10-21-16 2:33 • Republicans Have Spoken
T-Sup: Republicans have spoken! This country will never accept Krooked Killary and all her nefarious doings.
We are dying for reform and will not accept any other outcome but Trump/Pence!
T-Sup: A non communist country....and that is where Obama has been leading us for the last eight years!
T-Sup: Passing Keystone Pipeline. Repealing Obamacare! Ending entitlements. Free trade. Tough foreign policy. Right to bear arms. Border security.
10-20-16 8:33 • Being Filial
ChinaGirl: Please excuse that this is very long, please also excuse the grammars. I am Chinese and English is my third language.
My mother always abuse me as a child. She destroyed me. Abused me, mentally, physcially, verbally. I forgave her. She is my mother, I would not be in this world without her. But, I left as soon as I graduated High School. I don't have anywhere to go, I had to temporary sleep in the Homeless Shelter. I would do anything to get away from her abuse.
Then, five years ago I meet my husband. From acquaintance to friends -- to dating -- to marriage, his is peaceful and loving, drama-free, zero drama. Thank you to his patience and effort that hold this marriage stable and peaceful. He ridiculously patience, patience and patience, and still ridiculously patience.. He is a devoted husband. Past or present, he treats me really really well. He loves me in every possible way that he can. I feel blessed to have him as my husband, I have no regrets this lifetime.
But he is West African. My parents have never met him, will not accept him. Won't let me talk about him. When I go to see my father, who never abused me, my mother call me dirty. She say, if I have children, she never want to see them, they would be as dirty as me and my husband. She say I make her "Lose face" (face is something very important in my culture.) She feels embarrassed and shameful about me. She very ashamed of me.
My father was not in my life much. He worked hard to get money to bring us to America when I was 12. He never abused me. But he did not stand up for me. I know he thinks I am dirty, too, but he is not up front with it.
So I avoid them.
Now know I am an awful daughter. I don't want to be unfilial. In my culture it is important to be filial. I blame myself everyday that I chose my husband over my parents. I blame myself everyday for being an unfilial daughter. In my culture-- the Confucianism Chinese culture, Unfilial is the top top biggest sin...lighting will hit those who unfilial to their parents. In our culture, we strongly believe that if you unfilial to your parents; when you have your own children, your children will be unfilial back to you.
All my husband asked me for is promise to Communicate with him, talk to him. We will face all the hardship together.. My family disapproval of him, our huge cultural difference, whatever hardship throw at us; he believe we can make it. As long two people loves each others, two people willing to communicate with each others, willing to make the effort to work it out together.
Now my husband he really want a baby to complete our little family.
This guy wasted 5 years of his life put up with my emotional childhood baggage. Despite I constantly test his love and patience, and make him wait and wait. He still have all the patience. He still here, his love still unconditionally. I know I can't keep him childless for the rest of his life.
But I feel sad for the baby; the baby won't have any maternal grandparents, and all the things my mother said it just so hurtful, how can she have the heart to say that about a baby? Babies are innocent.
Yes, I know I'm an unfilial daughter for chose a guy over my parents, but the unfilial one is me, the baby is innocent in all this.
Your dad gave you the gift of freedom - now use it! You are in THIS culture, where he strived to bring you. You can do what we do in this culture, which is use our freedom to choose who we care about and associate with.
Choose the people who treat you well, like your husband, and try to not be bogged down by cultural ideas which don't matter, like 'being filial'. The quality of this short life is made up of the quality of our relationships. Have fun relationships with good people and have a fun life!!
If you still want to be 'filial', send your parents some nice letters in the mail, telling them routine news about your life and occiasionally expressing thanks or affection.
Don't expect anything back, just know that you did your part. Send adorkable pics of your children, with funny tales of how wonderful they are. What your parents do from there is on them.
10-20-16 8:33 • Creative Enlightenment
Rusty: I'm in a rut. My best friend thinks I need to change my hair, or something. But does that really make a difference?
Rusty: That's how I feel! It's not my hair, it's that I need to find a way to express myself, to be creative. I've been thinking about doing more cooking...learning to cook new things and expanding my cooking techniques and knowledge.
Rusty: And then, once I manage to get my hands on a real piano, instead of the keyboard I have now, I know I'll be spending a lot more time hunkered down at the piano.
At first I just learned some chords to play while I was singing, but eventually I started to get more interested in technical pieces. I don't even really sight-read music, I just look at the notes and sort figure out what they are and then practice it until I can play it. I arrange the music to suit myself and go for stuff that's easy and fun and recognizable. Saw this online and felt it illustrated the process perfectly:
Since then I've learned The Entertainer, Bach's Fugue in G Minor, and the themes for geeky classics like Star Trek and Star Wars. Plus a great Lord of the Rings medley and Let it Go from Frozen.
The keyboard has fun advantages over a piano, particularly in that they can transpose the key if a song you want to sing is too low or too high for you. So don't wait, you can start playing enough to show off right away!
Rusty: What other skills or hobbies do you recommend for personal growth?
However I wish I could take my own advice more - between all this cooking and all this piano playing I barely have time to pick up a book! :-)
10-19-16 8:33 • When Love Started
Houseplant: You know the bible portrays very evil times before the Resurrection. All people were evil, and there was no love, until Christ came.
Houseplant: Well something was blocking any love in the OT times for sure!
Houseplant: I also think about all other people in this world back than too. Kind really suck for them totally.
This was AFTER Christ, by the way, AFTER Christianity became the dominant philosophy of the land, when the truth went on a thousand-year vacation.
If you want to know what it looks like when "all nations" value Christianity over reality, look no further. It was one of the most horrid chapters in human history and took hundreds of years to overcome. That is what pretend truth gets you.
Houseplant: What was the deal, what is wrong people back them anyways too?
10-18-16 8:33 • Decalogue
Dan: I know you are not religious, but you must believe in the Ten Commandments.
A better form of morality is a moral algorithm, which provides general decision-making criteria instead of specific do's and don'ts. Moral algorithms allow novel situations to be evaluated for harm vs. well-being as a guide to moral behavior.
10-17-16 7:22 • The Truth of Christianity
Carol: Here's a quote from that article I was telling you about:
"How can Christians be sure their religion is the right one? Being born into a Christian family or growing up in a Christian community doesn't make one a Christian; culture and ethnicity don't determine one's relationship with God. Instead, people become Christians because they are convinced of the truth of Christianity and/or have had experiences with God - in short, they have good reasons for believing Christianity to be true."
Also, people "have experiences with God" in every religion and no religion. People in every culture pray to gods, have their prayers answered, feel divine presence, have moments of awe and reverence, experience healing, etc. It is not exclusive to Christianity. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Shinto, Buddhists etc. all have the same types of experiences with life. Only the veneer of culture and tradition causes people in different places to give them different names.
There is no evidence that "experiences with God" confirm Christianity, are exclusive to Christianity, or cause people to become exclusively Christian.
Lastly, people being "convinced" it is true is not what determines truth. Correspondence to reality is what determines truth. And Christianity, for the most part - particularly as described in this article - is a bunch of hearsay ideas with no correspondence to reality.
In addition to being completely removed from anything like true, these ideas are also extremely unpleasant and problematic.
For example:
Carol: "Furthermore, Christianity is unique among religions because it addresses the fact that we can never be good enough to be in the presence of a perfect, holy God."
Maybe a God or gods exist who are not so fussy. Or maybe there are no gods involved...this is certainly how it appears. Nothing is known of gods or what they might be like. There is certainly nothing that can be examined and no evidence to show that the "perfect-God-who-can't-stand-humans" claim is how things actually are.
That Christianity addresses this made-up "shortfall" is, if anything, a sign that it is not true. It's like a snake oil salesman telling you that you have a disease, even when you have no symptoms, but then telling you that he has the only cure. Sure he does.
This kind of claim ought to at least raise a red flag.
Carol: "Other religions teach that we can somehow do enough good to earn heaven or nirvana, but they don't address the fact that we continually make mistakes."
Secondly, all religions address the fact that humans make mistakes. That is what the moral component of religion is. Religion in human history has existed largely as a way to codify social mores and make it so that people could function in social groups with a minimal amount of friction.
Thirdly, the "continually makes mistakes" thing is at the heart of much of what is wrong with Christianity.
Humans are creatures with organic brains which learn by doing. Making mistakes is exactly what you would expect from a learning brain in a social milieu with a lot of competing priorities.
The explanation for why we make mistakes is perfectly natural. But Christianity claims that our ordinary mistakes are "evil." They have all kinds of claims about it: mistakes are "sins" that go against God or hurt Him; our mistakes are the result of Original Sin and the evil nature we inherited; we make mistakes continually; our mistakes separate us from God. Even grosser - gods require blood sacrifice for atonement of sin, etc.
It goes almost without saying that there is no evidence that any of this is true...people just claim it.
The result of these claims is that people are made to feel dirty and bad, just for being people with learning brains. Inducing these feelings plays on people's natural fear of being excluded, and serves to frighten them into submission. So, it is cruel and manipulative.
Also, the fact that the Christian moral system is completely removed from actual moral reality makes it extremely confusing and counter-productive. People get hung up on supposed sins, like doubting the religion, or traditional prejudices, like that homosexual sex is abomination, when these things are not actually mistakes.
Trying to base our modern morals on the systems devised by sheepherders from thousands of years ago results in a morass of prejudices and superstitions masquarading as morality. And it means watching the taboos of the past fall away as people learn, through trial and error, what really works and what doesn't.
To sum up, Christianity is co-opting natural behavior, stigmatizing it for reasons of control, and then stagnating it in the 1st century. This is causing a lot of unforced error in our society. It's certainly not an argument for the truth of Christianity.
Carol: "Christ is the only way to God, because without the forgiveness that comes through his death and resurrection, there's no way for us to be able to stand before a holy God."
The article then attempts to address the question of whether Christianity is intolerant of other religions. The answer seems to be, yes, Christianity is intolerant, but for good reasons:
Carol: "If Christianity is true, then there is only one God and salvation comes only through Him, and religions that deny this are not merely alternate forms of spiritual expression, but systems of belief that prevent their adherents from obtaining salvation."
Secondly, this fails to recognize all religions for what they are, social systems used by cultures. There is no understanding in this conceit that other religions are complete systems which engage their adherents in the same way that Christianity engages Christians.
Providing a perfect example of this is Saharra, suggesting that the Holy Spirit is actually reaching out to Muslims about Christ, but they are drinking the Kool-Aid of a cult shyster instead of answering.
What Christians like Saharra completely fail to acknowledge is that the feeling of having faith confirmed by the Holy Spirit happens to Muslims too. This feeling happens to people in all religions and out of them. There is nothing that Christians feel confirming their belief that others do not also feel, also confirming their own beliefs.
So, the result of declaring that other religions are not working for "salvation" is declaring that other people - mostly on other continents - are not able to get right with God because of their own failings. The Holy Spirit is reaching out to them, but they are too stupid to understand that He wants them to be Christians, or they are too blind to see it, or they are too evil to make the right choice. As Saharra says, "...maybe in reality they are closing Him off and doing what they want."
The result of this policy is the unavoidable conclusion that we are better than them. We're not drinking Kool-aid - they are. We are not ignoring the Holy Spirit and doing what we want - they are.
Sadly, this is the only way to reconcile a supposedly voluntary salvation with the fact that some people don't choose it. They are bad. Therefore, they will descend to hell, where they will be tortured forever and ever, while we march to heaven with a clear conscience. Or so we have heard.
The article then muses if perhaps everyone could go to Heaven:
Carol: "Yet if everyone automatically goes to heaven, this includes evil people as well as good people. Should an unrepentant killer go to heaven? Should someone who enjoys torturing people, or who molests children and feels no guilt, go to heaven? If not, then there are cases when it's morally right for people to be excluded from heaven."
Carol: "Indeed, there are people "from every nation, tribe, people and language" who will be saved (Rev 7:9). Thus, far from being exclusive, Christianity is inclusive. Anyone who chooses to accept Christ as Lord and Savior is a Christian and has equal standing with all other Christians before God."
Nothing could be more exclusive than claiming only Christians have standing "before God."
Saharra and other Christians who buy the party line are left with no choice except to believe that people of their religion are doing God right and people of all other religions are doing God wrong. This is an extremely toxic idea to have, not least because it justifies all manner of aggression and exploitation by "right doing" cultures against "wrong doing" cultures. It is a form of oppression.
And the saddest part is that Christians seem to be simply wrong about this. There is nothing that can be examined and not the slightest trace of evidence supporting the claims that Christianity is true, that humans require salvation through Christ, that there is any kind of afterlife, any kind of god.
They claim Muslims are drinking the purple Kool Aid while they stand there with a glass of the red version in their own hands. It may be a different flavor but it's still nothing but water, with sugar.
10-17-16 7:22 • How the Universe Started
Houseplant: How could the universe have gotten started, without God, anyways? How could all this have come together?
On the early Earth there was a lot of carbon. There was also a lot of electrical activity, a lot of radiation, a lot of heat and impact from cometary bombardment, and a lot of geothermal energy in the oceans.
Somewhere in all this furious boiling of energy and matter, some of the loopy, sticky chains started to split in half, and then rebuild on the sticky spots. The same type of particle that was stuck there when the pieces were together, got stuck there again as it drifted by. Pretty soon there were two very similar sticky chains there instead of one.
Some of the chains got mushed apart before they could split and re-form. That was the end of them. But some of the chains were a bit better shaped. They made lots of copies of themselves and not all of them got mushed. The ones that did not get mushed kept going.
Some of these sticky chains found homes inside bubbles. The ones which could make their own bubbles, or cells, were the most successful of all. The rest is, literally, history.
Houseplant: But, what made the carbon atoms?
As I have explained to you before, carbon atoms and other heavier elements are made by the fusion in stars.
Houseplant: There was Creator at the beginning of all time.
Again, if that's the only place in the universe you can find the slightest room to wedge in a Creator, why bother?
Houseplant: This Creator made time too.
Houseplant: Nobody was good before Christ blood washed away all sin.
The oldest known love songs are over 4,000 years old:
"Though they are thousands of years old, the earliest love songs sound so contemporary, so honest, so urgent, they might have been written yesterday. They are proof that human emotions have not changed. When we fall in love today, we feel what men and women felt in centuries past: desire, joy, disappointment, yearning, fulfillment."
Sumerian songs, among the oldest of any human literature, include romantic songs like "My Honey Sweet" and "Man of My Heart," along with other songs of love and affection like "Lullaby for a Son" and "Lu-dingir-ra's Praise of his Mother."
Are you saying the beautiful, poetic souls who wrote these songs of love 2,000 years before Christ were no good?
10-16-16 5:56 • Teaching Islam in School
Carol: Did you see that picture, it was all over Facebook. For a school assignment, the kids had to learn the 5 pillars of Islam! Outrageous! I don't let my kids hang out with gang members, but I'm supposed to allow this?
Reba: Are you saying you wouldn't let your kids hang out with Muslims? That's prejudiced. You can't make blanket statments about Muslims, you don't know every one personally.
Carol: I don't need to know every Muslim personally, I know what is the belief of all of them. I'm neither male nor mulsim, so I know where I fall in line in their belief.
Some Christains believe this literally, some figuratively, some not at all. There is no way to know how much a person goes along with the crap their religion spews until you talk to them. So, I try to give Christians the benefit. Muslims, too.
Carol: Do you think American children should be required to learn this crap the islamic religion spews?
They just shouldn't be taught that any of it is true.