentality that allows for all sorts of things you likely wouldn't be comfortable with, your dismissal notwithstanding.

It's a bad idea.

This was the case when my local university, in protest to a local high school named the Reds, changed their lacrosse team name to "The Fighting Whities."

Now that's a poster child example of how not to get the point on the part of your school.

Had enough of some making broad declartions to refrain from having to actually make their point...

...The question is not whether it is legal, rather whether it should be. I though you were smarter than this.

I've addressed that frequently and did in this thread. But your focus is too narrow. I think there's another, fundamental question in this that our compact answered.

The question is whether you're comfortable with the purely religious views of any segment of our society being enacted as law.

I'm guessing that when your views aren't in the majority your opinion would shift. When your daughter (hypothetical though she might be) has to cover her head and face or when you can't wear buttons or colored shirts or dance or worship as you feel you should then the problem with that sort of thinking might occur to you... Better that the law should respect our right to differ and protect us from the mob makes right approach to it, even if every mob is certain it has God in its hip pocket and even if that protection means people will make choices we don't always approve of or respect.

Summed the anti-theist's problem in challenging on God...

...This is where I suggest that the testing of empirical evidence is what gets us over any problems of personal bias.

Depends on the subject. The insufficiency of empiricism to address the problem is illustrated in this imaginary challenge and answer I cobbled some time ago.

Anti theist: prove to me that God exists.

Faithful: Happily. Now, to keep me from wasting your time, objectively, what standard, if met, would settle the question?

(time passes)

AT: let me get back to you.

While Damian opined...

I have yet to see you make one decent point.

I once read Proust to an Irish Setter. He seemed to share your opinion. lain:

And...

That's correct. I subscribe to panentheism.

I like to put a pantheist on, one pulled leg at a time.

lain: I know, I know, still searching for that point like Diogenes in the dark.

Then Brandon was back...

...herein lies the problem. You think these are purely religious views. You do not even conceive the possibility that they might not be religious at all.

I suppose it's hard to understand what they're rooted in without an argument or explanation.

OK, so I saw the conceit in you from day one.

I think you got your nose out of joint from day one and have breathed funny since...

What's the point when you believe you're right with no room for the possibility you might be wrong?

lain:

...Have you forgotten that brevity is the soul of wit?

Then a haiku would dwarf the Bible, but it doesn't.

Re: there are all sorts of Christians who love God as much as you and still manage to differ soundly with you on any number of things. And it doesn't follow that their difference is error simply because you're really, really sure you have it right this time.

I am not unaware. And it does follow that in the event I am right then they are in error. And in this instance I am right. The Bible tells me so.

I think you just inadvertently offered the best possible rebuttal to your own answer, so I'll leave it at that.

Challenged GF on a point...

It depends on if one views same sex marriage as absolutely necessary to equality. If so, it would be A. If not, it would be some modification of B. lain:

Do you know how you view it? Because that did seem to be the point of his inquiry.

Or, come on man, it's past time to show the courage of your repetition.

I'll wrap up for now with my one word answer to kmo in the college footbal thread on the heels of a glorious SEC beat-down...

What happened to Texas A&M? :noway:

Alabama.

Tomorrow? When in Rome, annoying posters, split infinitives and I defend Ronald Reagan. No, really.

 

[Town Heretic]

The Friday Morning Gazette​

So Pure wrote...

...The "greater part of humanity" has mostly used it's concept of God/gods as a kind of Divine Magician to appeal to when we could not control things for ourselves, to our own satisfaction.

I find that statement remarkably condescending and assumptive and contrary to good statistical modeling.

And I really don't think I'm insulting anyone or wildly over-stepping my intellectual bounds in expressing this observation.

I believe you and that leaves me equal parts bemused and horrified.

Appealing to the gods when we cannot enact our own will in life is and has always been the main purpose of the god ideal and of the practice of religion.

Same answer beginning with "that".

Then, in the Pets vs Truster...

Notice how nasty people get when you tell them they are idolators.

:think: Maybe they're prescriptive grammarians and they're mostly mad because you misspelled idolaters.

And...

This message is hidden because Town Heretic is on your ignore list.

At the rate you're going it's only a matter of time before you put yourself on ignore. Assuming that hasn't already happened.

Deep joy.

The closest either of those words will likely come to your writing. lain:

Barged into rex's conversation to really throw one on the fire, so to speak...

I reject your assertion. We do name colors because of our perception of them, and if we perceived colors differently, we would have a different set of words to describe them. But it is still perfectly meaningful to refer to EM radiation in a certain range as "blue", or even relatively "blue", as the term "blue shift" does.

Mass delusion. Speaking for the allegedly color blind I can say categorically that there's no such thing as this "blue" you two are going on and on about. lain:

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go nominate this for post of the year.

While wrapping things up with LH...

...You are incapable of brevity aren't you?

Yes.

Have Heaven and Earth passed away?

I'll go outside and check. lain: But I have to warn you that there's a Frisbee out there, so there's no telling when I'll be back. .

Then Truster was back...

...By naming them and bring them into their homes and indeed their beds man is elevating animals to the honour and glory that was afforded man. Only Satan would fill a mans heart with such wickedness.

That is without question one of the least rational and most assumptive bits of groundless fabrication I've read in my several years here. Remarkable really...look, you have allergies. You can't have pets. But bear it with good grace instead of trying to find a way to make your condition an inherent grace and the kind attentions of most who own pets something insidious.

I do not know ? Why are you responding with such fever? :idunno:

A fever would explain it. lain:

Answered on Carter's recent remarks...

This has gay advocates and liberals crying "bigotry", but as an old Southern Baptist,
Carter is right to grant states rights their natural supremacy over a
federal enforcement of gay marriage in all states:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/10/26/jimmy-carter-states-should-be-allowed-to-not-marry-gay-couples/

I agree that no one should ever be allowed to mandate that a church marry anyone in violation of their dogma, but that's not the issue or the attempt and in the larger notion he sounds like every Southern segregationalist of the 50s and early 60s. And he's just as wrong.

Then Cam said...

You tie homosexuality to race and ignore the 10th amendment for what reason, again?

I don't "tie" it to race by using the parallel to the extent it illustrates and I note the only objection to consenting adults entering into a marital contract before the state is a religious one that can't control the issue.

If we aren't going to have biblical morality

Not in law. Though most moral law finds defense and parallel in the secular compact, unsurprisingly.

You have a right to conscience and the exercise thereof, but not to your neighbor's, even if you are deeply convicted that being gay or Catholic or Adventist or Baptist or Muslim or atheist is fundamentally objectionable. And the protection of your conscience, absent a compelling secular interest will similarly protect the next guy.

...there is nothing to limit the expansion of all manner of sexual "rights".

Of course there is and it's the same foundation that preserves every right in the compact.

This idea that bible rejecters should have the right to impose their morality on the country by taking over Federal power centers not only ignores the Constitution but it opens pandora's box.

Your not having the right to dictate the conscience of another isn't imposing morality, but preventing anyone from doing that absent a compelling state interest in a real and demonstrable harm that overwhelms and necessitates the abrogation of right.

Over in my Remember When thread...

To this day, the theme to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom makes me think "Aw man, tomorrow's school again."

Ah, Perkins..."I'll just hover here in the helicopter while Jim plummets into the heart of the enraged lion pride."

Good times. Which was actually a television show... lain:

Before Cam began a more severe descent into cliche...

There was a time when a couple guys having sex was just...

Okay, it was crazy enough as an initial throw in, but anyone who thinks that's the bar, that cannibalism reasonably follows the rejection of an abrogation that can't be sustained outside of purely religious objection should have a designated poster to drive their point home.

Basically, TH, it seems you want to be the voice of reason on the downwards slide of our civilization.

Basically you sound like every grandfather for every generation we've ever produced. But giving women the vote and Elvis didn't bring down the compact. Neither did the feds "meddling" in segregation.

You abandon the Constitution and biblical morality but one or both have to return if the slide is to stop.

What you don't know about our history is bound to have you repeating yourself.

Tomorrow? More with Pets, Topic of the Day suggestions gets out of control and someone mentions football... lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Monday Afternoon Gazette​

Had a brief bit with rm about the uncomfortable nature or a republic...

... The filth of an amoral society is not restricted to the amoral, it permeates society like a cancer so, i am not sure what you feel you are protecting me or any other moral person from.

Not me, the law and it's protecting you from the fellow who would hold you in a similar contempt for his own reasons/beliefs.

Before the ubiquitous LH trundled back into the nutbag thread (no, literally)...

lain:

Why am I not surprised you can't elaborate?

Said the fellow who not long ago block quoted and answered with a :yawn:

Seriously? You're an idiot.

Riveting. Much, much better than the smiley (but still inferior to CATS)

You clearly didn't get the point of the question.

That's one way to see it. Squinty, but one way.

While Evo and I kept at our differences on the eternal...

I am personally more concerned with which, given the evidence, best approximates the truth; not with a wager.

I'm not wagering. This life is reason enough to embrace faith and relation.

I don’t because I don’t have a pessimistic outlook about life.

Yet you chose the nihilist's part without necessity.

I recognize that this is the one life I have and I look forward to the next day to try and continue making the most out of the brief time I have on this earth.

Rather, this is at least one life and potentially more. And making the best of this life should include the context that can best do that.

Wrangled a POTD from Delmar for...

Destroy someones idols and the idolators get nasty. The same bunch of people probably wouldn't flinch at abortion or child cruelty.

Actually, people who are comfortable with animal cruelty make excellent serial killers, who then aren't the sort to be particularly upset with killing anything or anyone. Conversely, people who have and care for animals tend to have higher levels of empathy and response.

People who find fault in virtue are people who don't really understand either.

And that apparently offended the heck out of Nang...

Can you articulate what you are being lauded for, in this instance?

I don't have to. My post that Delmar noted was written in clear enough English. I offered to sustain the points within. So do you do this with every POTD or is it just about me?

My impression, it is a matter of: "we" do not like or agree with Truster, so we give TH a POTD. Do you thrive on such shaky laurels?

Because thanking someone who compliments a thought you had can only reduce to that, eh?

Though it did give me a swell idea...

Maybe the topic of the day should be replaced by Nang's Corner. And every day Nang could let us know which post or poster disappointed her the most...this could likely even kick it off. lain:

And then you could say, "Man, that guy got Nanged" or, "He's really begging for a Nanging with that post, don't you think?" Think of the side bar conversations that would invite. And every POTD should have a linked rebuttal by Nang....and we could have a Nang Nation...or Nanger Lovers support group.

Though now that I think about it the last idea might get some errant search results. :think:

Then CC showed up, without managing to...

Funny. Christ rejected men of learning when he chose his apostles, because often they think themselves right into anti-God stupidities, just like you have.

No, he didn't (enormous buzzer fail). Among them he chose a tax collector, who would have been reasonably educated and he chose Saul/Paul as his voice to reach the gentiles. Paul was a demonstrably well educated man.

And Cam was back at it...

You'll have to find someone else to intimidate with that , my problem is I've spent too much time in one [college].

So does a custodian. Doesn't mean he learned anything important.

But I wasn't trying to intimidate, only to answer your salvo:

Your comment is exactly what I'd hear in a godless college classroom.

...I haven't said anything about free speech and we've already talked about knocking on motel doors. Can we go forward in this conversation?

...I don't get how you missed the point: by your way of seeing it society "sanctions" all sorts of things that are immoral or just plain stupid. But those same sanctions reflect principles that also protect you and your rights from unreasonable intrusion and abrogation, however objectionable others may find them.

And unfortunately we've got too many "Christians" like yourself who are smarter than God.

No one has to be smarter than God to unhorse someone resting on that in lieu of argument.

Had to ask...

I do believe I said that serving a pet is idolatry. To serve is to worship so go figure.

So that's a shot at oriental buffet restaurant employees, or just ownership? lain:

Then Huck said...

And any good spouse, who serves their partner.

That's cannibalism, which I darn well know you know is against the law...and good taste after labor day if they're white.

While somewhere, THall smelled a conspiracy...

You're in denial bud. I have trained more L.E. Officers than I
can count,

So, at least two then. lain:

and about 35 percent are dirty.

Baloney. Just assumed, made up nonsense that couldn't be rationally confused with a rule even if you could sustain the anecdote.

...Wake up.

Take a course in statistics and dial down rhetoric that no reasonable human being should give credit to as it stands.

Tomorrow? The nature of the republic, someone doesn't know zip and Spectrox helps me out with a solid correction on one of my points. :thumb:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Hump Day Gazette​

So aCW took exception to...history...

...Quite the "secular model" ey counselor?

Yep. If you understand what you're reading, instead of what you're reading in. Our founders protected the right of and exercise of conscience, no matter what your particular faith and made as sure as they could to keep literal, political power and that faith distinct and separate. An end to the likelihood of Catholic and Protestant killing one another over exegesis and tradition, by way of.

When rulings such as Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas, and laws decriminalizing cohabitation and pornography happened, followed by the legislation of no-fault divorce, without a doubt we ceased to be a Christian nation legislated by Judeo-Christian laws and one that embraced Christian cultural mores'.

Roe is a decision on par with the Courts mistake on slavery and will likely require the same remedy, amendment.

Slavery was introduced to America 200 hundred years before our Founding Fathers acknowledged in the charter to the US Constitution (The Declaration of Independence) that "All men are created equal..."

And when we threw off the shackles of our oppression we were entirely responsible for the shackles of those we held in bondage. There's a story in the Bible about that too. About a man who owed a great debt that was forgiven.

Ah yes, the old liberal ploy that women were "unequal"...

My not being a liberal aside, women were literally unequal. At law. It's just a factual, literal truth, no matter what your political orientation.

...Many [working] conditions were unsafe, even for working adults.

Horrible enough for a mostly Christian society. But inexcusable when it comes to children. And it was excused for decades. So much for the moral myth of early America. We've always had our moral flaws and issues, again. Every generation has a shame to reconcile.

While in Seriously Knight? Thall was summing his part nicely...

No one expects you to promote fairness or justice

I agree your opinion accurately reflects the opinion of no one and that no one should hold tightly to it and voice it at any opportunity. lain:

because you are an attorney. You try to get paid to twist it.

...it is fair that when you agree to terms you abide by them to the extent you can and understand what they are before you make the commitment. Or you can pound the table with your shoe, because historically that really gets you somewhere.

Had a word for Spec about his harsh response aimed at the faithful...

...If you have devoted your life to Christianity - the only life you know you're going to get - the real loser around here is you.

Having lived more of my life as an atheist than as a member of the Body I'll say without any reservation that if I'm wrong, if the relation I believe I experience is the byproduct of delusion and I wink out into nothingness then I haven't lost a thing.

Leading to an objection/insult by a raving anti theist...kidding, it was zip...

You can only say you haven't lost a thing if you consider truth unimportant.

The truth of the proposition can't be objectively known, only subjectively accepted and believed.

And...

...more for readers, the fideistic belief that rationality does not touch on the matter of faith is just not part of Christianity.

Also not part of my proffer or belief. So that's a win/win.

...you continue to mull, not even knowing what is necessary.

If presumption ever goes public you're going to make a fortune. Right before you bet it all on black. But that's life for you. Literally for you.

You seem to have quite a bit of optimism absent reason.

Substitute presumption for optimism and you have my response on point.

If only Spectrox had known you longer and garnered a bit more fondness...

Who knows? Not everyone is gifted with your obvious knack for that. lain:

But I gave him one last irenic try in any event...

You could call it a high standard, or an impossible feat (to bypass notions & ideas).

No. I'd call it trust, a reliance born of love. A lesson of Job, again. And it isn't about bypassing ideas but recognizing the difference between what I can apprehend of God and God, whose ways and thoughts are not mine, but are so far above them that to pretend otherwise would be sinful, an irrational pride.

Then when I don't understand a particular I know where the difficulty is found and where it cannot rest. And that is neither gnostic nor fideist.

Then THall was back to flag waving...

TH, you have been smoked so many times

Let's just agree that one of us appears to have been smoking something repeatedly.

by so many people here,

By "people here" are you speaking to the voices inside or outside of your head, assuming you can distinguish between the two. Otherwise, nice flag. Did you get it at Target, or just off from there?

Began a mutual working out of kinks with fzappa...is that an onomatopoeia?

I'm not real sure why but I have noted that I have some difficulty embracing the offerings of those who have cartoon characters for avatars.

That's alright, I'm a little uneasy being embraced by relative strangers.

Tomorrow? The rights of being, you don't know zip and the cardinal rule of forum life comes home to nest. :cheers:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Friday Morning Gazette​

CW was still shaking finger at the admin over THall via Eeset...

So Eeset posts the exact same post as Tom, and IK does not ban her?

Context, context, context. It's the location of forum life. lain:

Let him with metaphorical ears...I don't know, lend them to CW, maybe.

While in the Pets thread it seemed reasonable to ask...

This message is hidden because Huckleberry is on your ignore list.

and he is to stupid to realise the implication of this...hahahahahaaa.

How would Truster know if someone he has on ignore is speaking to him? lain:

Considered the future of the body politic in the House and Senate thread...

If the Republicans take control of Congress they'll likely try grandstand legislation, understanding it won't amount to much more than political hay because the President can veto and they won't have the votes for an over ride. So it would be astute, politically, to throw anything ideologically speaking that they can draw up.

Or, likely a great deal of theater that won't amount to much. Now if they take the White House and hold onto Congress thereafter for a bit.... It would be really interesting to see what they would do when it's time to advance real, workable ideas after a near decade of "No" as a game plan.

While putting a cap on my secular reasoning to object to the arbitrary abrogation of new born right...

I must have misread your argument, it looked to me for a moment as if it had accumulated on a different point. However, denial of the right of whom? "It" or the mother carrying it, for the compact is surely the structure built to recognize when it enters humanhood, if I decipher you correctly.

Except that our compact doesn't claim to have invented right, but to declare and protect right that exists. That being the case/premise the state cannot then arbitrarily abrogate right, which absent an empirical, objective means of determination is what it would be doing wherever it drew the line, since anything on the short side would be potentially deprived.

Lacking the ability to do more than arbitrarily assign and understanding that abrogating right without warrant is fundamentally opposed to the compact's reason to exist, we are rationally compelled to protect the right as the only means to safeguard against an unjustifiable and then unlawful negation.

Then zip was back to, well, Nang the stew out of me...

... When you tell people to only worry about reliance and trust in God himself

Which, of course, isn't something I've ever actually written. What I have written is that when you find yourself attempting to reconcile God to your understanding you have it backwards.

they end up trusting in themselves and contradicting Christianity (and God).

So that doesn't follow anything I've written. Mistaken in premise/errant in conclusion.

Continued talking the politics of religion with IMJ...

... I did more than imply that the question was about you and your claim that the politically hard right, those that most closely follow God's leading away from the sin of homosexuality and abortion, is "essentially skewed."

There are a couple of things wrong with that, to my mind. First the notion that most closely is an objective fact. I don't believe that's true. I stated my position on both houses, so to speak. Second is the idea that God would find that sufficient to put His stamp on it and lead people into it. Just a little murder isn't much of a moral highground and doesn't seem like the proper place to suggest as a hill for the Holy to rest upon.

And...

...You referred to hard left and hard right wingers as being essentially skewed.

Absolutely. Go hard right and taxes are theft (an irrational proposition). Go hard enough left and property is theft (ditto).

...there aren't Republicans who support the homosexual right to contract marriage. There are RINO who support the homosexual right to contract marriage.

Then what you're really saying is that your sort of conservative wouldn't, which is fine but not objectively true as a statement about republicans or conservatives. Similarly, there are atheists who are conservatives, only they aren't your sort of conservative. That's to be expected with a political philosophy that isn't essentially or necessarily linked to a religious philosophy, though it can be for the individual.

There aren't pro-life Democrats either. Those are just plain lying to themselves and everyone else.

There actually are and calling them names won't change anything. There are people who simply think the party is profoundly wrong on abortion but right on most of the rest and want to change what's wrong instead of abandoning the party to the far left and joining a republican lip service to pro life that abandons many of the additional principles they believe in and actively.

...We simply can't call ourselves Christians by God's view and our politic be anything but hard right wing. To say that the hard right wing is skewed is the same as saying that God's leading is skewed.

I think that's a remarkable thing to say. I think it's impossible to assert that God is leading people to support a party that doesn't support serving the good at every point, that compromises that for political expediency, which the republican party inarguably and demonstrably does, the above cite being one of many.

...It's not about the planks but the whole platform. If we build our houses on sand they will fall. We should build our homes on more solid foundations. There are two platforms to choose from, not individuals....platforms/foundations. Christians need to choose the political platform that best resides in the Truth.

A platform is just a series of planks and they don't really build anything. So the Republican party can throw in an anti abortion plank, but as long as they don't actually put a nail in it it's just part of a pile of lumber someone is trying to sell you as a house.

Talked the joy of aging with must...

"Cool" is for those still wrapped up in pleasing the tastes of others, and usually failing. One of the blessings of age is realizing that.

Invariably we tell ourselves that the day after we take the quick step up a few stairs and nature says, gently, "No."

Speaking of...remember how you'd diss the wisdom of your elders? How's that feel now that you're on the receiving end?

:think: I think it's funny (either) and if an adult gets upset by it they've forgotten too much.

:cheers:

Before zip came back with making another errant premise, leading...

As I've already set out (as AMR has before me), the Lone Ranger is the fellow who listens only to himself. [though I interject in zip's bit that AMR has never aimed that particular at me] He belongs to no church, listens to no priest or elder, and devises his own doctrine as he goes.

In that case you aren't talking about me, so that's refreshing.

:chuckle: That could be the "Lone Ranger understatement of the day": "I don' reckon I base my beliefs on 'iny show 'o hands!"

No, it's just an observation about the way you consistently try to make a rule out of the anecdotal and only really end up underscoring that you need a course in statistics. lain: And the Lone Ranger bit remains funny, telling and wrong.

...It's not that you never admit you're wrong. Once every 7,000 posts isn't never--at least if we're being precise.

Still waiting on you to produce you doing it at all.

Otherwise, like you I have no real idea how often it occurs, especially in relation to serious posts. I'd hope it isn't too frequently as I try to examine a thing, think it through as thoroughly as I can before setting it out for consumption.

You should try that. Either, I mean. Publicly apologizing or really thinking a thing through. Do wonders for you.

I speak to your points but not to you because you are beyond reproach.

...Rather, you speak to me all the time, initiate every conversation between us and, in case you missed it, you're doing it now.

Tomorrow? Scrabble.

 

[IMJerusha]

Dude!.....Just call me Jerusha!

 

[Town Heretic]

The Monday Evening Gazette​

So I took a stand in Which TOLer...

I refuse to participate until someone lists Letsargue.

Seriously, what's wrong with you (((GENIUSES!!!!)))

What are you afraid of/he'd prove you wrong and you can't stand it.

Or, as he so uniquely put it:

You ALL CAN JUST STAY IN HELL WHERE I PUT ( YOU )!!!!!

No One TO Any Of You FOOLS!!! -- 103014!!! (((GONE )))!!!!!

Gone indeed...if he ever puts one of those posts to music (say, McLean's Vincent) we'll lose him to the larger world in a fortnight. Mark me.

Had a quick bit concerning the conflating of anecdotes and rules with Thing 1...

Just another straw in your strawman.....

Only you could confuse the scientific method as applied to statistical analysis for that. lain: Well, if we count THall as a separate person, two.

Continued to discuss faith and mechanism with friend Evo...

... the Christian faith involves more than what you are presenting.

Inarguably. But before we haggle over the color of the drapes don't you think we should lay a foundation for the house those drapes will hang in?

...You are essentially telling me that if I see reason, science and my own personal experience pointing one way, that I should ignore that and go the other way because I somehow own it to myself to “hope” for more.

No. I'm saying science isn't actually doing that and your own personal experience is mixed, given your past and present...though what was missing from it, reading you, is a point that should give both of us hope and you pause.

I think I own it to myself to embrace what judging by those methods I mentioned I can conclude to be true beliefs.

Except you can't come to true beliefs, only a want of particular.

What you are proposing relies on an epistemology which is not truth finding.

I think you have it backwards.

It is a method which leads to the relativism with regards to truth and the embracing of an untestable and unfalsifiable position that you seem to be expressing here.

Belief in an absolute will not lead to relativism, though your current contextual framework can do little else.

You are assuming that they are all experiencing one particular thing, God, specifically the Christian God.

No, I think those whom God indwells experience God. Else, I side with Lewis and Tolkien and ascribe the larger response to a common urge toward the good and echoes of the "true Christian myth" resonating through the history of man.

But that doesn’t follows from the evidence but is rather something imposed upon it. The object of these personal experiences are as varied as the experiences themselves. From angels, to animals, to aliens, to the self, to gods, to dead relatives, to some fundamental fact of reality, to nothingness, etc; the object of these experiences and what people take them to mean do not converge on anything when considered as a whole.

I think you're mistaken. I think having inflicted upon yourself a nihilistic, materialistic world view you come to that part, but I don't accept that it's verifiably or reasonably so.

Then she was back...

Only a fool like you would need to bring up the scientific method and statistical process to try and determine if these acts by policemen are wrong:

Only someone essentially dishonest or with a serious memory impairment would attempt to alter the point of my criticism, which has remained unchanged.

You don't establish a rule by anecdote or bias. And a handful of incidents, if proven, wouldn't manage that either. Like suggesting that because you can produce a dozen photos of burning fields that something has gone horribly wrong with farming.

And here came Thing 2...

Just another piece of evidence
proving what a moron Town is,
throw it on the growing pile.

I agree that most of what passes for reason with you constitutes a pile. lain:

Tomorrow? Zip doesn't know I, more fun with numbers and the Klan holds a white sale... lain:

 

[Town Heretic]

The Thursday Evening Gazette Racing Report: :singer:​

Two month's worth of races to get to, so I'll boil it down.

September: saw a number of horses surge and fall back in an active month where no one jockey put the strap to his horse. And when the dust settled we had a photo finish at the line, with GM edging Angel with a 10 plus a nose for original complaints and Angel falling on supportive objections. In third, another tie, this one between CathCrus and meshak, three lengths back at 7 with literally nothing to distinguish between them. lain:

Congrats Gros!


October: a narrower field but with some speed on it found Musterion out in front early and never looking back, taking the race at 13, with IMJ three lengths back (10) in second place and Jerzy right on her heels (9). Nang and meshak made a game effort but fall six off the winning pace (7) and last month's winner CC leads the remaining field one back (6).

Congrats Musterion!

 

[IMJerusha]

Dude!.....Just call me Jerusha! (Sorry, couldn't resist) I'm three lengths and a clown horn...or something...back!

You're going to have to lock this thread up again...I'm in a mood! :chuckle:

 

[Eeset]

Dude!.....Just call me Jerusha! (Sorry, couldn't resist) I'm three lengths and a clown horn...or something...back!

You're going to have to lock this thread up again...I'm in a mood! :chuckle:

If you want it locked then you will have to do better than being in a mood.

 

[Town Heretic]

The Thursday Night Gazette​

So there was this "New Klan" thread and...

New Klan?

That can only mean one thing... high fructose corn syrup. :mmph:

Then GF said...

Astute , very astute.

Gesundheit. lain:

So this is obviously going to be a very serious Gazette. oly:


Still desperate to broad brush police from a sliver of experience...

I work with policeman every day.

Most of them?

fool asked a decent question...

The "data" is part of the problem, in a system where the police police the police how do we know were getting the data and not the swept under the rug sugar coated version?

We also live in a society where countless individuals are tasked and/or task themselves as public watchdogs and where litigation isn't exactly a last resort in the collective mindset.

Mused in the "Remember When" thread...

Remember when gas pumps were musical, had bells that chimed among the whirls and clicks?

There was a little gas station just past the college where I lived that had line after line of streamers with little flags on them and whenever the wind blew it sounded like rain.

While back in the Klan thread...

As far as white supremacist groups are concerned, from what I read it's the "skin head" groups and neo-nazis that have a lot more members than the Klan.

And their dress code is more like casual Klan Friday. lain:

Talked food with AB...

...I'll have you know I'm rather conservative in regards to certain culinary condiments thank you so very much...

lain:

In the South being liberal with butter is the only truly permissible application of the word.

And still found time for a one sentence movie review...

The Legend of Hercules : So bad it makes the 300 look like the Godfather.

Tomorrow? Missing links, three year olds and more with THall...or do I repeat myself. lain: Well, I mean again.

 

[Town Heretic]

`

The Monday Night Gazette​

In the pink condom statue thread (sort of)...

It's not as much the fake condom as the giant phallic symbol. Pretty much a dead giveaway.

Like the Washington Monument then...or Congress. lain:

So GFR said...

They're bad if they encourage minors to engage in sex, and if they encourage gay sex, yes.

...What encourages a teenage boy? Being awake.

While my critique of a headline on point led to...

"Mandate" is a proper term for what he is saying. Neither he nor I were being idiotic.

An order striking down prohibition wouldn't be a mandate to drink.

Just so an order prohibiting discriminatory law on this issue wouldn't be a mandate that you or anyone wed someone of the same sex.

It's abysmal as headlines go.

Ultimately leading to...

I did like your prohibition response. Rest assured.

As I've stated before, I find you a difficult poster to respond to, due to you technical and legal language, which I often feel is somehow separate from my own more (passionate?) "gut" response.

My head, your gut...that can only leave THall to complete the opinion cycle. lain:

Then zeke had a notion in the Culture War thread...

Got legal ID? Driver license? Bank account? Mortgage? yada, yada, then you are still in the box.

So basically you need to be a bum to qualify for the cool, outside crowd...in which case you're likely to be literally living inside a box. :think: Doesn't appeal.

Told an obscure joke...

A far sighted man walks into a bar. lain:

So over in the Cub Reporter's thread, last month's winner summed...

Congratulations for what?

The man said it.

Elsewhere the general acrimony on display in the Kellog's thread led me to speculate...

At this rate I'll be the only name left on the Secret Santa list this year. :mmph:

:think: I wonder what I'll get me.

Then kmo asked...

:AMR: What makes a meal anti-masturbatory??

One can only imagine the horrors of your dinner table. lain:

And it was time for another obscure joke...

Part II:

Daniel Boone runs into a bar.

Then, on the heels of Arsenios' lament on argumentative method and kmo's rough response...

I think this is getting way over thought. It's really quite simple.

:mock: THall

Arsenios...as a rule when kmo gets this far with a complete thought we all make a point of congratulating him. It seems to really perk the little guy up. Doubly if you throw in a "How 'bout those Chiefs". Also, we're reasonably certain that varying the font at all makes it incomprehensible to him, so no worries on this post. He'll likely only see the end smiley and be happy at the "support". Watch this.

:thumb: Go Chiefs!

To which, or wit, depending...

:banana:

:noid:

kmo, Good Sport of the Year! :first:

Nobody tell AB about this. :nono:

Tomorrow? Things take a serious turn...somewhere else.

 

[bybee]

So nice that this thread may now remain open.