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yallerdawg
yallerdawg's Journal
yallerdawg's Journal
March 15, 2018
Source: WaPO, by Nadia Bolz-Weber
*****
An apocalypse is a good thing, and I’m delighted to welcome you to this one.
In Greek, the word apocalypse means to uncover, to peel away, to show what’s underneath. That’s what this country has been experiencing in the past six months. There has not been a sudden uptick in sexual misconduct and assault in our country, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are simply exposing what was already there. The reality that some men comment on, threaten, masturbate in front of, intimidate and assault female bodies is finally being brought out of the dark ubiquity of women’s personal experience and into the light of public discourse. The male domination at the center of the sexual harassment issue — how those in positions of power (usually, but not always, men) have used that power to sexually gratify themselves at the expense of those who are subordinate to them (usually, but not always, women) — is being revealed apocalyptically in prime time.
*****
The heresy is this: With all the trappings of Christianity behind us, those who seek to justify or maintain dominance over another group of people have historically used the Bible to prove that that domination was not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but indeed was part of “God’s plan.” And there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor as yourself).
Sexual harassment and misconduct persist in the United States for a reason.
The venom of domination runs deeply in us as a country and a people. And it does so because the fangs that delivered it were given not the devil’s name, but God’s. When the subordination of women is established as God’s will, when slavery is established as God’s will, when discrimination against queer folks is established as God’s will, when the CEO of the National Rifle Association claims the right to buy a semiautomatic assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God,” it delivers a poison that can infect the deepest parts of us. Because messages that are transmitted to us in God’s name embed far beneath the surface, all the way down to our original place, our createdness, our source code.
*****
This is why I welcome our moment of uncovering; we need to see how deep the heresy of domination runs, and then remind one another that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. We Christians need to repent of our original sins, and see where we have embraced the appearance of Christianity only to reject its essence. This is not a new idea. Black Bible scholars, feminist and liberation theologians have done this work well and for decades now. So if those who came before looked to the Bible to justify their dominance then let us look to it to justify our dignity. It’s in there. Hebrew midwives who defy Pharaoh. Ethnic outsider women who insisted on their dignity. African eunuchs who knew where water was in a desert.
We must do this. The Bible, Christian theology and liturgy are too potent to be left to those who would use them, even unwittingly, to justify and protect their own dominance. And sometimes the origin of the harm can be the most powerful source of healing.
That’s how anti-venom works.
Read it all at:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/were-in-the-midst-of-an-apocalypse-and-thats-a-good-thing/
We're in the midst of an apocalypse. And that's a good thing.
Reminder: Christianity ain't what it used to be!Source: WaPO, by Nadia Bolz-Weber
*****
An apocalypse is a good thing, and I’m delighted to welcome you to this one.
In Greek, the word apocalypse means to uncover, to peel away, to show what’s underneath. That’s what this country has been experiencing in the past six months. There has not been a sudden uptick in sexual misconduct and assault in our country, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are simply exposing what was already there. The reality that some men comment on, threaten, masturbate in front of, intimidate and assault female bodies is finally being brought out of the dark ubiquity of women’s personal experience and into the light of public discourse. The male domination at the center of the sexual harassment issue — how those in positions of power (usually, but not always, men) have used that power to sexually gratify themselves at the expense of those who are subordinate to them (usually, but not always, women) — is being revealed apocalyptically in prime time.
*****
The heresy is this: With all the trappings of Christianity behind us, those who seek to justify or maintain dominance over another group of people have historically used the Bible to prove that that domination was not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but indeed was part of “God’s plan.” And there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor as yourself).
Sexual harassment and misconduct persist in the United States for a reason.
The venom of domination runs deeply in us as a country and a people. And it does so because the fangs that delivered it were given not the devil’s name, but God’s. When the subordination of women is established as God’s will, when slavery is established as God’s will, when discrimination against queer folks is established as God’s will, when the CEO of the National Rifle Association claims the right to buy a semiautomatic assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God,” it delivers a poison that can infect the deepest parts of us. Because messages that are transmitted to us in God’s name embed far beneath the surface, all the way down to our original place, our createdness, our source code.
*****
This is why I welcome our moment of uncovering; we need to see how deep the heresy of domination runs, and then remind one another that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. We Christians need to repent of our original sins, and see where we have embraced the appearance of Christianity only to reject its essence. This is not a new idea. Black Bible scholars, feminist and liberation theologians have done this work well and for decades now. So if those who came before looked to the Bible to justify their dominance then let us look to it to justify our dignity. It’s in there. Hebrew midwives who defy Pharaoh. Ethnic outsider women who insisted on their dignity. African eunuchs who knew where water was in a desert.
We must do this. The Bible, Christian theology and liturgy are too potent to be left to those who would use them, even unwittingly, to justify and protect their own dominance. And sometimes the origin of the harm can be the most powerful source of healing.
That’s how anti-venom works.
Read it all at:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/were-in-the-midst-of-an-apocalypse-and-thats-a-good-thing/
March 13, 2018
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/13/17112890/fantastic-beasts-2-crimes-of-grindelwald-first-trailer
"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
For November release! 
The first film — one of a planned five in the expansion series — was hampered by its need to set up plot for the coming four films. But the newly released trailer seems to indicate that the second film will dive deeper into the main storyline, one Potter fans know well. And as a bonus, it’s taking us back to Hogwarts to meet up with a beloved character.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/13/17112890/fantastic-beasts-2-crimes-of-grindelwald-first-trailer
March 13, 2018
The song 'Rhiannon' was used in the closing credits of the HBO series "Here and Now."
Recorded in '76, Langley Schools Music Project.
Sometimes, you just got to say, "What the hell was that?" Then - down the rabbit hole you go. 
March 9, 2018
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/972196189159526400
$151,470.
President Trump's hotels made $151,470 in profit from doing business with foreign governments in 2017, the Trump Organization announced Friday.
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/972196189159526400
March 9, 2018
Source: NBC News, by Julie Moreau
This week saw two major developments in federal anti-discrimination law as it relates to LGBTQ workers and religious freedom. On Wednesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a transgender employee, who was fired after coming out to her boss, was unlawfully discriminated against. That same day, Lambda Legal filed an appeal in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a man whose employment offer was rescinded when his prospective employer learned of his sexual orientation.
*****
In a 3-0 decision, the court sided with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] and transgender employee Aimee Stephens, who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was transgender and beginning her transition. The court ruled that Title VII protects trans workers and that an employer’s religious beliefs cannot be used to justify discrimination.
*****
The same day the 6th Circuit ruled in favor of Stephens and the EEOC, Lambda Legal filed an appeal in the 8th Circuit on behalf of health care salesman Mark Horton, whose offer of employment at Midwest Geriatric Management (MGM) in Missouri was rescinded when his prospective employer learned of Horton’s sexual orientation. Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a staff attorney at Lambda Legal, said the owners of MGM rescinded the offer because they believed Horton’s sexual orientation did not conform to their faith.
*****
With respect to potential opposition from the government, Gonzalez-Pagan said, “We’ll see what happens.”
"[The Department of Justice] has been rebuffed at every turn with how to apply anti-discrimination law," he said. "I think their political agenda has clouded their legal judgment and that is what has been demonstrated by these cases.”
Read it all at: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/religion-can-t-be-used-justify-workplace-discrimination-court-rules-n854971
The originator of separation of Church and State?
Religion can't be used to justify workplace discrimination, court rules
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."Source: NBC News, by Julie Moreau
This week saw two major developments in federal anti-discrimination law as it relates to LGBTQ workers and religious freedom. On Wednesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a transgender employee, who was fired after coming out to her boss, was unlawfully discriminated against. That same day, Lambda Legal filed an appeal in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a man whose employment offer was rescinded when his prospective employer learned of his sexual orientation.
*****
In a 3-0 decision, the court sided with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] and transgender employee Aimee Stephens, who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was transgender and beginning her transition. The court ruled that Title VII protects trans workers and that an employer’s religious beliefs cannot be used to justify discrimination.
*****
The same day the 6th Circuit ruled in favor of Stephens and the EEOC, Lambda Legal filed an appeal in the 8th Circuit on behalf of health care salesman Mark Horton, whose offer of employment at Midwest Geriatric Management (MGM) in Missouri was rescinded when his prospective employer learned of Horton’s sexual orientation. Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a staff attorney at Lambda Legal, said the owners of MGM rescinded the offer because they believed Horton’s sexual orientation did not conform to their faith.
*****
With respect to potential opposition from the government, Gonzalez-Pagan said, “We’ll see what happens.”
"[The Department of Justice] has been rebuffed at every turn with how to apply anti-discrimination law," he said. "I think their political agenda has clouded their legal judgment and that is what has been demonstrated by these cases.”
Read it all at: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/religion-can-t-be-used-justify-workplace-discrimination-court-rules-n854971
The originator of separation of Church and State?
March 8, 2018
In other words, L’Engle’s Christianity was about balancing seemingly impossible ideas — paradox — and discovering and maintaining faith, in spite of the seeming chaos of the surrounding world. It was about accepting both that God was bigger than the easy answers many people, including Christians, seek, and that the heart of Christianity lay, in some sense, in the love and vulnerability that were expressed when an almighty God became Jesus on earth.
*****
Much more at: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/8/17090084/a-wrinkle-in-time-faith-christianity-movie-madeleine-lengle
Madeleine L'Engle's Christianity was vital to "A Wrinkle in Time"
Source: Vox, by Tara Isabella Burton
This week, an adaptation of one of the most banned children’s books of all time, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, will hit movie theaters nationwide. The story follows Meg Murry, a moody but brilliant young girl who travels to another planet under the auspices of three mysterious supernatural beings to save both her long-lost physicist father and, later, her prodigy baby brother Charles Wallace.
*****
For L’Engle, who died in 2007, the heart of Christianity was paradox. A vast unknowable God, who defied comprehension, was at the same time a fragile human being: the Jesus Christ who died on the cross. In her 1996 series of reflections, Penguins and Golden Calves, L’Engle wrote:
What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that [my belief] is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful being is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because a tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God’s love, a love we don’t even have to earn.
In other words, L’Engle’s Christianity was about balancing seemingly impossible ideas — paradox — and discovering and maintaining faith, in spite of the seeming chaos of the surrounding world. It was about accepting both that God was bigger than the easy answers many people, including Christians, seek, and that the heart of Christianity lay, in some sense, in the love and vulnerability that were expressed when an almighty God became Jesus on earth.
*****
Much more at: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/8/17090084/a-wrinkle-in-time-faith-christianity-movie-madeleine-lengle
March 8, 2018
Fundamentalism in science
Major faux pas by prominent scientists
Read it all (and more!) at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/companionsonthejourney/2018/02/infallibility-science-fundamentalism-truth/
The new gods?
The Infallibility of Science
From “Infallibility and Its Errors, Part 2: The Infallibility of Science"
Source: Patheos, by Father Seán ÓLaoire, PhD
*****
Science as Revelation
The scientific method itself, though it does, indeed, deliver significant practical benefits, is based on probabilities, typically at “p-values” at less than 5% -which means there’s only a 5% chance that the results happened randomly. Thus, “probable” is conflated with “proven.” So, in fact, experimental science can never prove anything but merely establish probabilities based on an acceptance of its postulates and methodology. And it’s a very recent and young story. Other stories have been just as satisfying to the populace and lasted much longer. Since it’s another kind of storytelling, then, like all stories and storytelling cultures, it is only consistent within its own parameters and methodology. Once you accept the postulates and parameters and methodology of any storytelling culture, then its “findings/truths” are consistent.
Fundamentalism in science
For all its braggadocio, militant atheism has a much more difficult time trying to prove that God does not exist than timorous, doubt-filled theists/believers have in proving She does exist. This is true, firstly, since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; and, secondly, even a single black swan, however long it takes us to discover it, immediately negates the proclamation that “all swans are white.” Moreover, when you get down to the individual arguments, the application of Occam’s Razor heavily favors the existence of some kind of mastermind behind project cosmos. Parsimony and elegance favor God’s existence.
Major faux pas by prominent scientists
Even when these grievous errors have been acknowledged, a smug scientific attitude will then say that, though individual scientific claims have been subsequently discredited, the scientific method per se, is infallible, since it always, eventually, corrects its own errors. This is a very handy “blank check” that absolves it from all previous sins and promises that even present hidden sins, once they are discovered, will be remedied. Nice piece of self-exculpation! So, we are expected to still trust science since its present “truths” will be abandoned once contradictory truths have been established. Thus, not only does it forgive itself for past sins, it prophylactically forgives itself for its current crop of errors because someday they, too, will simply be past mistakes. How can you lose with that kind of deft footwork?
Like all of the storytelling cultures that preceded it, science is very fond of patting itself on the back. But it, too, will prove to be a temporary story, and will give way to a much greater future story. I believe that that future story will be some form of deeper mysticism whose adherents I’ve called, “mysticists” – people for whom the mind, heart, and soul are a trinity of antennae, receiving, deciphering, and acting upon unconditional love, pure awareness, and unity consciousness.
Read it all (and more!) at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/companionsonthejourney/2018/02/infallibility-science-fundamentalism-truth/
The new gods?
March 3, 2018
A presidential milestone: Trump has spent 100 days in office at one of his golf clubs
Source: CNN, by Dan Merica
President Donald Trump reached a presidential milestone at his Palm Beach County, Florida, golf club on Saturday: One hundred days in office at a golf club that bears his name.
*****
In total, Trump has spent nearly 25% of his days in office at one of his golf clubs. It is impossible to know whether Trump golfs every time he visits one of his golf clubs because White House aides rarely confirm that he is golfing, and Trump has, at times, visited his golf clubs to eat a meal or meet with people.
*****
"Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf," Trump tweeted in 2014. "Worse than Carter."
Trump also made presidential golf an issue during the 2016 campaign.
"I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf," Trump said in August 2016 on the campaign trail.
*****
Read it all at: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-presidential-milestone-trump-has-spent-100-days-in-office-at-one-of-his-golf-clubs/ar-BBJOXHy
The only place he ever gets lost in the weeds.
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Fri Apr 4, 2014, 04:21 PM
Number of posts: 16,104
