Sheep and Goats

Tag: Watchtower

  • The Icing on the Cake Comes in the New System

    The #3 2018 Watchtower made the point about healing: "Consider: If the Creator designed our bodies to heal physical wounds, can we not have confidence in his promise to help us recover from emotional injuries, too?"

    Two things interfere, qualifying the healing to a "help us" healing. 1. The mind is in the business of remembering, unlike the knee you scrape, 2. With the knee you scrape, you can get it away from whatever scraped it. In this system, that can be more of a challenge, and won't completely cure out until the new system. As one brother said somewhere on the broadcast: 'In the new system, resurrected people will look back and say 'how could you ever have lived during those times, with the constant stress?"

    But we can smoothe it out to some extent, even now, just by activity, routine, who and where we hang out, our 'input' and so forth. "He binds up the brokenhearted" happens even now, but the icing on the cake comes in the new system.

    #Watchtower #Healing

    Pound_layer_cake

  • The Quick Build Kingdom Halls

    On a typical church build, construction workers spit, cuss, oogle, belch, drink, smoke, pick their noses, swear, fart, and catcall. After several months of such, out comes this church. (Ex 32:24) But on a Kingdom Hall build, the very animals of the forest join in, chipmunks swinging tiny hammers with their cute paws, robins and bluebirds bringing roof trusses with their beaks…and all the while cheerful music comes from…..where does it come from, anyway?

    Alright, alright, so I exaggerate. Artistic license. Still, since Kingdom Halls are invariably built by JW volunteers, typically in a weekend or two, the atmosphere is unique. And it is a fact that a Fredrikstad, Norway city official showed up one Saturday with his brass band to serenade Kingdom Hall volunteers. He was atoning for his initial skepticism, for he and everyone else at City Hall had laughed their sides off when Witnesses said they'd have the project done in three days. But even on day one, it was obvious the work would go on schedule. This was back in 1987.

    How could you blame him for doubting? I remember the first time I heard of such projects. Bill Leviathon was telling Frank Mulicotti, a lifelong builder, of reports he'd heard down south. “I don't know…,” Frank kept turning the idea over in his head, “there's so many things that have to come together on a building….can it really be done in a weekend? But now it's clear that it can….Jehovah's Witnesses do it routinely, though in recent years they've come to settle for two weekends. That way, drywall mud can dry, safety can be better emphasized, and everyone gets more breathing space. They're quite routine now; one comes across news stories quite regularly, for example here and here.

    On a quick-build near Rochester, a neighbor charged over bright and early one Saturday morning, at hammers first swinging, and made quite a scene. She'd opposed the project from the beginning, and it hadn't helped when she'd learned it would be an all volunteer work force. 'Great….just great…..this will drag on for months, maybe years…cars parked everywhere…garbage strewn all over…' “Tuesday morning I'll have this shut down!” she raged, planning her speech to town officials. “What she doesn't know,” one of our people remarked when she'd left, “is that by Tuesday morning it will be done.” And so it was.

    I used to think the sight of such projects would instantly swell the ranks of Jehovah's Witnesses. Surely, you can forgive me for that. I mean, this is a world in which nothing gets done in a timely way, in which cooperation is nearly non-existent, in which new grounds for bickering emerge regularly over matters more and more trivial. And another fellow from the neighboring office building, on his lunch break, stood there with mouth agape, watching that 3 day build, blown away by the perfect order and flow. “Who are these people?” he wanted to know. So….yes…I thought such an evident example of harmony and cooperation would draw people…..not that it was done for such reasons, mind you. It was done because our folks are volunteering their limited time, so no one wants to waste it. But even so, I thought it might trigger an influx more than it has. Instead, soreheads hop on the internet and say it's all because of brainwashing and mind-control.

    If I had it to do over again, I think I'd have involved myself more with such projects. If nothing else, I'd have picked up practical know-how, something not now my strength. “It's not too late,” a brother reminds me at the Kingdom Hall. Yes, I know….but….well….I was there at the Assembly Hall project nailing a tarpaulin into place above my head, and Tom Weedsandwheat strolls by leading a tour group. They all paused to watch. “Look how that brother is missing the nail every other swing,” one of them observed. So I went home and wrote nasty stuff about him on the blogosphere. Isn't that what the internet is for?

    “Yes, but many activities on the Regional don't involve building, but rather procuring supplies, real estate, planning, food service, and such things. You could do that.” To be sure, a three day Kingdom Hall quick-build does not include land purchase and preparation, nor negotiating with town officials. That stuff can take months, even years. I know, for I worked on some of this preliminary stuff years ago with Hal. Yeah…I could do that, but…..hang it all, I just like to write. It's a great hobby, I've developed a dogged persistance for it, if not necessarily talent, and not that many do it. You can't do everything. Maybe that's why the Bible promise of living forever on earth in paradise has always appealed to me. As “The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life” asks, can it really be God's purpose for us to spend 20 years growing up, a few decades to gain knowledge and experience, and just when we've acquired a little wisdom, to be betrayed by our own bodies and end up a pile of dust?

    But maybe I'll wrap this blog up someday, resist the temptation to start another, and log some time with the Regional. It would put me more in sync with things, that's for sure.

    Besides developing a fantastic organization of building volunteers, an organization now international, an organization which readily switches to relief mode during outbreaks of natural disaster…moreover, an organization which will no doubt provide a significant jump start going into the new system of things, I suspect Jehovah's Witnesses have transformed the construction industry. Don't structures of all sort go up quicker than they used to? Did we have anything to do with that?

    I was discussing this with Tom Oxgoad one day and he pointed to Taco Bell. It seems that during the L.A. Rodney King riots, one of their stores was torched and burned to the ground. Taco Bell wanted it up again, as soon as possible. They hired as general contractor one of our people, a Canadian brother who was active on a Regional Committee, for precisely that reason. To the degree possible, the project was organized just like that of a Kingdom Hall build, even to the point of the drinks (lemon and lime water) served for refreshment from the heat. “We've found pop gives a quick energy boost, but once it wear off fatigue sets in,” our guy pointed out. So to whatever degree we've transformed construction, count it as our gift to the world, same as defining civil rights and advancing medicine.

    Business and theocratic interests aren't the same, though. Construction workers generally want to stretch out the project, which is, after all, their livelihood. And why shouldn't they? Why should secular work be all about speeding things up for business? It's a whole different story with theocratic building.

    “What ever happened to that irate neighbor?” I asked one of the elders during a visit to the Kingdom Hall mentioned above. “How did it turn out with her?” Well….it turned out that she is now friendly as can be, even after a second building was erected closer to her property than the first. Turned out she'd been concerned mostly about property values….and privacy. She'd lived next to a vacant yard for decades. Let's face it….nobody wants to live next to a public building of any sort. But when she discovered the brothers were quiet, respectful, and the property well tended….all her opposition melted away. Though another neighbor directly across the street, who was never motivated by property values at all, but by dogma, has taken her place. “Jesus is God!” declares huge letters plastered on her garage door. You can't miss it as you exit the Hall.

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    Read ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’  30% free preview

    Starting with Prince, a fierce and frolicking defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A riotous romp through their way of life. “We have become a theatrical spectacle in the world, and to angels and to men,” the Bible verse says. That being the case, let’s give them some theater! Let’s skewer the liars who slander the Christ! Let’s pull down the house on the axis lords! Let the seed-pickers unite!

     

     

     

     

  • Folk Heroes and Dirty Jobs

    “In times of crisis, great nations have always turned to folk heroes.” So writes Joe Queenan in the Oct 1, 2011 WSJ, then he waxes nostalgic over folk like Daniel Boone and Joan of Arc. Then he observes that America is in a time of crisis right now, but….well…..there just isn't much to choose from for folk heroes,is there? Oprah? Lady Gaga? Let's face it…the pool is not very deep. “Frankly, things being the way they are today,” he continues, “I'd settle for the guy in the Ford commercial.”

    And why not? The guy in the Ford commercial is Mike Rowe. He is the host of Dirty Jobs, a Discovery Channel TV show inspired by his grandfather, who “could fix or build anything." Mr. Rowe testified before the U.S. Senate back in May of 2011, speaking in behalf of “dirty jobs.”

    “We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.”

    In a country where newly graduated youngsters fret over unemployment, it's not happening for Mike Rowe's folk. He speaks of “450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it's getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them. Alabama's not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn't a lack of funds. It wasn't a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.”

    Contrast his words with the truly rotten mainstream counsel over the last two decades. “Go to college” is all anyone hears anywhere. That's the path to successful happy living. Only losers don't. Need to borrow money? Doesn't matter….do it! Need to borrow a lot of money? Look, don't argue….do it! You're investing in yourself!! You'll thank me for it someday.

    But….we're seeing these reports everywhere these days…..new graduates are not thanking those that shoved them into college. Are they cursing them instead? Some are. They're graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt into a country with few job openings. Whereas those in skilled labor have openings galore, having trained for them much more economically, sometimes without any cost at all. Suzie Ormond interviewed one of these debt-laden graduates on her TV show. He'd borrowed to go through college, but upon graduation there were no jobs, so……"don't tell me,” Suzie says, “you went back to grad school.” Yes! He had! That's what society had told him to do! Invest more in himself! Upon hearing the total sum of debt, Suzie sent him off with advice to enjoy life best he could, much as you might advise someone with terminal cancer.

    “Everybody told you,” says Anya Kamenetz on the PBS News Hour, “that BA degree recipients earn a million more over a lifetime than those people who merely have a high school diploma….so it's good debt, it's an investment in yourself…..that was the conventional wisdom for a really long time.” Averages, however, “are a funny thing, because they don't necessarily apply to anyone.”

    The remarkable thing about student debt is that you cannot get out of it. Even through bankruptcy. Debt from virtually every other source can be discharged…..if you blew it on gambling, say, or drugs, or just living high……but not that incurred by listening to the education experts. It's incredible! Talk about a world that devours it's young! I thought you were supposed to look out for the younger generation. Wasn't it that way once?

    Suddenly the JW organization does not look too bad for the advice they've long offered to their young people. When they weigh in on education at all, it is to defy “the conventional wisdom” and encourage youngsters to look at Mike Rowe's “apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities,” plus technical degrees, certificate courses, and so forth. Do not think it is easy to defy conventional wisdom….you should hear the flak they take for it!

    But “Laurence Kotlikoff, professor of economics at Boston University agrees [with a recent Princeton University study] that an expensive education just isn't worth it….. “If you think of education as solely a monetary investment, if we are not thinking about all the other benefits from education like learning things, and getting to hang out with me, and also just becoming a more cultured person, then we have to look at this very carefully.”

    Now, to be sure, the JW organization's reservations about college are not the same as Professor Kotlikoff's. That is, they're not primarily about dollars and cents. They're more about “getting to hang out with [him], and also just becoming a more cultured person.” Not he himself, of course….frankly, I'd like to hang out with him….but people he represents who dominate campus life, people who are inclined to think humans have the answers, people who are inclined to denigrate faith, people who are inclined to think the purpose of life is to consume, or even that there is no purpose in life. People who are inclined to overstress the value of being a “more cultured person,” whereas Paul would be apt to dismiss it all as “refuse” (Phil 3:8) and mention more than in passing that “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” (1 Cor 3:19) So why “hang out” with guys like that unless it is truly necessary?

    The May 2012 Consumer Reports tells of a web designer who likens his student debt, about $59,000, to “a prison sentence.” It interferes with his buying a home. It prevents him saving for retirement. (no one mentions raising a family) The debt, “just grew and grew and grew,” he says, “and I'm saddled with it unless I make twice as much as I'm making.” He earned his master's degree 18 years ago, when education was cheaper. He's not unhappy with his career choices….I don't want to suggest otherwise……but surely he must wonder sometimes whether it was worth it. He used the words “prison sentence,” not I. He's consigned to paying off debt for a long long time. His freedom of movement is curtailed, not augmented, as he doubtless thought would be the case. Moreover, I know of two young people making their living in web design without any college whatsoever…..they just dove into it as a lifelong interest. Surely it's in the interest of the education industry to suggest learning only takes place in college, an assertion Professor  Kotlikoff seems to make. That doesn't mean it's so.

    In contrast, Dave McClure, the old circuit overseer reflects on his life and where it has taken him. Some of his old school mates might consider him a failure, he says, but he's not sure why. He's been to more places than they have, done more things, met more people, certainly met with more variety in people. It's all in what you value.

    “The skills gap is a reflection of what we value,” Mike Rowe told the Senate. “….In a hundred different ways, [such as the Milton Bradley game of Life, where you are severely penalized if you choose the “business” road over the “college” road] we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber, if you can find one, is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both.”

    Nobody's listening to Mike Rowe. Not many, at any rate. A high school's success is still measured by the percentage they send to college. Unless your grades are in the toilet, just try telling your guidance counselor that you plan to bypass college. Just try it, and see what happens. The promising careers in this country are seen to be in education and health care. (less so in education lately, where budget cutbacks are wreaking havoc) These are also the same two fields whose models are described as “unsustainable.”  But it's still only losers that go Mike Rowe's way.

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    Read ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’     and           No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

     

  • Norway’s Massacre and the Spread of Hate

    There's an advantage to being older. It's not a complete downer, as pop 'culchure' might suggest. The advantage is that you remember things. Thus, when they try to sell you turds disguised as diamonds, you can spot that they are turds, even if the moderns eagerly embrace the diamonds, wondering why they fail to satisfy. You can also stand up to other moderns who think people today are no different from those of yesterday….only that they have Ipads, and the ancients didn't.

    It's not so much facts you remember. Facts are chronicled pretty well on the internet. It's the flavor of the times you recall, which if that is recorded anywhere, it is sniffed at by those educated today as being “anecdotal.” and thereby unreliable.

    For example, I am older than the airline hijackings craze of the 60's. It used to be you could park your car at the airport, buy a ticket, and hop on the plane. Nobody wanted to strip search you. Nobody made you walk through wands, puffers, X-rays, and buzzers. Show up ten minutes before departure time? Not a problem. Wikapedia pretty well captures the hard facts of those first hijackings….they were exclusively to Cuba then, but they completely miss the soft facts….that is, how hijackings and the news coverage thereof changed society.

    I remember well the atmosphere, if not the specifics, of that first commercial airliner hijacked in the U.S, for it froze public thought. This would have been 1967 or 1968. The plane sat grounded, I forget at which airport, its crew overpowered by desperadoes with some unspecified demands. They wanted to publicize their demands. This was a new tactic. Nobody in the media knew what to do. Should they treat these fellows as common thugs? Or should they make them celebrities, broadcasting their demands for all the world to hear? The uncertainty lasted a day or two. Finally the news people decided to cooperate….the public had a right to know, and the networks had a right to ratings. Hijackings thereafter became a staple of life, the perfect vehicle for any malcontent to gain a listening ear, though they were somewhat abated by international agreements to arrest and extradite any hijacker to their country of origin. Before the late 1960's, there were 2 or 3 hijackings per year worldwide. After the late 1960's, there were 41 per year. (until 1977, the last year of this study)

    Fast forward to 2012 and the public trial of Martin Breivik, a killer whose deeds rank as especially heinous even in an age where the slaughter of innocents is commonplace. Distracting authorities with a car bomb explosion parked by an Oslo government building, he boated to nearby Utøya island disguised as a police officer and shot to death 69 persons, mostly children, at a summer youth camp. Many more were injured.

    Now, you don't give someone like this a stage upon which to justify his actions. You just don't. A stage is what this fellow wants more than anything, and the deed itself is his means with which to attain it. "Your trial will be your world stage," Breivik exhorts would-be followers through his on-line manisfesto, posted just before his attacks began. Sigh….of course, authorities are granting him his stage. His trial is broadcast throughout Norway to all local courthouses. It's being given exhaustive news coverage. And is he ever savoring the moment! He glides through the courtroom, smiling, gesturing raised-fisted to the cameras. He has no remorse, he would do it again, he says, he ought to receive a medal. It was self-defense for his race, he claims, and the only time true democracy reigned was when Hitler was in power.

    Court psychiatrists, before his trial, declared him insane. This did not please him, for who pays attention to a madman? He wants to be paid attention to. Obligingly, other experts reversed course, and declared him sane, even though 'disturbed.' Pleasing him was not their purpose, of course….it was popular outrage they wished to placate….but it was the effect. Those experts watch him closely during the trial, analyzing words and gestures, so as to determine sanity.

    Is it not more fitting to ask whether they are the insane ones? Not individually….I don't mean that…they're all honorable people doing their best. But collectively, what on earth is wrong with them? Doesn't that Romans 1:22 verse come to mind, about people who became foolish while asserting they were wise? Breivik's not insane, he's merely hate-filled. Hate-filled people are dime a dozen. But enabling him to broadcast hate throughout the world, surely it takes an “insane” society to do that. If curdled words spread like gangrene in Paul's day, how much more so now. (2 Tim 2:16) We'll see it here in the States, too. Some sick bastard will do some unspeakable deed, and the televised talking heads will speak about it for weeks, mulling, analyzing, and of course, repeating. It's as though they revel in watching their own demise.

    On the PBS NewsHour, Margaret Warner asks: “has concern been expressed that this, even though what he says isn't televised, that this trial is giving him a platform to air his views…..that the openness of this trial is giving him that platform?” Norwegian newsman Anders Tvegard, who'd been smooth to this point, stammers though his response. Tvegard's a man with a conscience, no doubt, and he's not comfortable with his role in connecting the man with an audience. After all, is that not the only real difference between Breviek and Hitler…..Hitler found his audience?

    “Norway's now taken back to those horrible hours and days last summer, July 22 and — July 22,” Tvegard says. “And it's — the national grief and sorrow is back." Trying valiantly to fashion turds into diamonds, he continues: "At the same time, people are listening to what he's saying, like, thinking, how is this possible? Can he really mean that? And to some, it is good to hear that he is a complete lunatic. His views has no resonance in the rest of the public. He does not belong to a political party……to them, it's comforting to see that he is a maniac.”

    But I suspect his 'maniac' label is comforting to the 77 victims' families in the same sense that it was comforting to Jews to discover Hitler was a maniac…..namely, not at all. Though perhaps….just perhaps…..it is comforting to some others in that it permits absolution from any sense of responsibility. Breveik doesn't come “from us.” We didn't produce him. Why, “he does not belong to a political party.” What more proof does one need? Few people…..and the more prominent they are, the more this is true….want to confront the fact that, in some unexplained way, this system of things cranks out hate-filled persons nearly as fast as Apple cranks out Iphones.

    I don't write much about Satan on this blog. Many persons who visit are skeptics, and if they laugh their sides off over mention of God, what will they do at mention of Satan? Moreover, it's hard to draw a line of demarcation, to apportion blame between deeds of twisted  humans and the truly satanic. Suffice it to say the world reflects Satan's values….greed, selfishness…"soft" qualities which inevitably fuel eruptions of “hard” qualities, such as murderous hatred. Several times the Bible points to Satan, not God, as the ruler of this system of things. (John 14:30, 2 Cor 4:44, I John 5:19)

    Religion, for the most part, serves to put a smiley face on all of this. It deplores the symptoms, to be sure, and suggests no end of band-aid approaches. But it buys into the overall structure of the world, it's division into nations, it's faith in human self-rule….ingredients which inevitably produces the symptoms it deplores. It has no real problem with the overall structure itself, only the symptoms, and tries to put itself into the driver's seat. To my knowledge, only Jehovah's Witnesses recognizes the true cause of world distress: a Satanic rebellion of long ago. Only Jehovah's Witnesses recognize the ultimate solution: destruction of this system of thing to be replaced by God's Kingdom rule from heaven. Only Jehovah's Witnesses restructure their lives, at considerable personal sacrifice, to tell others of these overall causes.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me             No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Scholars, Experts, and the Transfiguration

    The question was: how were Jesus words at Luke 9:27 fulfilled?

    “But I tell you truthfully, There are some of those standing here that will not taste death at all until first they see the kingdom of God.”

    It was multiple choice! The options were (with hints from the blogmaster):

     A.  The Transfiguration (already widely refuted by Christian scholars)
     B.  Jesus' Resurrection (has nothing to do with seeing Jesus come in His Kingdom)
     C.  Jesus' Ascension into Heaven (has Jesus going somewhere else, not coming in His Kingdom)
     D.  Pentecost (has nothing to do with seeing Jesus or His Kingdom*)
     E.  When the Gospel message was preached to the world (has nothing to do with seeing Jesus come in His Kingdom with power*)
     F.  When the Roman legions, under the command of Titus, crushed the Jewish rebellion and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (has nothing to do with seeing Jesus come in His Kingdom)
     G.  When Jesus established His "mediatorial" Kingdom (which nobody can actually see)

    Of course, I can't resist multiple choice, especially on the internet! I jumped in both feet and said: “A! It's A!" What clinches it is that “A” is "already widely refuted by Christian scholars. If these guys refute it, it must be so.”

    The blogmaster caught my drift: “Always the contrarian, huh tom? Do you run a hedge fund, by any chance?”

    I don't. But it is a fact that when all the experts are screaming “sell,” that's the time you buy. And so with choice “A.” All the 'experts' are selling it. I'll buy.

    Alright, alright, so it's a little more involved than that. We must look at why the experts refute the transfiguration, which Luke goes on to describe (Luke 9:28-37)

    “In actual fact, about eight days after these words, he took Peter and John and James along and climbed up into the mountain to pray. And as he was praying the appearance of his face became different and his apparel became glitteringly white. Also, look! two men were conversing with him, who were Moses and Elijah. These appeared with glory and began talking about his departure that he was destined to fulfill at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those with him were weighed down with sleep; but when they got fully awake they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. And as these were being separated from him, Peter said to Jesus: “Instructor, it is fine for us to be here, so let us erect three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah,” he not realizing what he was saying. But as he was saying these things a cloud formed and began to overshadow them. As they entered into the cloud, they became fearful. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying: “This is my Son, the one that has been chosen. Listen to him.” And as the voice occurred Jesus was found alone. But they kept quiet and did not report to anyone in those days any of the things they saw. On the succeeding day, when they got down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.”

    Frankly, how could anyone not take this as the fulfillment of Jesus words. It's the very next event to follow! Luke even throws in a transitional phrase: "in actual fact." ("And it came to pass that"….KJV)  Talk about connecting the dots! How could anyone miss it?!
     
    The answer to how anyone could miss it is that “we don't see things like this happening today.” Thus, if the “scholars” and “experts” give “A” as their answer, they will be laughed off  the stage by those intellectuals whom they so desperately want to be counted among. This is but an NT manisfestation of the OT “we are wise and learned adults, far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve. What's next, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?” syndrome. Far better to choose from answers “B” through “G,” options which can all be presented as “inspiring” or at least “open to many interpretations” (both the province of intellectuals) rather than “miraculous” (the province of dunces).

    These guys are spineless. And faithless. They ought not label themselves Christian experts, but something more along the lines of “deistic-flavored philosophers.” Why wouldn't Jesus' words just prior to Luke 9:27 apply to them?

    “For whoever becomes ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man will be ashamed of this one when he arrives in his glory and that of the Father and of the holy angels”   Luke 9:26

    The laugh is that these Christian experts ignore the scripturally obvious answer to Luke 9:27, to suggest less miraculous and thereby more respectable interpretations, only to find that these choices also are ridiculed by today's intellectuals, who lean increasing atheistic. They sell out faith, and gain nothing in return! I'll side with Paul any day, who was “not ashamed” of the good news. (Rom 1:16)

    This sucking up to the world is by no means a modern development. Rather, it's a recurrent NT theme, expressed here, for example: “For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but, in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves to have their ears tickled.”   2 Tim 4:3

    To be sure, not “putting up with healthful teaching” was to happen for a variety of reasons. Not all could be chalked up to currying favor with intellectuals, but a lot of it could.

    For example, the New Encyclopedia Britannica (remember encyclopedias?) writes: “Christians who had some training in Greek philosophy began to feel the need to express their faith in its terms, both for the own intellectual satisfaction and in order to convert educated pagans.” The Trinity teaching wormed in this way. It's not to be found in scripture, unless you take rather obvious metaphors literally. At various church councils, according to scholar Charles Freeman, those who came to believe Jesus was God “found it difficult to refute the many sayings of Jesus that suggested he was subordinate to God the Father.” So they began to elevate intellectual opinion (the sayings of Church Fathers) over the scriptures themselves!

    Now, everyone knows that Christianity began as a working-class religion, not an educated intellectual religion. From the former come folk who can call a spade a spade. From the latter come folk who can lift scripture to a loftier plane, make it respectable, and monetize it. Get a load of this snooty comment from theologian Gregory of Nyssa, mocking the 'lowlife' that were dumb enough to take scripture at face value:

    “Clothes dealers, money changers, and grocers are all theologians. If you inquire about the value of your money, some philosopher explains wherein the Son differs from the Father. If you ask the price of bread, your answer is the Father is greater than the Son. If you should want to know whether the bath is ready, you get the pronouncement that the Son was created out of nothing.”

    The above three paragraphs incorporates much that was presented in the Jan 15, 2012 Watchtower, including the quote from Gregory. JW detractors apparently accused the Watchtower of making up this quote out of thin air, since they couldn't find it themselves on the internet, and figured if it's not such low-hanging fruit, it must not exist! But Weedhacker [!] would have none of it and tracked down Gregory's words in Greek, Latin, and obscure places. So there.

    Back to my “Transfiguration” answer, the one "already widely refuted by Christian scholars."……this is a beaut: the blogmaster summarizes their attitudes thus (with apparent agreement): they “dismiss it by mentioning it in passing, as if it was not worth their effort to rebut because it is already known to be false.” Of course! There's my mistake! I'd overlooked how substantial  their talents and valuable their time must be that they cannot deign to waste them analyzing the verses that immediately follow Jesus' words with regard to coming into his kingdom.

    The important thing is for scholars to intellectualize the subject. Armchairify it. Steer far away from any interpretations that give credence to miracles, and especially any that might suggest commitment or action is required. Analyze the words….make a living off analyzing them, in fact. But don't be dumb enough to trap yourself into having to do any of them. Just like at Ezek 33:32: “you are to them like a song of sensuous loves, like one with a pretty voice and playing a stringed instrument well. And they will certainly hear your words, but there are none doing them.” They love to hear them. They love to debate them. They love to discuss them. But they don't love to do them. Not the experts. That's not their gig.

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    Starting with Prince, a fierce and frolicking defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A riotous romp through their way of life. “We have become a theatrical spectacle in the world, and to angels and to men,” the Bible verse says. That being the case, let’s give them some theater! Let’s skewer the liars who slander the Christ! Let’s pull down the house on the axis lords! Let the seed-pickers unite!

     

     

  • Tebowing to the God of Football

    ImagesCAABPHPTWhen you mention some acquaintance by name, and your companion brightens because he knows the fellow, but then clouds over because your description doesn't match his, there's no mystery. It's two separate people you're speaking of, who happen to share the same name; it's not the same person at all. This is a no-brainer. The point is so obvious that's it hardly seems worth your time to read it or mine to write it. I do it anyway because of the one notable circumstance where it doesn't hold true….when the person we speak of is God.

    In this case, common sense goes straight into the dumpster. When God is spoken of with markedly different attributes, different ways of approach, people do not say 'we're talking two different God's here.' Nope. Rather, it's the same God, we just approach him differently and think of him differently. Try doing that in conversation the next time Bob Brown is brought up.  Just try it. Insist that the fat bearded Bob Brown your neighbor knows is the identical squirrely little twirp of a Bob Brown you're speaking of, and that you both just approach him in different ways. Take note of how quickly you're written off as a dope.

    Admittedly, it's not quite that simple. Trouble is, when we speak of God, everyone likes to assume that their God is the Big One, the One who is All-Powerful, the One who truly merits the capital 'G' in God, and not just an uncapitalized 'g', the same letter that is used to start unsavory words like 'garbage' or 'grunge.' I mean, no one wants to be stuck worshiping some low class loser of a god, and no one will admit to it. So it's not exactly the same as discussing Bob Brown, a name everyone knows might belong to a prince or a pig.

    But it's close enough. After all, in Bible times, different nations worshiped different gods, and they all thought their Guy was the Big One. Note the first panel of that Charlie Brown strip; the roster of Gods back then included Mithra, Horus, Hercules, Zeus, and many others, as any Bible reader knows. Furthermore, it was understood that different gods had different attributes. When the fighting Israelites mopped up the hills with the Syrians, the latter figured it was due to Jehovah being a God of mountains. “Let's try 'em again on the flat lands,” they said. Alas, Jehovah turned out to be a God of the low plains as well. (1 Kings 20:23-25)

    I'll take the old way of thinking any day. Different peoples worship different gods who have different attributes. The God of the Evangelicals, for instance, is a god of Football. I don't know how you can conclude any differently if you've watched Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos this season. Time and again, Tebow's quarterbacked his team to cliffhanger come-from-behind wins. Each time (and many times in between) he drops to one knee to thank Jesus. They say it's a verb now: 'tebowing.' Nobody, but nobody, 'praises the Lord' more on the football field than does Tebow. Is the Lord really honored that way?

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    ImagesCA1Q31K4ImagesCAM9XC8S"When I saw him scoring, [the player who caught his 80 yard pass, clinching a 29-23 win over the Steelers, making for the quickest ending (11 seconds) to an overtime game in NFL history.] first of all, I just thought, 'Thank you, Lord,' '' Tebow said. "Then, I was running pretty fast, chasing him – Like I can catch up to D.T! Then I just jumped into the stands, first time I've done that. That was fun. Then, got on a knee and thanked the Lord again and tried to celebrate with my teammates and the fans."

    The media eats all this up. ImagesCAP7G2RQThey love it. They take it all just as Tim means it, as a Feather in God's Cap, genuine praise for the Football God. After every punishing play (that goes well) he drops to his knee to praise the Lord.  All this in front of tens of thousands of fans. And the Evangelicals go nuts! “Players have been pointing to heaven when they score and joining in post-game prayer circles for more than a decade. And every time the limelight lands on a prayer moment, evangelicals are delighted,” says Tom Krattenmaker, author of Onward Christian Athletes. They're not embarrassed to be thus trivializing God…..they're delighted!

    The guy wears John 3:16 painted on his eyelids, for crying out loud, as do many players. It's his favorite scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son….” A game or two before, he actually threw for 316 yards, and you should have heard the swooning and ecstasy. Evangelical fans, loudly thanking God for each and every spectacular play, have John 3:16 painted on their bare chests! Just once I'd like to see some player sporting Matt 6:5 on his eyelashes:

    “when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen…”

    Man, this stuff is offensive! How can anyone stand it? God is disinclined to do much about injustice, depravity and mayhem worldwide….all those things go unchecked….but he never misses a game, eagerly tweaking his favorite players on this team or that! How dare the Evangelicals link God with something so trivial! How dare they! Lemme tell you, the enemies of God are not to be found among the atheists. They're to be found among those who claim to be his friends. The only way I can keep from hurling my cookies on this is to point out that these guys are not worshiping Jehovah God at all, nor even his son Jesus. They are worshiping the god of Football.

    And don't think I'm writing this way because I'm jealous over the attention Evangelicals are getting. Pulleeese! I'm not! Absolutely not! No! Beyond any ques…..oh, alright, I AM! I mean, c'mon! First it's the new cool don't-ya-love-me Mormons, now this for the Evangelicals. And what do we have?! Tracts featuring furry cute animals to hand out Sunday afternoon, knocking on doors, interrupting folks doing homage to the Football God! Give us something, please, so we can show that we're cool, too!2011 3 27 san diego 356 Even if it's Segways on which to ride house to house. That would work. I mean, we don't have to abandon the ministry totally, like everyone else does. We just have to take it into the 21rst century.

    And please, please, please, don't think I have anything against football. I do not. Though, truth be told, it is sort of competitive, um…not to mention violent, two traits that can't rank it too highly on God's approval list. I suspect that, at best, God just mildly tolerates the game and those who watch it, reckoning it as just one more run-of-the-mill human foible. At any rate, I don't investigate too deeply, for fear that His disapproval may be stronger, and then I wouldn't be able to watch any more games, which I seldom do anyway, but why cut off your options?

    It may even be that my only luke-warm interest in football stems, not from any latent righteousness on my part, but merely from my proximity to the nearby Buffalo Bills, our geographically closest NFL team. The God of Football has not been kind to the Bills for many many years….it has a way of cooling one's ardor. I don't know why He doesn't Treat them better. They also have players who pray to him. Like when ImagesCAAGI35WStevie Johnson dropped the game-winning pass in his team's overtime….it was a perfect pass, and it just flew through his fingers. So he prayed to God that evening, using Twitter:

    "I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!!" the 24-year-old tweeted. "AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…"

    That's the trouble with being the Football god. You get praises from your worshipers on the winning team. But those on the losing team cuss you out something fierce.

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    More here

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    Tom Irregardless and Me    No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash 

  • What We Learn From Earthquakes

    240px-AlaskaQuake-FourthAvePreachers can' resist natural disasters as opportunities to beat people up. They just can't. See?…..they'll say, that's what you get….God's dishing out the punishment. You must have done something pretty bad.They won't agree as to just what that bad deed is, necessarily. Instead, they assign their own pet peeves to God, as though their gripe must be His gripe. Thus, when Katrina hit New Orleans, Pat Robertson right away said that God did it to show how mad he was about gays and abortion. Ron Nagin (mayor, not clergy) had no problem with God doing it, but changed the reason: God was steamed over America's foreign policy and treatment of blacks!

    With characters like this, it's a wonder we're not all atheists! Perhaps the greatest public service Jehovah's Witnesses render at such times is to tell people God doesn't do it. He doesn't cause calamities. After all, why New Orleans? Why them? They're not exactly creampuffs up here in Rochester, either, but God hasn't smitten us. (though He has caused Kodak to flirt (quite promiscuously) with bankruptcy, humbling our once-proud city, causing that company even to blow up some of their empty buildings so as to get them off the tax rolls.)

    Almost to a person, Haitians believed the quake that leveled Port-au-Prince (Dec 2009) was punishment from God. But Jehovah's Witnesses, preaching tent to tent afterwards, repudiated that preachers' pet notion and told them it wasn't. “We assure them,” says a local Witness in the December 2010 Awake magazine, “that the earthquake was a natural disaster and not God's doing. We show them Genesis 18:25. There, Abraham declares it unthinkable that God would destroy good people along with the bad. We also show them Luke 21:11. there, Jesus foretold great earthquakes for this time [“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;  and there will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences and food shortages; and there will be fearful sights and from heaven great signs.”], and we explain that he will soon resurrect dead loved ones and remove all suffering.” The article goes on to relate the rebuilding work JWs carried out, both physical and spiritual.

    But if God doesn't cause natural disasters, that doesn't mean they might nonetheless be a sign of the last days of this system of things. Just like the earthquakes mentioned above. Are they? And, regarding earthquakes, if God doesn't cause them, just why do they happen now in such numbers so as to validate Jesus' words? Has there really been a collosal increase in earthquakes? I used to think I knew. But I'm not so sure now.

    However, it may be that in the new system, we'll have the good sense not to build in earthquake prone areas. Perhaps we won't build big cites, period…you've never seen a city in any of those paradise tracts, have you? Maybe we'll build with quake-proof materials and techniques….the Port-au-Prince Bethel, built that way, hardly suffered any damage at all, even as most of the city was reduced to rubble. Or it may even be that in choosing human rulership over God's Kingdom, people demonstrate preference for the government that cannot control natural disasters over the government that can. As we read about Jesus: "But they felt an unusual fear, and they would say to one another: “Who really is this, because even the wind and the sea obey him?” Maybe earthquakes will obey him in the new system, too. They don't obey Presidents, Prime Ministers, or Premiers, but maybe they'll obey Jesus.

    Great earthquakes are right in there as one of the signs of the last days, even if we can't put our finger on exactly the cause. And I'm not dissuaded by full-of-themselves people who point out, with much self-satisfaction, that the “great” in great earthquakes is because of increased population. So? That doesn't mean they're not “great.” You think they measure things up there by the Richter scale? Might it be human suffering that triggers the “great?” Nor am I impressed when they carry on about how “better news coverage only means we're aware of earthquakes more than we used to be.” Nah…..that might be the case if we were tracking “earthquakes,” but we're not. We're tracking “great earthquakes.” A “great earthquake” always makes it's presence known, even if you don't have satellite TV.

    But you have to keep up with changing times. You don't go plotting earthquakes on your world map time line trying to prove that they once were scarcer than hen's teeth, whereas now they shake things up every time you turn around.  It may not be that way. “The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center reports that earthquakes of 7.0 magnitude and greater remained "fairly constant" throughout the 20th century,” writes Awake! of 2002 March 22 p.9. “Note, though, that the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy does not require an increase in the number or power of earthquakes. All Jesus said was that there would be great earthquakes in one place after another. Furthermore, he stated that these events would mark the "beginning of pangs of distress." (Matthew 24:8) Distress is measured, not by the number of earthquakes or how they rate on the Richter scale, but by the effect that they have upon people."

    Or take this excerpt from the Watchtower 2011 May 1 p.4:

    The Bible does not emphasize the number of earthquakes during the last days. However, it does say that great earthquakes will occur in one place after another, making them one of the notable features of this momentous period of history.

    WHAT DO YOU THINK? [this is a subheading, and subheadings are capitalized] Are we seeing great earthquakes, just as the Bible foretold? Earthquakes alone may not seem to be conclusive evidence that we are living in the last days. Yet, they are only one prophecy that is being fulfilled."

    I've even heard some grousing from grousers that these quotes represents substantial JW toning down of prior statements regarding earthquake activity. Nah. All it shows is we're keeping up with advancing knowledge. What's wrong with that? We do it in the fields of earth geology and life development. Why not here?

    In some ways, Jehovah's Witnesses are like the Lord impaled between two thieves, only in this case the thieves are so intractably opposed to one another that if you please one, you infuriate the other. If you do anything to keep up with advancing knowledge….a commendable feat in any other discipline….you incur the wrath of religionists, who accuse you of flip-flopping. And if you stay the course in any way, you tick off the scientists, who take for granted that when they say “jump,” you and everyone else ought to respond (and make it snappy!) “how high?”

    Okay, okay, I'll back down a little on increased earthquake activity. But I'm sure not going to do it with regard to increased natural disasters. The ground is firmer here, practically quake-proof. For instance, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in his 2012 State of the State address, observed that, while he didn't want to get into a debate on global warming…..is it or is it not happening?……“100 year floods are now happening every two years, so something is clearly happening.” I heard him. It's not in the printed transcript; like any decent speaker, Cuomo speaks extemporaneously a lot, and his speech was engrossing, whereas the transcript itself is a little dull, a bit like reading Cliff notes. So you'd have to dredge up his speech on YouTube. Someone must have put it there.

    So….let's do natural disasters as the next topic.

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  • Who’s Messing with Charlie Brown’s Christmas!?

    Two dogs are pecking away on their keyboards, very intense. One says to the other, with much enthusiasm, “On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog!” Yeah! That’s the trouble with the internet. You never quite know where anything is coming from.  A laureate or a liar? A psalmist or a sorehead? A philanthropist or a philanderer? It’s hard to tell. Maybe that’s why Awake! is….shall we say…reserved in it’s endorsement of the online world, even citing that old New Yorker cartoon about the dogs.

    However, I spotted a dog on the internet when nobody else did, so I’m unusually full of myself these days. I spotted the dog, and now I’m going to put a muzzle on it, or at least try to.

    Someone sent me a Peanuts strip from 1965,  a strip that’s all over the internet lately. They thought I would agree with the caption….and in fact, I do. But I also smelled a rat. See if you can, too.

     
    Okay. Got it? A little anti-Christmas, wouldn’t you say? Now, you may (or may not) agree with the wording here, but it sure doesn’t ring true to what Charles Shultz was about, does it? Would he really have authored such a strip? I don’t think so. Even though Linus is indeed a know-it-all windbag, even though he does quote scripture from time to time, even though he is well-versed on theological things. But it doesn’t fit.  So I poked around some. It took a while, but I found the source of the smell. The strip has been doctored! In the  enlarged frame, those first two speech bubbles are genuine, but the last one has been modified. Here’s the original:

     


    Now, I don’t think Charles Shultz would like this. Bitten by one of the dogs on the internet! You ought to be able to write your own comic strip without some smug little snot of a propogandist replacing your words with his. You understand, I don’t have a problem with the modified words in themselves. What they say is not untrue. It’s attributing them to Shultz that burns me up, because he would never have penned such a thing. Write your own strip! Rejection of Christmas on account of its non-Christian origin may ring true with us, but religious folk in general have no problem with it.

    If you use someone’s work as underpinning to your own, you keep the two separate. It’s not only ethical to do that, it’s also practical. Your whole case crumbles when someone spots that you’ve built upon a fraud. Don’t do it. Go out of your way to make clear you don’t do it. Just like when the Watchtower used to quote  evolutionists saying things that undermined their own dogma…I mean, they were perfectly accurate quotes…but then grousers would accuse us of misrepresenting those luminaries, so the Watchtower took to pointing out, whenever using so-and-so’s words, that these folks nonetheless believed in their own theories…they weren’t jumping ship to endorse creation. I don’t think it was necessary, but I appreciate why they did it: to avoid even the appearance of misrepresentation. (It didn’t satisfy the grousers, however)

    Or when the translators of the New World Translation refused to translate Ps 22:16 as “they have pierced my hands and feet” even though they agreed such a rendering would perfectly fit Christ Jesus’ role. They refused to do it because the underlying manuscript evidence was dubious. Few other translations had such scruples. Whatever you do, do it honestly. Don’t fudge facts to fit your agenda.

    Although, having said that…. I can think of one exception. Nothing’s absolute. For the life of me I cannot condemn Nick Ruggeri for altering the work of another when he first became a JW. See, Nick was trying to clean up his life at the time, so he drew bathing suits on all the posters of naked women at his workplace! Lemme tell you, he was none too popular just then. Of course, this was many years ago. Today, he’d be doing those artists a favor, saving their jobs, probably, since sexual harassment laws will get you into a lot of hot water now and displays of porn can easily trigger them.

    But Charles Shultz didn’t do porn. He did Peanuts. And Peanuts was (and is) one of my favorite strips. So if someone sends you that phony strip, send it right back with the notation that it’s a fraud. You can’t undo matters completely. Once toothpaste is out of the tube, you just can’t put it back it. It remembers how tight it was in there, and it just won’t go. But we can at least be on the right side of the fray.

    Now…..who might have done such a thing….altering Shultz’s work to paste in his own anti-Christmas tirade? Oh please please please…..let it not be one of our people! We might forward the strip to our pals, thinking it’s genuine. How would a person know? But…no….don’t let it be that one of ours originated it. I don’t think anyone would, we don’t usually stoop to such tricks, but…..um…well….I mean………..look, there’s nothing about Bible teachings or JW beliefs that make a person fanatical or unbalanced. There isn’t. Bible teachings, when applied, mold a person for good. However, if you already have an unbalanced fanatical bent to your personality, then you’ve found a home among us. Overbearing excess will be chalked up to commendable zeal, and even though your fellow brothers may roll their eyes, they’ll put up with it, knowing that, most likely, you’ll balance out eventually. So I was a little worried that some brother might have done this, probably some firebrand kid.

    Ahhhh…..good! It’s not us. It’s some ‘Jews for Jesus’ type character, as near as I can tell. Here’s the site. Note how he admits, in fact even boasts about, changing that last panel. Now, the next step is, if it lands in your inbox, send it back.

    The reason I smelled a rat is because I knew that Charles Shultz was not against Christmas. And 1965….the date of that strip? That’s the year that the first of many Charlie Brown Christmas specials was released on television. I remember the program. That’s why it’s good to have some years on you. No young person could be expected to spot this fraud. But an old buzzard like me, who’s been around awhile, can nail it, and I did!

    In fact, I begin to suspect that even the strip I took as original, from which that bastardized phony strip was derived……even that strip is a fraud. I snared one dog on the internet, only to find a whole pack of them is on the loose! I’m not sure, but I suspect it. Alas, I have to leave it to someone else to figure that one out, preferably someone with one of those monstrous anthologies of Charlie Brown comic strips and the time required to comb through every page. It’s not easy catching dogs, and for now I’m content with one.

    I suspect the “original” is also phony because, in that 1965 Christmas special, windbag Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas to poor Charlie Brown, and he does it merely by quoting scripture! Luke 2:8-14. Those are verses about Jesus’ birth. He doesn’t say anything at all about 1) Jesus wasn’t born on that day, 2) Jesus never said anything about celebrating his birth, anyway, or 3) the customs associated with with the celebration of Christmas all stem from non-Christian roots. Peanuts creator Charles Shultz gravitated to the sentimental traditional meaning of Christmas, period. The other stuff didn’t bother him. And both the strips I’ve reproduced are set as in a show production, with stage curtain as backdrop…..as if satirizing a television production!

    Yeah!! I’m hot on the scent now! But I’m also worn out. That first dog took a lot out of me. The bitch bit me bad as I tried to muzzle it!! So I’m just going to lay out what I have here as a work in progress, for now, and pursue the rest in an upcoming post.

    [Much later edit: Years later, someone forwarded me the original to confirm my suspicions: the plagiarizes version I corrected was it itself a plagiarism:

    https://youtu.be/WXShaNdyRmQ ]

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  • Why do Bad Things Happen? Revisted

    Sometimes it is necessary to “Skip a bit, brother.” This is what the Monty Python monk said to his fellow who was getting bogged down in the Book of Armaments. Same here. You may have to skip a bit because this is a very undisciplined post. Fortunately, I’ve divided it into three sections to make that easier to do. Skip right to section 3 for an immediate answer to this post’s title. The rest is just meandering to the punch line. Even section 3 has some meandering, but that is because it revolves around a personal experience and I’ve not yet tried to separate the ‘lesson’ from that experience:

     

    (Section 1) We have some characters in the faith. You know who I mean. Bigger than life guys. Everyone likes them, but there's not much finery about them, not much decorum. Was Mickey Spillane one of that group? They tend to be old-timers, younger ones having had the outrageousness refined out of them.

    So here is Herman, for example, giving a talk and he's making the point that people aren't perfect; even in Bethel they have their quirks, and to illustrate, he quotes some Bethelite he knew…..I forget which one….who when he was provoked, would use the word “damn.” “I don't give a damn!” Herman quotes him, drawing the words out.

    Now, you know how when someone says something out of place there will be some nervous tittering in the audience? Well, there is, and Herman takes that as appreciation! So he repackages the line and runs it through again! “I don't give a damn!” He even did it a third time. “I don't give a damn!” Didn't they install a trap door in the platform next day?

    My point, though, is not that repackaging should never be done, but that sometimes it should. And that's what I'm going to do now with a post I wrote about five years ago entitled “Why do Bad Things Happen?” It's buried way back there in the archives….who's going to come across it now? Yet it's among the experiences that got me blogging in the first place. The story it tells really took place, and with only minor modifications, it's an email I sent to a work colleague I was witnessing to from afar. A little light in tone, the way I like to write. So now I've dressed it up a bit, applied lipstick, and am running it through again, just like Herman!

    A caution, however. It will only appeal to persons willing to explore what the Bible says on serious matters. You cannot be too firmly afflicted with "we are wise and learned adults, far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve. Who's next, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?" syndrome. Any discussion on why there is suffering must necessarily touch upon Adam and Eve. You just can't get around it. If you could, I would. It doesn't exactly square with what the scientists say, does it, yet the two stands do nudge closer together over time.

    Moristotle, who is atheist, was firmly in the grip of the above syndrome, and he couldn't stand the post. He almost threw up. He declared it a "fantasy," aspects of which were "utterly repulsive," and the rest "not only not nice at all, nor even adolescent, but simply infantile." Of course, I took his concerns to heart, and wrote a revised post just for him entitled “Why Do Bad Things Happen? Updated for Atheists (Sort Of)” It's just how Paul might have written, I imagine, if he'd been faced with the same audience, in the spirit of “to the atheists I became an atheist.”  (1 Cor 9:19-22)

    Oh how I miss Moristotle! What glorious, spectacular rows we used to have! What creative posts came of it, both on his blog and mine! Moristotle was well-read. And thoughtful. And he had many interests in life. Atheist though he was, he didn't fly the scarlet Atheist letter A on his blog, probably because he knew Nathaniel Hawthorne wouldn't like it. These are the types of atheist you want to talk to, but alas, they don't hang around for too long. They inevitably reflect that this life is short, that it's all there is, that there's many things they yet want to do in it, and do they really want to spend those brief remaining years arguing with an intransigent “theist”? So they exit the stage, and leave only the ideological cranks in their wake, snarlpits of condescension and rudeness, who positively live to argue, who imagine they have a lock on “reason,” and who are so persistently unpleasant that it's hard to endure them for long. Moristotle, different in every respect, was my house atheist for a time, and he never even applied for the position; he just naturally assumed it with his trademark flair and wit. Though even he, if another Witness blogger would chime in on the discussion, would hand him his head on a platter. Alas, he has moved on. They all do. Only the snarlpits remain.

    But we digress. Without further ado, here is that resurrected post, Why Do Bad Things Happen? (Bible reader's version):

     

    (Section 2) Carpooling to work, Bill was pounding me into jelly with non-stop drivel about, of all things, pornography. I was not feeling well, had insufficient sleep and the beginnings of a headache. Jake was either snoozing in the back seat or wisely playing possum. I pretended to be deaf, but Bill was wise to it and kept talking! I considered piercing my eardrums so as to actually be deaf, or breathing in exhaust so as to die, but couldn't muster the nerve.

    It seems there is a certain woman who has forsaken the arts, at which she was successful, to make hard-core pornography, at which she is astoundingly successful, and she has become wealthy. This has caught Bill's attention and it is the subject of the day

    . ….Tom, she was a concert pianist and she was successful. Now she makes hard core porn and she is super-rich. I don't understand how she could do it. I mean, she was not just some loser, but she was a concert pianist. I just can't understand how a concert pianist could give that up and start a new living making hard core pornography. (Jake and I have no trouble understanding it) I think these people in Hollywood are so super-rich and powerful that they just laugh at all the rest of us, with our quaint and backward little bourgeois notions of morality. I mean, maybe this is just the capitalist system…maybe this is just free enterprise. Where's the harm, anyway. I mean, if it doesn't hurt anyone, what is wrong with it, anyway? Why not, if it makes people happy? But what I don't get is how she, who was a concert pianist……now, Bill is very predictable and you can fill in the rest for yourself and not be too far off

    Of course, I don't want to imply that Bill is a regular consumer of hard core porn. I've no reason to believe that, and I don't believe it. Of course not! It is simply today's topic. Actually, the three of us ride together a lot, and women are a frequent topic of discussion. Not obscenely, you understand, and not specifically, but just generically, as a species. Both of these guys defer to me, since I have been married forever, so they assume I know a lot.

    On the job, I resolve not to put up with the same drivel on the drive home. How much can a guy take? But once back in the car, my headache, held at bay during the workshift, returns with a vengeance, and I also begin to feel carsick. Bill, of course, never doubts that I am eagerly awaiting the next phase of his harangue, and picks up where he left off! Desperate measures are called for. 

    …..Hard core porn. I mean, where's the harm in it? Isn't it just our petty ideas of morality, which the super-powerful rich people in Hollywood just laugh at? Tom, I think they just laugh at us. And where is the harm in it?……Without warning, I hit him hard with a right punch: "Bill, don't be an idiot! Of course it's harmful! It interferes with a normal relationship with a woman, because all your thoughts are debased!“ He is not fazed! He keeps coming at me!…Yeah, but…if people don't mind, I mean if they find enjoyment…how can it be harmful? What is really wrong with it? …..I land another hard right! "Damn it, Bill, we just came from the job, where about half of the folks are women. You go back and explain to them how wonderful hard core porn is…see if you can persuade them how it doesn't hurt anyone"……Yes!! If only for a moment, he is stopped. Jake, from the back seat, explodes in laughter….he is beginning to sense a good fight, and he perks up.

    But Bill is far from down and out. He regroups! ……a concert pianist, who used to play the concert piano in front of a concert piano audience! What I don't understand is….

    I feigt with my right, but this time I hit him hard with my left, out of nowhere and completely unexpected! ….."Bill, what really upsets me is that we should die! Why should people die after only 70 or 80 years, when there are some turtles that live 150 years. I'd like to live forever and never die. What do you think of that!!??" (Now, this has nothing to do with anything, but if we must talk, it is going to be on my subject, not porn) ….He staggers! He looks for the gutter, but he has lost the thread of conversation…….After a pause: I don't know why the hell a person would want to live forever, or even just five more minutes on this crappy earth! The way life is today it is not worth living! [He's not a joyful guy, this Bill.] Is this life just some kind of a joke that God is playing on us? I think he must be laughing at us. I mean, what's the purpose of all of this?

    With the right combination of moves, I could dominate this fight. I take a gamble:…..

    "Bill! I could explain it all to you, but I'm not going to because you'll interrupt!" ……Bullseye!!!  Jake splits his sides laughing. "I could explain it to you, but you'll interrupt," he mimics. Bill is speechless. He stumbles a bit, even briefly goes back to the porn star, but it is no good! The subject has been changed. By and by, he asks what is this explanation about the purpose of life.

     

    (Section 3) Could it be? Is he really going to shut up? Gingerly, I lay down a foundation. "The first thing that you've got to understand is that God did not put humans on earth because he wanted them somewhere else. The earth is not a proving ground from which to launch people into heaven or hell. It was meant to be a permanent home, and people were created to live forever on it." Silence. It looks like I may really have his attention!

    "Secondly, Bill, while I am explaining some things, you are going to hear things that you disagree with, but you cannot say so! For example, I will speak about Adam and Eve. You are going to want to say: "I don't believe in Adam and Eve." You cannot say it! You must wait until I am done, see if it hangs together, and then afterwards, if you still want, you can say: I don't believe in Adam and Eve." Again, not a word. It really seems like he is listening, and Jake too, for that matter.

    And with that, I lay out the following scenario for them. And not just for them, but also for whoever reads this. Perhaps it will seem reasonable to you, and perhaps not. Let me know. Having prepared the earth to support physical life, God creates all life we see, including humans. As one perceptive person put it: "As almost a selfless act, to the extent of….I have life, perhaps I will create more life, so others can enjoy it as I do." In a nutshell, it could not be explained much better.

    Still, happy living will depend on their recognition of their Creator's authority, his rightness, the need for obedience to him regarding questions of how to live and how to govern themselves as they grow in number. Not that God's going to control every minute aspect of their lives. Indeed, he has granted them free will. He has not programmed them as one might program robots…they can choose their course. And while that makes a wrong course possible, it also makes a right course so much more meaningful. After all, how meaningful is someone's love if you know they are programmed so they can't behave any other way?

    To some extent the obedience that Adam rightly owes God parallels that of a child toward it's parents. The child for many years will encounter situations with which it is unfamiliar, that only the parents will be able to properly assess. Assuming the parent holds the child's best interests at heart, obedience is therefore a very good thing. Now, the child will one day become the equal of the parent, and the need for obedience fades. Humans will never become the equal of God, so with God the need for obedience never disappears, even though God wants us to continually gain wisdom from experience.

    You may know that the Bible account, in the first three chapters of Genesis (If you haven't read the Bible, fear not. Few people have) says that God puts a tree, called the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, in the garden of Eden, and tells Adam and Eve not to eat from it. And, in no time at all, they do. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that before eating off the tree, the first humans couldn't distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong? Plainly, that cannot be. How would they know it is right to obey the command and wrong to disobey? Nor does the fruit have anything at all to do with sex, as some have been told.

    Back to the prior illustration, one might say that the child looks to the parent for standards as to what is good and what is bad. It is good to eat vegetables, to wash hands, to learn to read, to be in bed not too late. It is bad to play in the street, to eat only candy, to run with scissors, and so forth. But, if the young child were to absolutely rebel, one way to put it poetically would be to say that the child will now decide for itself what is good and bad….it will no longer look to its parents.

    It is in this sense that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad serves to illustrate those first humans rejecting God's right to decide what is right and wrong, good and bad, in favor of making their own rules. By eating from the tree, they are saying that they don't need God telling them what to do, they will decide for themselves! They reject God's sovereignty, his right to rule, his right to set standards. Now, what is God going to do about it?

    Of course, he can flatten them all and start over, or give up on the whole notion of creating humans. That shows who's stronger. But that matter's never been in doubt. The question that has been raised is: who is correct? God or those first people? Can they really govern themselves successfully so that neither God nor anyone else ought interfere, or is self-rule an ability they do not have? Better to settle this question and thus salvage the original project.

    Essentially, God says: Alright…. I say you cannot rule yourselves. You insist you can. Try it. I will give you this much time (hold our you hands about one foot apart, a distance that can represent the time God allows) It will be all the time you will need to make good on your claim. During that time, as you increase in number, you are free to organize and govern yourselves, divide or unite yourselves any way you see fit and can manage. Accept or reject standards I offer, devise your own ways of living, your own economies, your own religions. Discover science, and see if you can harness it to improve your lot. I will not interfere. At the end of that time, we will see if you have been able to make good on your claim of independence.

    Now, as the Bible presents matters, we are nearing the end of that time. We don't have a precise timetable, but we do have many indications that point to this general time period. And, not to deny that there are a few bright spots here and there…people have learned to clean up after their dogs, for instance…but I don't think anyone can point to the overall human record with pride. It's been one long chronicle of butchery and suffering, injustice and poverty, hatred and selfishness, climaxing so that today the question is seriously asked: will humans destroy themselves. We all know of people who choose not to bring children into the world, so inhospitable does it appear.

    So there comes a point when God can say: Enough. Case closed. The question has been answered. He can bring about his own kingdom rule, he can remove those opposed, and he can see his original purpose toward earth come back online. All this without negating the free will he has endowed his creation with, (among the things most people cherish is freedom of choice) and without any permanent damage to those who have suffered in the past, since there is provision of resurrection.

    Furthermore, the issue, once settled, becomes a standard for the future, just as a Supreme Court decision becomes a precedent. Should some future whiner make the same claim about self-rule, the experiment does not have to repeat. In time, since everlasting life is the object, the time spent in self-rule and human suffering recedes and comes to represent an insignificant amount of time, like a bad dream of long ago.

    And then there is some stuff about how conditions will change under kingdom rule, and a little etc, and thus ends my speech.

    Silence. It, or at least parts of it, has struck home.

    But, by and by, Bill cranks up again.

    Now you must understand that, physically, I feel horrible. My headache has gone migraine, and the ride has made me nauseous. When I am later dropped off at the meet spot, I don't get into my car, but instead walk a few laps around the parking lot, trying to steady myself before the drive home.

    The next scene is straight from the movies! How often, after the hero has beaten the foe and has turned his back…exhausted…does that foe…..gasp! Look out!….impossibly rise up for one last blow, which will surely find its mark except for the completely unexpected intervention of some third party….say, the woman in distress, or a bad guy just turned good, or an up-to-this-time ambiguous character. And so it is that way in the car!

    ……What I don't understand, Bill says, is what is the purpose of all this suffering…. how can God allow all of……

    Jake comes to the rescue!!! "Bill, Tom just explained all of that!! he says. Weren't you listening?" ….Bill next says something about evolution, and again it is Jake: "Wait! he says. This is something I can chime in on. I used to believe in evolution but I don't anymore…not because of religion, but because of science. Evolution doesn't make any sense because of"……and he starts into a discussion on DNA and some other science things. Thus the two of them talk for awhile, while I try to nurse my head and stomach, hoping I do not die. [I did not]

    There is an epilogue. A week or two later, about ten of us were at another jobsite. From the other side of the area, I can hear Bill complaining to someone: …….What I don't understand is what is the purpose of this life. Is this some sort of joke that God is playing? Is he just laughing at us…….."Bill! I interject, I explained all that to you…don't be carrying on as if you don't have a clue!" My ally, Jake, roars with laughter." He did!" Jake says. "It made sense, too! Don't worry, Tom, I believe you!"

    So I'm batting 500. It could be worse.

    ************************

    ******  The bookstore

     

     

     

  • “Because Then You Will Find the Culprits”

    In late 2008, trashing bankers was the way to go, what with the huge economic breakdown….a breakdown which has lately rekindled, this time with Europe the flashpoint. I have no great love for bankers, so I hopped aboard.

    “Hi. We're speaking today about a group of people no one likes,” I began my house-to-house presentation. “Bankers.”

    The householder replied: “I'm a banker.”

    “No, no, no, I'm not talking about you…” I backpedaled. “I mean big-time bankers!”

    “I'm a big-time banker,” she pursued. “So are all my family.” For crying out loud! What are the chances? Believe me, there was nothing about the street to suggest big-time bankers lived there. Frankly, I still think she was pulling my leg, but you won't have to stretch your mind too far to picture that the call sort of fizzled.

    My companion was mortified. He still brings it up to suggest how embarrassed I must have been. But I wasn't. Light and semi-flippant is the way I like to go; that way you can readily retract if you see you've missed your mark. It's exactly the right tone to cut through apathy, or cynicism, or dullness, and we have a lot of that here in the United States. Plus, if you find you've come across a sincere person, you can immediately modify your tone. This won't work everywhere; it might not even work in most places, but in the U.S.A, at least where I live, it's just right, at least for me. It doesn't work for Mrs. Sheepandgoats, but then, her approach doesn't work for me. We all have to make the most of the personalities we're stuck with.

    I was aiming that day to speak of security, specifically financial security, since it didn't seem to exist just then. Remember, the whole world was on the edge, said the Economist, a condition which is being revisited as I write, except blasé people say “been there, done that.” and pay much less attention than three years prior. But I was trying to nudge folks into discussion of Isaiah 65:21-23:

    And they will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat [their] fruitage. They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating. For like the days of a tree will the days of my people be; and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full. They will not toil for nothing, nor will they bring to birth for disturbance….

    Many people sense today that they are building and planting so that someone else can live the good life. Protesters are camping out right now on Wall Street and major U.S. cities, angry about the top 1% of the population controlling 99% of the wealth. President Obama is preaching for all he is worth about creating jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Is it an ill omen for him that even Steve Jobs just died? So it seemed that folks might be receptive to this Bible promise recorded in Isaiah, that under God's Kingdom rule, they will see good for their hard work, rather than finding they just dig themselves deeper into a hole while someone else sees good for it.

    Recall three years ago that the banks had just been “bailed out.” They'd been given massive cash transfers, funded by the taxpayers, and taxpayers weren't happy about it. Would anyone bail them out of their money troubles? Or would those banks, now that they had been saved, go easy on the small fry indebted to them? Not a bit of it! Instead, they began tossing people from their homes, as the housing market collapsed, jobs withered, and folks fell far behind in their mortgages. Yes, they booted them out right and left until someone uncovered a law that said you actually had to read documents you were signing when someone's home was at stake. Banks weren’t doing that. They were robo-signing! The courts said they could no longer carry on like that. So they had to hire people to actually read the stuff, which slowed them down a bit. But only temporarily.

    Doesn't this just make your blood boil! Doesn't it call to mind Matt 18:23-34?

    …..the kingdom of the heavens has become like a man, a king, that wanted to settle accounts with his slaves. When he started to settle them, there was brought in a man who owed him ten thousand talents [60,000,000 denarii]. But because he did not have the means to pay [it] back, his master ordered him and his wife and his children and all the things he had to be sold and payment to be made. Therefore the slave fell down and began to do obeisance to him, saying, ‘Be patient with me and I will pay back everything to you.’ Moved to pity at this, the master of that slave let him off and canceled his debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves that was owing him a hundred denarii; and, grabbing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back whatever you owe.’ Therefore his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Be patient with me and I will pay you back.’ However, he was not willing, but went off and had him thrown into prison until he should pay back what was owing. When, therefore, his fellow slaves saw the things that had happened, they became very much grieved, and they went and made clear to their master all the things that had happened. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘Wicked slave, I canceled all that debt for you, when you entreated me. Ought you not, in turn, to have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I also had mercy on you?’

    As one senator (Ron Paul) pointed out, since the total bank bailouts eventually came to $17,000 per person, with no discernable economic benefit, you might have just given the money directly to the individual Americans. The results could hardly have turned out worse, and might well have turned out better. Debts would have been paid down, new purchases made, small businesses started. So that's why I led off with my “bankers” presentation. It's not something I would ordinary do.

    By the way, whatever became of Winged Migration Man? Was he hurt by the collapse? It hit retired folks especially hard. WMM used to comment here a lot, and I cherished his comments. They were witty, they never agreed with me, yet they were always respectful. But his last one showed discouragement. He wrote: (first comment on this post)

    Tom, Sheep and Goats,

    The present debacle ….has devastated many an unsuspecting individual who had been led to believe his house would continue to appreciate and his 401K was as safe and as dependable as the tide, and unfortunately it is not over yet. This hard working individual who was probably reared to believe that the system of Free Enterprise and Capitalism would allow him to achieve what most folks felt was the American dream…..I do trust that those of you out there that read this blog know that I hope you all will recover from this financial downturn that has developed.

    I know, I know. In these days of massive instability, a person can do much worse than merely suffer financial loss, no matter how large. Still, this crisis hurt good, decent people. I hope he made out okay.

    So I was all excited to hear of an upcoming film Inside Job Inside Jobwhich was to expose the fraudsters behind that 2008 collapse. When it hit the theaters here in Rochester, I did what I never ever ever do. I went to see it without waiting for the DVD release, or at the very least, for it to hit the cheap theaters! But amazingly, it only played here for a week, and it was gone! I had to go to Buffalo to see it, and even there it played only in a couple second-run movie houses. This seemed so odd to me that I theorized conspiracies had to be at work! ME! Tom Sheepandgoats, who never goes in for that kind of thinking! Not that I don't think that people aren't low enough to conspire; they're easily low enough. I just don't think they're smart enough. You have to be able to keep your stories straight for any conspiracy to remain hidden.

    The film no one saw went on to win that year's academy award for best documentary. Director Charles Ferguson, accepting his prize, delivered the only serious line that entire star-studded silly night: “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong!” The movie's doing well in rentals, in contrast to its initial debut, and I highly recommend it. In fact, I'll review it soon. And in the spirit of movies…..here's a teaser preview:

    CHARLES FERGUSON: Why do you think there isn't a more systematic investigation being undertaken?

    NOURIEL ROUBINI (professor, NYU Business School): Because then you will find the culprits.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me               No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash