Making people feel holier than others, that is making them feel good about themselves is good business.

Well, this morning's gospel really couldn't make anyone feel good. (If you used the revised lectionary)

I skipped church this morning. What was it? Around here, fundies don't follow a church calender. They don't have Lent or Advent or anything. Strangely, though, they have Christmas and Easter. But only 1 day.

in the catholic church, today was just another week of ordinary time. next thing that's actually something is all saint's day, i think, which is the day after halloween. i know you're episcopal but i figure they're close enough that they might be the same in this case.

Barry Jive wrote:in the catholic church, today was just another week of ordinary time. next thing that's actually something is all saint's day, i think, which is the day after halloween. i know you're episcopal but i figure they're close enough that they might be the same in this case.

What I was getting at was the systematic approach to scripture the calendar demands, thus not allowing skipping of inconvenient or challenging parts.

The text was Jesus pissing off the large crowd that at this point had followed him, saying if you don't hate mother and father, son and daughter, and life itself, you cannot be his disciple, and again talking about the giving up of one's possessions.

Damn, this Christianity stuff is hard. (Also, the word "hate" had a different connotation in that time- not so much "animosity", but simply "to be detached from.")

See, I think we can't do it- and that's the point, we need grace. But we need to keep ourselves in check, be it gluttony, wanting stuff that we don't need, etc.- we are all convicted with this stuff. I look at my "Phillies wall"- my wall of autographed stuff, and I'm thinking, "man, this is completely useless. This signed pic of Cliff Lee is ridiculous. And who needs panoramic shots of the Vet and CBP?" But do I want to give it up? No.

But Jesus is clear here- he wants commitment. That's far from "be nice to people." No, we're supposed to stick our necks out, and carry our own personal crosses (which isn't the same as "bearing the cross" of broken relationships, unfortunate illnesses, etc.)

You know what would be even harder than giving up stuff? (At least for me.) Loving your enemy. Or even loving my neighbor. I like my neighbors. Well, I like some of them. I wish none of them any harm. But really, if lightning is gonna strike on my block, I'm much prefer it hit one of them rather than me.

Oh, absolutely. Actually, I don't particularly like my neighbor across the street. She is the secretary of a fundamentalist congregation and tells me and my wife we're going to hell all the time because Michelle is a female pastor. So loving her? I dunno....

TenuredVulture wrote:You know what would be even harder than giving up stuff? (At least for me.) Loving your enemy. Or even loving my neighbor. I like my neighbors. Well, I like some of them. I wish none of them any harm. But really, if lightning is gonna strike on my block, I'm much prefer it hit one of them rather than me.

Work on an ability to forgive and move it on up. Hard, sure, but when you can box up your angst you can feel a lot more at ease. You are allow to get pissed at general stupidity, you just need to move past it. Essentially, it is a recommendation for Prozac without the need to reach for the drug.

I'm an atheist, and I'm not an atheist because something terrible happened and out of some WOE IS ME HOW COULD ANYTHING BACK HAPPEN TO ME "revelation." I do, however, have a tremendous amount of respect for what religion CAN do in a positive way at the personal level and for how it can bring a community together. I just have no interest in participating in it.

September 2004: indisputable proof of God's existence

Funny how when searching for 'mets hire minaya', teh Google asks 'Did you mean to search for: mets fire minaya'

From OK Cupid:

Since we were parsing all this text anyway, we thought it would be cool to do some basic reading-level analysis on what people had written about themselves. We used the Coleman-Liau Index, and when we partitioned the essays by the race of the writers, we found this:

[...]

Before anyone gets too charged-up about this, we also ran reading level by religion and found this:

Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I've listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the "very serious" agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups.

how do you read that graph

is it a venn diagram

jesus christ

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVtNzONbaiU[/youtube]

Paul wrote: Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

I read this recently in a bible study [Philippians 2:1-4]. The text immediately before it and after is also powerful- and in context, more powerful yet. I mean it doesn't get any clearer than that. I (or we all) should print that out and put it somewhere where I can reread it constantly, so I remember to live my life this way.[/quote]

pacino wrote:jesus christ

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVtNzONbaiU[/youtube]

That man should be arrested for child abuse.

children don't talk like that without major coaching

Kind of a crazy assumption that everybody in heaven speaks English, too.

it's probably like stargate, where they're not but the gate translates for you

plus the sun god ra is in there somewhere