February 2012 Screwballs

[Challenger Grim]

Just because the guy seems happy doesn't mean that he really is. My uncle was well-liked for the same reasons - yet was married three times, all ending in failure. Phillip Yancey tells of a friend who was always confident and outgoing, etc. in What's So Amazing About Grace (IIRC) who it turns out was a closet homosexual and desperately unhappy in his Christian marriage. People like that also sometimes commit suicide - their happiness on the outside masked desperate internal struggles. Since he goes after women, he may be happy, but he's not content - and therein lies a key difference. Sin IS fun, but only for a season. It cannot bring contentment, but is always grasping for more. Joy is not just a surface happiness, but is rooted in contentment, and cannot be dampened no matter the trials we go through. And I don't see what your co-worker is doing is wise in any sense whatsoever.

What I was going to say. Remember that Jesus doesn't promise us an easy life. (after all, did He have one?) And for further support of OBP's point, look up sometime "Tucker Max Gets Down with Empathy".

It has some gems from an interview he did like:

I was a star. I went farther than I’d ever thought I’d go, and I thought that would be more than enough to make me happy, and it wasn’t.

So I had to kind of take a step back and realize, ‘I have everything I thought I’d ever wanted and I’m not happy, so that means, maybe I need to look at myself.’ Maybe I need to figure some of this stuff out. If everything external is great, and there’s still internal problems, then you have to think then there must be an internal cause.

…There’s an emptiness and a loneliness to hooking up so much. You don’t notice it or care, when you’re below a certain age, or a narcissist. But once you develop empathy, once you develop a soul, the loneliness and the emptiness become too much. The negatives start to outweigh the positives.

[Sparko]

Sounds like Teluog's friend is a sociopath.

[Chaotic Void]

What OBP said. One characteristic of its Christian tradition is that all its restaurants are closed on Sundays.

The food, I should mention, is amazing.



Don't let heretics like Benson deprive you of life.

Eh, we don't have Chick Fil-a up here in Canada.

OTOH, we have Chicken Chef.

[One Bad Pig]

Screwball quote on my intranet:

A mistake is simply another way of doing things. - Katharine Graham

I have no idea how someone thought this was inspirational. It's not like I'm working for the government.

[Rayado]

Let's see how many tries it takes Rayado to post this in the right thread...

Big, big, big--possibly Platinum--screwball for this insanity at Eddie Long's church where they...crown him king.

And carry him around on a throne.

At least the author of the article succinctly summarized all the screwy things for us.

[jpholding]

Email:

All the rhetoric
And rituals and dogma
Leave this second generation pk cold


Exclusion is the benchmark of denominations
I thought Christ came to show us a better way

But of course. And that better way is....making bad haiku.

[Benson Shays]

Well he could have round 2 on the existence of God with Mike's son-in-law. He should have no problem with that. After all, I'm just an idiotic disabled failure who will fail in apologetics entirely. Dealing with me should be easy.

Pity him though if he says something like that around Mrs. Phoenix.

I wanted to post your challenge on his blog, but he banned me.

[Raphael]

Just because the guy seems happy doesn't mean that he really is. My uncle was well-liked for the same reasons - yet was married three times, all ending in failure. Phillip Yancey tells of a friend who was always confident and outgoing, etc. in What's So Amazing About Grace (IIRC) who it turns out was a closet homosexual and desperately unhappy in his Christian marriage. People like that also sometimes commit suicide - their happiness on the outside masked desperate internal struggles. Since he goes after women, he may be happy, but he's not content - and therein lies a key difference. Sin IS fun, but only for a season. It cannot bring contentment, but is always grasping for more. Joy is not just a surface happiness, but is rooted in contentment, and cannot be dampened no matter the trials we go through. And I don't see what your co-worker is doing is wise in any sense whatsoever.

Something that Piper points out in his book Desiring God is that happiness and joy aren't synonyms. Happiness is an emotion that is dependant on each situation. Joy is something deeper. You can have joy in times of great sadness and tragedy. You can have joy in times of great suffering. You can't have happiness in those situations.

And if you don't have real joy, then your happiness is at best superficial.

[ukchristian28]

Atheist Youtuber scotttebben thinks he has religious people pegged:

Religious folks are willful participants in a non ending role playing game where the king has supernatural powers. The game entails the players to submit all freedom of inquiry and abandon their critical faculties for the game to feel real. Along with decoupled cognition, it is the most important aspect of the game, as the game cannot be played with out it. All unwilling players or spectators who are not engaged in the game or may have chosen an alternative fantasy role playing group to participate in, must be ridiculed or threatened with the games penalties. This entails using the players fears along with social abandonment to manipulate those who may otherwise not participate. Penalties also ensure the game continues unhindered by malcontents. A loss of players would jeopardize the games standing. Using decoupled cognition, the rule book containing game history along with the players own imagination, they can endlessly interact with the king who resides in a magical realm.

Religions are organizations where ignorant gullible people can support their irrational views, behaviors and wishes by direct approval of others who share their callow fantasy and mental inability.

My friend KabanetheChristian responds:

Atheism is a sophisticated game where the participants simultaneously hold to a position which necessitates that truth is meaningless, while at the same time trying to spread their position "because it is true." It also involves a willful denial of the obvious immaterial reality which permeates the world. The participants must declare everyone who disagrees with them stupid. The goal is to try to remain sane and keep at least one friend in the process.

[Challenger Grim]

I missed this last month but screwball to UK "ethicist" Dr. Anna Smajdor

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bra...-use-artificia

LifeSiteNews

NORWICH, U.K., January 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In remarks that critics have said are disturbingly reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s famous dystopian novel “Brave New World,” a UK ethicist has argued that since pregnancy causes “natural inequality” between the sexes, women must be liberated from the “burdens and risks of pregnancy” through the use of “ectogenesis”, or artificial wombs.

“Pregnancy is a condition that causes pain and suffering, and that affects only women. The fact that men do not have to go through pregnancy to have a genetically related child, whereas women do, is a natural inequality,” writes Dr. Anna Smajdor in an article that recently appeared in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.

“If there were a disease that caused symptoms and risks similar to those caused by pregnancy, I contend that it would be regarded as being fairly serious, and that we would have good reasons to try to insure against it,” argues Smajdor, who lumps pregnancy along with “diseases” that continue for many months, such as the measles….

For Smajdor, the issue is simply a matter of sex equality: “Either we view women as baby carriers who must subjugate their other interests to the well-being of their children or we acknowledge that our social values and level of medical expertise are no longer compatible with ‘natural’ reproduction,” she concludes.

© source where applicable

and http://www.annasmajdor.me.uk/ectogenesis_final.pdf

Dr Annas Majdor

for expectant mothers, the fact of encompassing another life in their bodies often takes a serious toll on their autonomy…. Not only this, but their abilities and rights to make decisions about their medical care are at risk of being overridden in favor of the interests of the unborn child.
...
With regard to the safety of ectogenesis, I assume for the purpose of this argument, that sufficient research would need to be carried out to establish this.

© source where applicable

h/t Tom Gilson

JCW commented on it:
http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/02/b...eous-strength/

I laughed (in agreement) at one commentator on his page.

She is an ethicist!?!

Her opinion on ethics got peer reviewed and published !?!

… since I don’t think it was supposed to be satire, it must be hoped that he opinions on ethics have become trusted to be precisely and well defined as exactly what not to do to be moral. Except for some odd reason I don’t think that is the case.

[KingsGambit]

A good example of why it's not worth bothering looking at comments sections, courtesy of David Crosby on http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19881005 :

RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING IN ANY FORM SHOULD BE BANNED COMPLETELY FROM THE AIR..INCLUDING ALL THE TELE EVANGELICALS...

[KingsGambit]

Sorry for the double post, but I'm not sure what to make of this website. There is some good stuff on it (it does a good job pushing back against easy believism), but explicitly teaches works salvation, especially on these two pages. An understanding of the Semitic Totality Concept would solve the problems presented here.

http://www.christian-history.org/faq-judgment.html
http://www.christian-history.org/sola-fide.html

I'm ultimately suspicious because the site is associated by a member of a group that is fairly well accepted to be a cult (Rose Creek Village). Also, he claims that you must renounce all your possessions, citing Luke 14:33, but J.P. has a different take on it that can be seen here:

http://www.tektonics.org/af/ebestart.html#lk1433

Also, this:

Salvation by faith alone, as taught by many churchs, is an abominable doctrine that makes disciples of hell.

(http://www.christian-history.org/rea...s-to-know.html)

[Benson Shays]

Sorry for the double post, but I'm not sure what to make of this website. There is some good stuff on it (it does a good job pushing back against easy believism), but explicitly teaches works salvation, especially on these two pages. An understanding of the Semitic Totality Concept would solve the problems presented here.

http://www.christian-history.org/faq-judgment.html
http://www.christian-history.org/sola-fide.html

I'm ultimately suspicious because the site is associated by a member of a group that is fairly well accepted to be a cult (Rose Creek Village). Also, he claims that you must renounce all your possessions, citing Luke 14:33, but J.P. has a different take on it that can be seen here:

http://www.tektonics.org/af/ebestart.html#lk1433

Also, this:
(http://www.christian-history.org/rea...s-to-know.html)

Sounds like the Church of Christ on speed.

[moreta]

A day late and a dollar short...again, but subscribing.


BTW. We got a Chik-fil-A here in town a couple of years ago, but I haven't been yet. I like my own chicken, thank you very much.

[MWM958]

KFC beats all