Ground Zero Sum

An Old Old Story: Ground Zero Sum by An Old Old Story

[soundcloud link; via An Old Old Story; HT: Experimental Theology]

Postponing by Predicting?

“It has been taught that three things come when the mind is diverted: The Messiah, finding a lost article and a scorpion.

So don’t postpone his coming by thinking about it![ii]”

I was taught as a young man that we can speed up the coming of Christ by reaching the whole world with His message. Now here, the writing of Jesus’ colleagues suggest that there are also ways we can slow it down.{emphasis in original}

Can this be true?

And if so, why?

....If we expect things, we tend to handle them. Our humanity wants to handle God. We secretly hope to force Him into some kind of deal. Deadlines and deals seem to go hand in hand.

But God is not only unimaginable. He is also unmanageable.

[via BROOKE GALE LUBY WRITES, HT: comment at this post at Jesus Needs New PR]

[via Slacktivist]

Disappointment, despair and Harold Camping

Not Overlooking the Obvious

HT: Brain Pickings, noticed here



[from The Jubilee Project]

Rebuilding

[via FutureShorts]



[YouTube link; Vimeo link]

For more about it: The Madman and the Cathedral

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

[via Religion Dispatches]

Not Just "Surrection"

Passover and Easter have brought forth a miracle: Uncle Jay explaining the news without once mentioning Sandra Bullock, 24, the iPad, or trained dragons playing hoops. The rest is the good stuff. Haha, April Fool!



[via UncleJayExplains]

"All God's Children Are Not Beautiful"



{the poem "Homogeneous" by Ladonna Witmer)

The Way We Are(Fleming & John)

Would I need ya if I got amnesia?
Would you be the one for me if I lost my memory?
And would I look at you the way that I used to?
Would I fall in love all over again,
Or would I have to pretend?

Are we gonna stay the way we are?
Are we gonna break and fall apart?
Are we gonna make it when our love is tested?
Are we gonna stay the way we are?
I don't wanna break and fall apart,
Are we gonna make it through the shark infested water?
Hearts entrusted to each other

And I don't know what I'd do,
If I found out you were untrue.
Would I find it in my heart to forgive?
Would I be able to forget?

Will I be beautiful?
Or will I just be a fool?
Can you keep me fresh and young?
What if I make you deaf and dumb?

Are we gonna stay the way we are?
Are we gonna break and fall apart?
Are we gonna make it when our love is tested?
Are we gonna stay the way we are?
I don't wanna break and fall apart,
Are we gonna make it through the shark infested water?
Hearts entrusted to each other

Can we still have adventures,
When we're old and wear dentures?
Will you kiss me on the lips?
Do you think we'll dance with our plastic hips?
And when you look at me,
Will you see the girl you met when you were nineteen?
Will you see a lady with a limber heart,
Swimming in the water with the sharks?

Are we gonna stay the way we are are?
Are we gonna break and fall apart?
Are we gonna make it when our love is tested?
Are we gonna stay the way we are?
I don't wanna break and fall apart,
Are we gonna make it through the shark infested water?
Hearts entrusted to each other

Father Matthew on Pat Robertson, Demonization and Christ

[via A New Anglican's Journey]

Still Earth-Shattering

Way back when, in 1994 when I was in Elementary school I remember hearing about the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that shook the Northridge area of California. I remember seeing the scenes of overpasses dropped onto traffic below, pavement cracked revelaing deep crevasses in the earth and buidlings turned to rubble. I remember thinking, this was devastation. {continue...}

[via withmyowntwohands, HT: IdeaJoy]

Obligation to Overspend...

A topic on the minds of many at this time of year is, “How am I going to pay off the credit card bill this time?” If you’ve put yourself into a hole by overspending at Christmas, you’re not alone. You’ve got social expectations to meet, and if your pocketbook doesn’t live up to your sense of generosity, you’ll find yourself in a hole. You’re also going to need a plan to climb out, especially if you’ve never been good at money management. {more...}

[via Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff- Site News]

After Sending A "Christ" Mas(s) Letter:

To the religious right Christmas culture warriors{read more than the title...}

[via Bene Diction Blogs On]

Lying about Santa: The Irrelevance of Proof to the Holiday Spirit

[via Religion Dispatches]

[via Levellers]

The Rebel Jesus and Lyrics: The Christians and the Pagans

Minority Report

How would you feel if I told you that a country was passing a law that would severely restrict the rights and freedoms of Christians? That the government of a country, which was entirely controlled by followers of another religion had decided to band together and do something about the “Christian threat”? What if they published the names of people they suspected to be Christians in the newspaper, and encouraged the public to harm them or refuse to associate with them? What if they passed a law so that if you were caught practicing your faith in your own home you could be thrown in jail for 7 years? What if they made it a law that if your neighbour found out you were a Christian they were forced to report it to the police or face 3 years in prison themselves? What if that law had a provision in it that if you were caught multiple times you could be put to death?

How would you feel? Angry? Sad? Would you be motivated to do something about it? Would you ask your member of parliament or senator to approve sanctions against the country treating your Christian brothers and sisters in such a way? What would you do?

Now stop. Because it IS really happening right now. In Uganda.

But there is one difference, which is why you probably haven’t heard about it.{continue...}

[via Bridging the Gap]

The Boob Tube: The problematic new ad from Rethink Breast Cancer

[via ABOUT-FACE-blog]

Inclusive or Inciting?

[via Orcinus in this post]



[Also, for a counterpoint: The Paranoid Center, via Reason Magazine]

Related:

Injustice and civility cannot coexist. Being civil is a function of being free. When our discourse abuses freedom by demeaning others, it is something that affects not only the freedom of those tho[sic] whom it is directed, it affects the freedom of those who make such utterances.

Justice is a holistic concept. When one person suffers injustice in a civil society, all suffer injustice because the system has been broken. Those within such a system are now captive to their own need to exert power over others....

It is no longer civil because our discourse does not serve the end of living together and working together so that we all may prosper. It is a discourse tearing this down as it incites division and hostility only for a small minority to serve their own selfish gain.

The key to what we wish to be is that to which we direct our attention and hence that which we consume. If we want to achieve truth, beauty, and goodness, then these are what we need to consume. Listening to the poison thereby consuming it gives it power. When we attend to something we feed it. Perhaps it's time to fast. {full post}

[via Notes From Off-Center]

Not Just Expanding Territory...

..."trespassed."

That's not Lou Dobbs' preferred word for illegal immigration, since we don't tend to think of trespassing as a particularly menacing form of crime and people like Dobbs -- the CNN anchor fearfully obsessed with illegal immigration from Mexico -- want to portray these aliens as more of a threat than the word "trespasser" seems to convey.

But there's another reason you won't hear that word from Dobbs or from his role models on Fox News or the other members of the frantically xenophobic anti-immigrant mob, like the birthers, deathers and tea-baggers or the demagogues who stoke their cowardly anger, like drop-out Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or South Carolina's Rep. Addison Graves Hansen Huntington Wegener Ricketts Parkinson "Joe" Wilson* -- the congressman who said he was overwhelmed by his emotions when he heard the president excluding illegal immigrants with what he regarded as insufficient viciousness. ("You lie!" Wilson shouted, after Obama said illegal immigrants would not receive federally funded health insurance under his health care reform plan. Obama's statement was true, but Wilson fears such immigrants might not also be aggressively prohibited from purchasing private health insurance, and the idea of them doing so keeps him tossing and turning all night.)

The main reason that none of these Very Angry, Very Scared people wants to use the word "trespass" is that it reminds them of church.

There's this prayer we Christians say in church, at every service, whenever we get together....{full post}

[via slacktivist]

Discovering Alex Jones: The Failure of the New World Order and the Problems with Americacentric Biblical Interpretation

[via Exploring Our Matrix]