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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. The issue of the proper response of the non-fascist part of America Christianity has been brought up. Since this so much of this board claimed to be reformed Bush republicans, I presume that a good number of this board was saying the same stuff about moderate Muslims during the height of the War on Terror. It can be a fair question to ask, but as we saw during the anti-Muslim fervor, it’s a short walk from fair questions to naked bigotry. Regarding the core issue raised, I deeply resent what this movement has done to both my country and the church. I’m pretty conservative theologically, and in my view, this false gospel is damaging the mission of the church even more than the country. Mixing religion and government damages both. I’m not sure how it can be fixed. There’s a social phenomenon that can happens in certain churches. I call it faith chicken, where the more extreme view, the view in need of more faith to believe, becomes the default view by virtue of the social need to appear faithful. I haven’t witnessed this in every church, or even most churches, but I think this plays a role in what’s happening in certain groups. It’s self-reinforcing madness. Regarding the role of religion in our society, we’re largely biblically illiterate these days — believer and non-believer alike. Even those that can drop a timely verse are often filtering it through a very narrow theological background. That’s a shame not only for the church, but also everyone’s ability to engage with our history and culture. The non-believer is missing out on the richness of so much of the important works of our culture; the believer misses out on the same richness of the world but has also replaced their faith with a caricature. Everyone would be well-served with at least one good, deep pass through the Bible — not to find something to dunk on your political enemies, engage in the culture war, or even come to faith, but to just understand what’s in it. It’s an amazing peek into the thinking of our ancient past as well as the framework for so much that came after it.
  2. I kept waiting for the gotcha with the pudding incident and was left wanting. I see nothing wrong with commitment to the snack pack. For me at least, it goes on the pro side of the pro/con ledger.
  3. Duke, Auburn, TCU, NC State, Providence, USC, VCU, Boise St.
  4. Mole

    Rodney Terry

    I nominate ROFL BOX to keep the 20k safe.
  5. We homeschool our kid. Some families that homeschool love to talk curriculum. One family that we are close with has used ABEKA at least in part, so they showed us some of the materials. I looked through them with great care and interest and an open mind. The thought of educating my child with that nonsense broke my heart. It was horrifying — not because of its religious-based worldview — but because it was preposterously dumbed down. It is whatever you call the opposite of education. It’s easy to get wrapped up in what facts are taught and miss the bigger picture of what an education is. Education should of course get the basic facts right, but there are more important issues. ABEKA sucks because it condescends to the child. Whether it’s worldview is grounded in reality or a modern fundamentalist fantasy is mostly irrelevant. Even if the particular biblical interpretation behind their materials were 100% accurate to reality, ABEKA would still be the worst.
  6. Anger with God is the subject of many of the Psalms as well. Psalm 10: Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts about the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
  7. https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/why-asbury-university-decided-to-end-revival-services-this-week/
  8. A few semi-related and possibly contradictory points: 1. For some time, my hope has been a wave of repentance to sweep through the American church. Both personal repentance and corporate repentance. What a thing it would be to honestly see the harm I’ve personally caused and to change my life? And if that happened on a large scale? And then, what a thing it would be for churches to do the same — to reflect on the harm we’ve caused and change? Everyone has a different idea of what we need to repentant from, and it’s usually mostly about what someone else or some other church needs to turn from — “they’re” too hateful, “they’ve” strayed from sound doctrine, but what would happen if Christians actually considered their own sins and their collective sins rather than the sins of others? Something about the log and the speck, or maybe straining out gnats. If the gospel is true, all of it — the redemption and a spiritual enemy trying to undermine it — then surely the greatest way to undermine it is to turn Christians into selfish and self-righteous people no witness. The only way to combat that is massive and widespread repentance. 2. That being said, there’s a bit of an impossible situation here. Any movement or idea that gains enough traction will attract grifters and cynics. Take any movement that you support; the other side loves to point all of the hypocrisy because this or that shady person. Of course the grifters and Christian nationalists will try to glom onto this. That doesn’t negate what may be happening any more than any other movement. That the Christian nationalists are trying to make this about themselves doesn’t mean the moment isn’t valid or that it’s being crushed. It’s just the typical noise found with any cultural phenomenon. They may be noisy, and they surely cause outsized harm, but they are still small and unimportant. 3. I appreciate how it seems like the Asbury leadership has handled this. Give space for it to happen, but keep it mostly for the kids. We need their voice. For as much as people complain about Gen Z, I’m a fan. They might just be the antidote to our present day madness.
  9. Having watched their president speak at one of their services after this all started, he seems to be doing this for the right reasons. He seems like a humble, decent man. They are handling this as well as could be expected. I’ve seen a few things where the nationalists have tried to use this, but nothing suggesting that they are actually involved in any meaningful way — just some sad sacks from a distance shouting, “look at me!” That’s to be expected, even with a genuine movement, and it shouldn’t detract from what’s happening. Perhaps the revival will lead the nationalists to repent from their wicked ideology? Or maybe God has already give them over to a depraved mind. I get that “Jesus save America” has become the Christian nationalist thing, but it’s also pretty common among the rest of Christians. You don’t have to be a believer to recognize that our culture is deeply broken. There may be disagreements on what are the broken parts (the non-believers are more often right imo), but we all know that something is wrong. If you believe that Jesus transforms hearts and minds, it seems like spiritual revival would be a good starting point — “Jesus, save America.” One problem with the nationalists is that they don’t actually believe that, so they use Jesus as a weapon for their own power. But hoping for a spiritual movement that will lead to Godly wisdom — pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of good works — well, Jesus save America. Revival starts with repentance, so there’s your test on who is being spiritually transformed and who is cynically using this. Honestly, if we all took a few weeks off to sing songs together — even really terrible songs — and consider the needs of those around us we’d all be much better for it. If that’s all that happens here, that seems like a good thing.
  10. Different genre, century, country, and all, but it’s no doubt a song and certainly has no words:
  11. Westerburg was the first name that came to mind, but after thinking about it, my top 3 have to be Townes, Willie, and Stevie. The second name that came to mind was Victoria Williams. Her voice is an acquired taste — the female Neil Young — but her songs are beautiful.
  12. Pornographic is a stretch; maybe vaguely pornographic? Or just go with the classic term, dirty. I’m not up on today’s LGTBQ comic books — I’m a Richie Rich fan myself — but if the posted pages are representative, inclusion in any kind of modern canon seems to be a big stretch as well. It reads like a comic book version of Dawson’s Creek.
  13. The most valuable form of education, you say. Boot camp for the brain, you say. Must be Marine Corps boot camp. Also, I always though business school was for people with no discernible skills.
  14. Your post is almost Gatto-like: faculty.bard.edu/hhaggard/teaching/sci127Sp20/notes/GattoSevenLessonSchoolteacher.pdf The first chapter/essay/screed lays it out pretty clearly, the seven things schools teach: 1. Confusion 2. Class position/hierarchy 3. Indifference 4. Emotional dependency 5. Intellectual dependency 6. Provisional self-esteem 7. Constant surveillance Gatto isn’t always 100% right, but he’s usually not wrong and points out some big picture, systemic things that are broken in education. Even the way we think and discuss education is wrapped up in this broken system. Schools may be filled with wonderful teachers, but the system is filling kids’ heads with a bizarre view of what an education should be. It’s a bizarre view that we were all taught, so we don’t even see how preposterous it is. Regarding public schools teaching media literacy and critical thinking, you can rant and rave on how it should be, but anything that can be politicized will be, so make alternative plans just in case.
  15. It may have been an accurate depiction of the moronic discussion going on here, but it was a dumb thread title then (because it was a moronic question) and it still is, certainly for the catch-all KD thread.
  16. I’m not saying he’s wrong and there’s obviously a difference, but it feels strange when hip hop artists get protective of their intellectual property. Historically, the genre is built on extensive borrowing with little to no concern for copyright. Again, he’s not wrong but it’s a little odd considering where the music came from. Also, music copyright law as it currently exists is insane and completely divorced from how music is and has ever been made. It’s a completely broken system. Music copyright lawsuits are typically pages of nonsense filled with incorrectly used jargon to dazzle non-musicians into making terrible conclusions.
  17. Semi-hard question: how is 33% calculated? By usage? Total offering? Total memory used? Length of videos? I can think of about 50 ways to plug numbers in to calculate some percentage. I’m no IT whiz, but it doesn’t seem like it’d hard for long to game the system to get that number to go down.
  18. I lived in Denton some years back. At the time, it had most of what I loved about old Austin (whatever old Austin is). The old timers complained that everything had changed. It had certainly changed, but they also got old. I haven’t been back to Austin in about 10 years, but the last time I visited, it felt old and stodgy, nothing like the cool fun place where I went to college. Strangely, I was also older and stodgier and nothing like the cool fun person I imagine I was in college. Austin traffic sucked when I was in college. Everything was overcrowded then. I’m sure it’s worse now, but it was terrible then too. I’m way less patient with terrible traffic these days though. I’ll take everyone’s word that Austin isn’t as cool or fun as it used to be, but direct observation tells me that we’re not as cool or fun either. That’s ok.
  19. Learning that I can leave negative reviews of all of the people don’t like is a Festivus miracle. My holiday just got a lot busier
  20. Update for the perplexed: 1. Fight broke out over this year’s matching jammies. He wanted Elf; she wanted Rudolf. Things got heated. 2. She has recanted, which is evidence that Beard is a violent abuser. 3. All wounds (on both sides) were probably self-inflicted. It was a weird fight. 4. He’s definitely gone, unless he isn’t fired before some deadline I just made up in my head, in which case he will be back in mid-January. 5. Bag-men have found a new line of business in the NIL world. 6. Youth volleyball is very, very serious.
  21. Regarding breast feeding vs formula, the research is an exercise in selection bias. The last time I checked a few years ago, the only studies that controlled well for population only showed minor differences — like one less case of diarrhea per year. The rest of the studies successfully showed that wealthy, well-educated parents will be more likely to have good outcomes for their children. The parenting-industrial complex — a powerful network of busy-body sister-in-laws, “breast is best” touting nurses, and mommy blog superstars, all armed with shaky research they don’t understand and an ever-growing body of parenting books — love to scare and belittle new parents. My advice to new parents is to ignore this insidious force and just love their new kid.
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