Peacebang on Unitarian hypocrisy:
We’re just as fallen as any religious movement. We billed ourselves as the saviors, the reformers, the ones who would purify the church, and we failed. We just don’t see it, because the ways we have tunnel vision are so in sync with so much of liberal, secular culture, we have no idea how deeply and regularly we violate our first principle. Watch the faces close at coffee hour when the hapless newcomer talks with warm enthusiasm about the War On Terror and you’ll know what I mean. Hear the young mother get berated for bringing in bags of Wal-Mart goods to the Christmas cookie decorating party, and watch her quietly go away. Likewise the woman who asks the pastor to start a healing prayer group and is told “We don’t do that sort of thing here,” or the man who merely questions the placement of the rainbow flag on the front of the building. Watch them all quietly go away, or maybe not so quietly. They know first-hand that we’re not really committed to tolerance and acceptance, but that we just think it’s really cool to publicly question and dissect commonly held, traditional Christian beliefs.
It’s getting so boring. It’s getting so predictable, and it’s so passe already. Especially when so much of mainline Christianity is publicly questioning and dissecting commonly held, traditional Christian beliefs.
Scott Shields plays off a New Republic article (subscription only) that argues that 2008 is the right time for Obama. (Hat tip to Kung Fu Monkey.) Here’s some points between the three of us:
- In 2008 Obama will have twelve years on his political resume (five of that in the Senate). That’s more than Edwards had in 2004, and more than Bush had in 2000.
- The last sitting Senator who took the White House was JFK. Why no one else? Because the Senate adds yucky votes to your record, puts you across the dinner table from a lot of lobbyists, and makes you speak like John Kerry.
- To my friends who say the US isn’t ready for a black President yet: When will it be? We won’t know America is ready for a black President until America elects itself a black President.
- The man can give a stirring, eloquent speech AND do well on Jon Stewart.
Got to go to St. Louis to visit my brother for Turkey day. But my nephew gets all his cuteness from me.
When discussing the "seventh principle" ("respect for the interdependent web of existence…"), the group leader says, "So what do you get out of this one, besides happy pagan goodness?"
When, at checkout time, a group member says that what she got out of the session was that she'll start turning off the faucet while she's brushing her teeth from now on. And everyone cackles.
The woman in the video here reminds me of someone I used to know.
This is up there with the crack whore my neighbor brought by a month or two ago. He wanted to do some yard work for a few bucks so he could go "do something" with his "new girlfriend." All the meantime she was telling both of us to do this or do that "in the name of Jesus," especially for me to give him some money. ("He’ll work for it. In the name of Jesus, he’ll work for it.")
I couldn’t seem to find any work for him that day.
I was out with the blogasmic Atlanta bloggers group last night having way too much to drink. Found myself mentioning the “Subscribe to Comments” WordPress plugin to fellow blogger Daily Dose of Dave. It’s a nifty little plugin that lets your site’s commenters opt in (with a check box) for email notification whenever someone else leaves a comment to an individual post they already commented on.
I wish to Sweet Baby Jesus that more bloggers used this plugin (or similar, for other blog engines). When I leave a comment on a blog post somewhere, I’m interested to see what others say in reply. Getting a quick email is so much easier than having to go to that blog’s page (away from my feed reader), find the post I’m looking for, and (often) click a permalink to see if there are any new comments. If more people used this, the value of leaving blog comments would go up, not only on the blogs that used it, but in blogs generally. It’s really just a matter of blogging unto others as you would have them blog unto you.
