matching tracksuits

Unfortunately Predictable

Monday 12 June 2023

I'm reading Is God a Vindictive Bully? by Paul Copan, which purports to square the "genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence" in the Old Testament with the seemingly different deity presented in the New Testament in the form of Jesus. I've tried to go into this with an open mind; I've tried to avoid presumptions and judgments before I read. But by page six, he's already making moves that put the argument exactly where I anticipated:

Consider a "golden rule" of interpretation: treat another's writing as you yourself would want your own writing to be treated. This doesn't mean being naive or uncritical; it does mean being charitable and fair as we honestly examine challenges in the text.
Is God a Vindictive Bully, 6.

Why would I treat the Bible the same as other documents? Christians claim it is the word of God: they claim that it's not like other ancient documents, and if it's written by a deity, it isn't like other documents. Why treat a supposed god's words with kid gloves? Why do I need to be "charitable and fair"? Wouldn't a god do a better job than a human writing a document?

This hints at a problem I know will appear in this book: how does the tension between "God composed this book" and "humans physically wrote it down" resolve? No Christian would deny that humans wrote the actual physical Bible: it didn't just float down from heaven. However, they also claim that it is of divine origin. Humans, they insist, were just the instrument. The actual composition is God's. However, when apologists start using historical context to explain something, they have immediately removed the composition from God's purview and made the Bible a strictly-human document. It's coming--I know it is.

Random Picture for Today

Family Ride

Sunday 11 June 2023

It's been a while since K joined E and me on a bike ride. (What about L? When it comes to cycling, forget about L: biking is not her thing anymore, and we're not going to try to force that on her. )

We headed south to Hickory Knob State Park, which has a six-mile bike trail that winds along beside a lake. Only 300 feet of climbing, so it seemed like something K would be comfortable with. After all, she's on a suspension-less hybrid bike with 32mm tires: it's not going to do well at a lot of the places E and I like.

We got started, took a few pictures along the way, found a turtle in the middle of the trail (rescued it), rounded a bend in the trail to discover huge, dark clouds just a few hundred feet from us.

We knew it might start raining: it was in the forecast. But we hoped it might hold out, that we might survive with a few sprinkles.

Within a few minutes, it wasn't sprinkling; it wasn't raining; it was a monsoon.

What else could we do except continue pedaling?

One-Picture Day

Saturday 10 June 2023

With all the mowing, trimming, cutting, hauling, collecting, sorting -- this is all I've got for the day: the bushes I assaulted with a trimmer.

Pride

Friday 09 June 2023

Conservative Christians on social media are having fits about Pride Month. They like to point out that pride was, in their view, the original sin of the angels. Never mind that this notion owes more to Milton and Paradise Lost than to anything in the Bible -- once something gets in the conservative Christian psyche, it's hard to shake it out.

But no conservative Christian is as upset about Pride Month as Catholics, because June is dedicated to the "Sacred Heart of Jesus." Conservative Catholics are upset about this, suggesting Catholics need to "reclaim the month."

I'm curious how they see this working exactly. Do they expect that in "reclaiming the month," they can convince masses of people to abandon Pride Month and embrace this idea? Most non-Catholic Christians have never heard of this notion of the "Scared Heart of Jesus." They might ask, "What about his other internal organs? Is there a month of the Sacred Spleen of Jesus, too?"

The Catholic Culture website explains it thusly:

Understood in the light of the Scriptures, the term "Sacred Heart of Jesus" denotes the entire mystery of Christ, the totality of his being, and his person considered in its most intimate essential: Son of God, uncreated wisdom; infinite charity, principal of the salvation and sanctification of mankind. The "Sacred Heart" is Christ, the Word Incarnate, Saviour, intrinsically containing, in the Spirit, an infinite divine-human love for the Father and for his brothers.
"Month of the Sacred Heart"

I don't think it will sell in 2023...

Berries Approaching

Thursday 08 June 2023

Soon -- very soon...

Pressuring Washing Monopoly Blueberries

Wednesday 07 June 2023

There is a tsunami approaching: we got the first hints today. Hidden here and there among the pale blue berries are a few dark, ripe ones. There were not many this morning, but there were enough to fill a small cup. What awaits us, though, is overwhelming -- in the most positive way, to be sure, but overwhelming nonetheless.

We picked them after we spent a bit of time blasting off the last bit of paint on the ramp that leads to our side entrance.

It was the ramp we built to help us get Nana and Papa into their new quarters a little over four years ago. We don't have much need for it now -- we could survive with a simple path and a couple of steps, but of course, we would never go through the time and expense of taking out the ramp and putting in a walkway in. As with the walk-in shower, it's a reminder of a time now gone, of family now gone, of times never to return.

And so, as if almost in an unconscious effort to make the most of the times we have together, we did something we haven't done as a family in a while: play a board game. L, of course, won -- she almost always wins. The Boy came in last, as he frequently and sadly does. K and I, not worrying about who's winning or losing as the game progresses, end up in the middle.

A perfect evening in the middle of the week. We need more of them.

Paint Peeling

Tuesday 06 June 2023

We'll definitely be doing some repainting this summer...

Prayer Before Praying

Monday 05 June 2023

Nothing could epitomize better the sense of worthlessness that Catholicism instills in its believers than this "prayer before praying." In it, the penitent admits that even when praying, when doing what the god of the Bible commands, he's a worthless pile of nonsense, and without a little bit of Jesus' blood smeared on his lips, he would say the most outrageous things...

But then there's the eternal problem with such things: if there should be a prayer before praying, shouldn't there be a prayer before praying the prayer before praying? And logically, shouldn't there be a prayer before praying the prayer before praying the prayer before praying? If nothing I say is worth saying without praying beforehand, and even that prayer is not worthy of anything other than scorn because I'm some useless shit of a sinner, shouldn't I just play it safe and keep my mouth shut?