Don't Read the Book, Ken

I did some more rainy day research today, and I've come to the conclusion that you don't need to read any part of the Bible to find out what it says. Wiki has concise summaries of all the major events, although not all in the same place. I didn't follow up all the links, but I'm pretty sure that it's all in there somewhere. Some of it isn't exactly the way I remember it, but a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age.

Yesterday I tried to give you a brief summary of Apocalyptic theory, and I knew that I was over simplifying. Turns out that there is not a lot of consensus among theologians about the sequence of events, so pick any theory that sounds good to you. The book of Revelation is a surrealistic nightmare that will drive you nuts if you let it, which is probably why there is little agreement about what it means. Jesus spoke about the Resurrection a number of times, but He seemed to be answering questions from people who already knew something about it. From this I conclude that there was a cult or something that believed in it before Jesus came along. John the Baptist was baptizing people out ahead of Jesus, and even baptized Jesus Himself, so he couldn't have been baptizing them into Christianity. One thing I'm still pretty sure about is that nobody is going directly to Heaven or Hell immediately after they die. That idea might have come from the Greeks or the Persians, but it certainly didn't come from the Bible.

I had previously read that most of the Old Testament was probably written around the time of the Babylonian exile, but that doesn't mean it was a total fabrication. It's more likely that the authors were working from an oral tradition, and maybe some fragments of written material. What they did was pull it all together into a cohesive package. I never believed that the story of the Exodus was literally true in it's entirety, but to say that the Israelites never really were in Egypt seems like a bit of a stretch to me. One possible explanation might be that, since Canaan was under Egyptian control at the time, the Israelites could have been in Egypt without ever leaving home.

There is another theory that I have previously read about on Wiki that might also shed some light on the issue. Around the time of the Exodus, give or take a century or two, there was something called "The Bronze Age Collapse". It seems that all of the major civilizations of the era went into decline for awhile, possibly due, at least in part, by a climate change of some sort. By the time they pulled out of it, it wasn't the Bronze Age anymore, it was the Iron Age. If the Israelites were in Egypt, the Bronze Age Collapse would have given them the opportunity to fold their tents and silently steal away. If they were indeed back home in Canaan, the Canaanite city states, in their weakened condition, would have been vulnerable to a hostile takeover by a bunch of nomads who were looking for a chance to come in out of the desert. Of course it's just a theory, but so is everything else...... I got a theory, you got a theory, all God's chillin got a theory.

Your assertion that the Israelites never were in Egypt and that Moses was a totally fictional character was disturbing to me at first. It's like if I said that I doubted Davey Crockett really kilt him a bar when he was only three, but that he probably did go off the congress to serve a spell, and that he only metaphorically patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell. Then you come along and say that neither Davey Crockett, the U.S. Congress, or the Liberty Bell ever really existed. What does that do to the Battle of the Alamo? If Davey Crockett didn't die at the Alamo, does that mean  the Alamo is fictitious too? How then could the Texans launch a successful rebellion with the battle cry "Remember the Alamo!"? Without that flag for the Texans to rally around the Mexicans might have prevailed, and large areas of our country would be over run by Mexicans even unto this day.....Hmmm, maybe you were right about that after all.

Read the Book, Ken

I'm sure that the Playboy magazines we used to read back in the day had more than 30 pages in them, and thy weren't all that hard to read. Seriously, you have to read the whole book if you want to know the whole story of how the Israelites got out of Egypt. If you want to know how they got into Egypt in the first place, you have to back up and read the last few chapters of Genesis. I forgot to tell you about that part yesterday. Okay, if you want the cliff notes, they are probably on Wiki somewhere. That reference you gave me about the Israelites had some of it in there. First there was the prevailing modern theory of it then, further down the page, was the Biblical version. Wiki is good about telling both sides of a story like that. I haven't looked up your reference on the Exodus yet, but I suspect it will be similar.

In the days when Jesus walked the Earth, baptism was the way you joined a cult or similar organization. Some of them did it with blood, but I'm pretty sure the Christians all used water. I'm not sure when they started baptizing infants, but it kind of defeated the whole purpose because an infant is incapable of voluntarily joining anything. A few sects still don't baptize infants, but the Methodists aren't one of them. If you are baptized as an infant, it signifies your parents' pledge to raise you as a Christian. Then, when you are about 12 years old, you go through confirmation, which means you are confirming the pledge your parents made, now that you are old enough to make that decision for yourself. If you are baptized later in life, it counts as both ceremonies rolled into one. I don't remember you being part of our confirmation class, which is the protestant version of catechism. I believe our class was the first one that Elsdon had, at least in recent memory, and I'm not sure if they ever had another one. It was Rev. Schact's idea, and she was only there for a year or two.  It wasn't nearly as formal as what the Catholics went through, we just learned some stuff and memorized a couple Bible passages of our own choice. Then we got up in front of the congregation and recited what we had memorized, Rev. Schact said some words, and we became full members of the church.

This is what I've been trying to tell you, the beliefs that many Christians have about Heaven and Hell are not to be found in the Bible. Jesus and Paul talked about the Resurrection, but I got the impression that they assumed that their audience already knew about it. I am only aware of one time that Jesus talked about going to Heaven immediately when you die, and He was being crucified at the time, so He might have gotten a little confused. The book of Revelation (Apocalypse in Greek) is supposed to explain it in detail, but nobody can make any sense out of that thing, although many have tried. I picked up bits and pieces of the scenario, both from the Bible and some ancillary material written in modern times and, as near as I can tell, it goes something like this:

Step 1: There will be wars and rumors of wars, and earthquakes in various places, but this is only the beginning.
Step 2: When "the desolating sacrilege is set up in the place where it ought not to be" ("the abomination that makes desolate" in the KJV), then you know that the shit is about to hit the fan (or words to that effect).
Step 3: The Rapture, which I forgot to tell you about yesterday. That's when the Elect float up to Heaven and are spared all the tribulation that is to follow. I'm not sure how the Elect are chosen but, if we wake up one morning and discover that a few hundred thousand people have mysteriously disappeared without a trace, they are the Elect, and the Rapture has left the station without us.
Step 4: The shit hits the fan. A whole bunch of terrible stuff happens, resulting in the death of most of the people who missed the Rapture.
Step 5: Jesus comes back to Earth and puts an end to all this foolishness. The dead are resurrected and, along with the living, are sorted into two groups by Jesus. The Bible calls them "the sheep" and "the goats", which undoubtedly is a metaphor for the good guy and the bad guys. The bad guys, along with their leader Satan, are cast into the Lake of Fire, and the good guys get to live on a new improved Earth under the leadership of Jesus.

More tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow.

artist and/or craftsman

That polka was on the jukebox at the House of Chin where I spent considerable amount of my young manhood on either side of the bar.  I think our people here invented the polka though I've heard the Poles over here also often get credit.  I've heard that European Poles, proud of their classical music tradition, look down their nose at the polka.  In Ireland, by the way St Patrick's Day is a solemn churchy day and not the drink-a-thon that it is here.

I took my bible down from shelf.  By the way do you remember something called Confirmation at Elsdon Methodist church?  Seems like you had to study a bit, I don't remember if there was a test, and then when you were about twelve you dressed up in your Sunday suit and there was some kind of ceremony.  It seems like it might have been our version of baptism.  At the end you were given a bible.  I'm not sure if I went through it or not.

Anyway that Exodus is like thirty pages long, thirty bible pages.  Maybe you could select some chapters I could read which would run under ten pages. 

Well probably that St Peter standing with that long list at the podium next to the pearly gates has been enshrined by cartoonists, like the guy on the tiny island with the one palm tree.

Wait a minute, your interpretation of what happens after we die doesn't seem to jibe with what Joe Sixpack thinks. 

Who is this Elect?  How did they get to be Elect?  Was it good works or were they preordained?  Anyway let's go through the flowchart.

When you die if you are the Elect you go to heaven, otherwise you go to sleep.  After awhile, while you are still sleeping, Jesus will return to Earth, and I guess all the people who are alive at that time will be enjoying God's Kingdom.  After a certain amount of time Judgement Day will roll around, seems like this is after the Apocalypse which will occur during the time of God's Kingdom.  Who are satan's followers who will be cast into the fiery lake?  Are they your garden variety of sinners?  But wait a minute, Judgement Day the people who are not elect, but are without sin, or maybe just a little bit of sin, don't they go to heaven then?  And then isn't there nothing but heaven and hell, and the earth is I suppose like Chernobyl where the deer and the antelope play finally being shut of man.

Sounds awfully convoluted, sounds like it comes from that bad boy of the bible Revelations, widely thought to be some crackpot's ranting against Rome.

So if I read this right, you only enjoy the Kingdom of God if you happen to be alive when it's established otherwise you sleep through it and wake up in time to go to heaven or hell.  Are you equal to the elect then or do they live in a little better neighborhood? 

None of which tells us what heaven is like.  I still suspect it will be much like Elsdon Methodist church.  I don't expect there will be any beer.


Saw a couple movies about music lately.  One was Love and Mercy about the beachboys (never a fan) and more particularly about Brian Wilson the genius/nutball.  The other was The Wrecking Crew, which was a documentary about how from the early fifties to the early sixties most of the music that was recorded (including the beachboys) was done by about twenty studio musicians, because basically the performers weren't very good musicians. 

Interesting the role of the musician.  He's nobody without a composer because that's where the music comes from, but likely the composer is not that good a musician, so his music is nothing without a musician.  You know there is that whole thing between the artist and the craftsman.  I'll see if I can express this more coherently after the weekend, after I have read those ten pages of Exodus that you recommend for me.

"In Heaven There is No Beer"

I will look up The Exodus on Wiki this weekend, and will reserve my judgment until after I have read it. Meanwhile, I suggest that you read the Biblical account. It's not all that long, and it makes a pretty good story, even if it's not true. The book of Exodus is the second book in the Old Testament, right after Genesis. I understand your reluctance to read the whole Bible, but just reading this one book won't kill you. See if you can find some other translation than the King James Version, unless you're fond of Shakespearian English.

The River Jordan story comes from the Biblical book of Joshua, but the explanation of how it might have really happened comes from a secular source, possibly National Geographic, or possibly that Reader's Digest book I told you about previously. I believe the idea that the Jordan story might have been the inspiration for the Red Sea story came from inside my own head. I have been criticized before for not being able to properly reference my sources. I have been reading this stuff since I learned how to read, mostly for my own edification. If I knew there was going to be a test on it someday, I might have kept a better record.

According to the Bible, Jesus put Peter in charge shortly before He was crucified. He told Peter that he would "hold the keys to the Kingdom" until Jesus came back. He also said something like, "Whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven". From this evolved the story that St. Peter would be the keeper of the Pearly Gates and decide who got into Heaven and who didn't. I'm not sure where the idea of the Pearly Gates came from, but I think it is a reference to King Solomon's palace, or maybe it was the temple in Jerusalem that Solomon commissioned. I'm pretty sure that neither Jesus nor anybody else in the Bible ever said that we would walk into Heaven through the Pearly Gates.

According to the Bible, most of us good guys aren't going to Heaven anyway. There is a specific, relatively small, number of people called "The Elect", who are going to Heaven. The rest of us are going to inhabit God's Kingdom on Earth, which will be established after Jesus has returned to Earth once more. Meanwhile all the people who have ever died are, for all practical purposes, asleep. Come Judgment Day, the dead will be resurrected and judged by Jesus, along with anybody who is still alive after all the other catastrophes of the Apocalypse. Satan and all his followers will be "cast into the Lake of Fire", which is probably the origin of the popular concept of Hell. Contrary to popular belief, Satan is not in Hell now, he is on Earth, whereupon he was cast down from Heaven after his unsuccessful rebellion against the ruler ship of God. All of this was supposed to have happened within one generation, the generation that was alive when Jesus walked the Earth. Jesus never provided for a successor to Peter because He was supposed to be back before Peter died.

So your hypothetical scenario about me living forever right here on Earth is not that far off from the Biblical version of the afterlife. Of course I would accept an offer like that. Who wouldn't?

immortality what is it good for?

No, the Israelites weren't Canaanites because that is where they happened to live.  They were Canaanites because they were of those people, their sisters and brothers were Canaanites.  They were simply those Canaanites who happened to get the new religion.

As for what happened in Egypt let me guide to you the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus

The whole thing never happened, being taken into Egypt, fleeing Egypt, never happened.  Those people that you mention probably never existed.

I don't know anything about that River Jordan thing, but I assume you got it from the bible, and dollars to doughnuts it never happened.  These writings are like 3,000 years old, and the stories were told and retold through the mists of time and probably went through several different languages, there is no reason to think any of it is true in the sense that it is any kind of historic record.  I'm tired of doing the heavy wiki lifting.  I'll leave it to you to wiki your Jordan story.

You continue to show disinterest in the whole idea of immortality, as in like war, what is it good for? 

Since it has been established that you are without sin, once I don't know, Bambi gets the drop on you and wrestles Betsy or Mama from your cold old hands and turns it on you and slays you, you are a sure candidate for the pearly gates, should there be a St Peter (How did he get that job, Bible scholar?), he'd probably be rolling out the red carpet for you.

But being a suspicious type, having that fish eye us Bohunks are famous for, you are probably going to wonder, before you accept that halo, what exactly is heaven going to be like.  The suspicion is that it is likely to be like Elsdon Methodist Church only fancier and certainly more comfy pews, and they had better be because dollars to doughnuts you never have to go to the bathroom in heaven, so there will be no bathroom breaks, just singing That Old Rugged Cross over and over again.  It will probably sound a lot better than it did in Elsdon, but still.

Sensing your hesitation St Peter tells you they have a special deal.  You can go back to Earth, and you will never get old, and the sun will never go red giant, and the big rip will never happen and you will live there forever, but if you ever get tired of it, too bad there is no way you can ever die.  Do you take it or leave it?

Rainy Day Research

Okay, the Israelites were Canaanites, but they didn't call themselves Canaanites. Most of the other Canaanites probably didn't call themselves Canaanites either, that's what the Egyptians called them. What confused me was that Abraham was the legendary patriarch of the Israelites, and he came from Mesopotamia, which the Bible calls "The Land of the Chaldeans". Abraham was also the legendary patriarch of some other nations, but only the Israelites descended from Abraham's grandson Jacob (a.k.a. Israel). Jacob was probably born in Canaan, so that makes the Israelites Canaanites the same way that you and I are Americans, even though our ancestors came from Europe. On the other hand, by the time Moses came on the scene, the Israelites had been in Egypt for a couple centuries, so one might think that they would be called Egyptians, but the Israelites never really assimilated with the Egyptians, kind of like the blacks in America. The Israelites probably weren't slaves like the Blacks were slaves, more likely they were serfs or vassals of the pharaoh. According to the Bible, everybody in Egypt was a slave to the pharaoh because they sold themselves into bondage during a famine when the pharaoh was the only one who had any food stashed away because he had been warned in a dream that there would be a famine in seven years, but that's a whole nother story.

If the parting of the Red Sea was a natural phenomenon, it probably happened more than once. I read somewhere that there is geological evidence that a tsunami-like event happened in the Persian Gulf long before anybody lived there, which might be the inspiration for the Flood myth, but that's a whole nother story. The only thing this proves is that everything that happens doesn't get reported, especially back in the days before TV and the internet.

The part about the pharaoh's army getting drownded might be apocryphal, indeed, the whole Red Sea story might be apocryphal, which is why I brought the River Jordan into it. That story is more likely to be true because the River Jordan has been known to plug up like that even in modern times. If it happened right when the invading Israelites needed it to happen, it would have been thought to be a miracle by the people involved. Nowadays we would call it just a coincidence. A miracle is nothing but a coincidence with a perfect sense of timing. Anyway, the River Jordan event might have been the inspiration for the Red Sea story. The more likely scenario is that the Israelites just walked around the Red Sea where the Suez Canal is located now, but that doesn't make for nearly as interesting a story. Who would want to make an award winning movie about a boring story like that?

happy hunting grounds or boring hunting grounds?

I have consistently, and perhaps repetitively, said over and over that I believe all religions say something to the effect of love your enemy.   And I never meant to indicate that people in ancient times didn't know that they had enemies.  What I said was that they were likely unaware of people with other religions, not that they were unaware of their enemies.  Like everybody they surely had lots of enemies, but those enemies were most likely of their own religion.  I think you are operating on the theory that somebody of a different religion is necessarily your enemy, and I am saying it ain't necessarily so.

I think my main point is still that most religions have very nice words and if one did nothing but look at the words one would think their followers would be very nice people, but in fact most people just attach their religion to whatever their agenda happens to be at the time, which is generally something not very nice , and run with that.  Therefore paying a lot of attention to the official words of a religion can be misleading in judging the people.

I know about seiches.  We have indeed had some in Chicago, at the southern edge of Lake Michigan, that have dragged some folk off to their doom.  They happen from time to time, due to the weather phenomena that you cite, but probably only once every twenty-five years do we have one severe enough to kill anybody.

But this is a far cry from the parting of the Red Sea, and remember one of the main components of that myth is Pharaoh's army being swallowed up right afterwards, which certainly would not have happened if the Hebrews had availed themselves of some land bridge.

And then you cite something that happened on the Jordan River, which, may I remind you, is not the Red Sea.  If this was some kind of natural phenomenon, as you seem to be implying, why is it that the only time this ever happened was when the Hebrews, pursued by the Egyptian army, wanted to cross it?

And add to that that there is no historical evidence of Jews being pursued by Egyptians across the Red Sea, and we are talking about some strange weather conditions that almost never happen, being used to buttress a story that almost surely never happened and I am wondering why we are talking about this.

Especially when the more interesting question of what would you like your immortality to look like, and if it was nothing other than Bambi after Bambi walking up to the blind to get blasted by Betsy or Sarah, would it be an eternity worth living in, worth avoiding sin just to get into.

Troubled Waters

I will look up your Wiki reference this weekend, sooner if I get rained out tomorrow and/or Thursday. I'm interested in what they have to say about the subject.

According to the Bible, Jesus did indeed say to turn the other cheek, but that's not what we were arguing about. As I remember it, you disputed my assertion that Christianity was the only religion to say "Love your enemies". Then I backed off and said the only two other religions that I was sure didn't say it were Judaism and Islam. Then you seemed to be doubting that any religion said it, or that most people in ancient times even knew they had enemies. I could look up the quote for you, but you won't give it any credibility because it's in the Bible. Anyway, I didn't say that I believe it myself, just that Jesus said it and that Christians are supposed to believe it.

Meanwhile, back at the Red Sea: The classic image we have of the Red Sea parting, with a tall vertical wall of water on either side of a narrow corridor of dry land, is not exactly the way the Bible describes it. It's been awhile, and I can look it up later to be sure, but I seem to remember that it says that God sent an east wind to push the water out of the way, or words to that effect. This sounds to me like the phenomenon seen on the great Lakes from time to time known as a "seiche". Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, our spell check program hasn't either, but I just looked it up in my dictionary to confirm the spelling. It says that it only happens on landlocked bodies of water, which the Red Sea isn't, but the Red Sea is long and narrow like Lake Michigan which, technically isn't landlocked either. The tsunamis that happen in the Pacific produce a similar effect, except they do it backwards, first the water comes in, and then it goes out. Tsunamis used to be called "tidal waves" but we now know they are caused by undersea earthquakes. A seiche is kind of a tidal effect too, but it's not really tidal the way that tides caused by the moon are tidal.

A seiche is caused by wind and/or barometric pressure differentials. The water sloshes over to one end of the lake, causing the water level to recede on the opposite shore. At some point gravity overcomes the seiche, and the water sloshes back to the opposite shore, often causing the water level to rise rapidly and dramatically beyond it's original depth. I remember reading about it in Chicago newspapers when I was a kid, but I don't remember if it was a current or historical event. I'm sure it has happened more than once in Chicago because the article said that, if it ever happens when you are on the beach, you should not run out after the receding water, indeed, you should move inland as quickly as possible because, when the water comes back, it could wash you clean across the Outer Drive. Seiches are more common on Lake Erie because it's the shallowest of the Great Lakes, which makes the rise and fall of the water level more noticeable. I saw an outdoor show on TV once, it may have been our old friend Fred Trost. They were supposed to go fishing or duck hunting on Lake Erie, but they couldn't launch their boat because there was no water. Lake levels had been low for some time and, when a stiff offshore wind kicked up, it blew the water clean out of sight.

Okay, here's an alternate scenario: The Hebrews wouldn't have needed to cross the Red Sea at all, they could have walked around it because the Suez Canal hadn't been built yet. This doesn't explain the origin of the story in question, but it's just one more theory.

For yet another scenario that might account for the Red Sea story, we have to fast forward 40 years (which might be an allegorical number) to the Jordan River, which is a real place. For some of its length, the Jordan flows through a narrow high walled canyon. Every once in a while, a rock slide blocks off the channel for several hours, until the pressure builds to the point that the blockage blows out and a flash flood roars off downstream. Legend has it that, when the Israelites crossed the Jordan to invade Canaan, they didn't even get their feet wet because the channel was bone dry. They all got across just in time to see the water return with a vengeance, confirming their suspicion that God had something to do with it. I can imagine some old patriarch turning to a bunch of wide eyed kids who had just witnessed the event and saying, "And that, dear children, is how we got across the Red Sea so long ago." It may not have been a true story, but it was a damn good story nevertheless.

into every heaven a litle rain must fall

I don't think most historians regard the bible as a source of history.  It has spurred some archaeological expeditions and they have discovered things like a place where people used to live but not that the actual characters named in the bible existed.  King David for example, most likely a myth.  I have read a lot of this stuff over the years, but mostly I used this wiki article for what I have been saying:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites

Unless it can be confirmed independently i am rejecting the bible as a source of history.

I assume that Jesus said something like turn the other cheek, in fact isn't that phrase his?  But I think most other religions have said something like that too.  You fault me for not reading  like the bible or the koran or the torah, but those are like massive books.  If I spent all my time reading them, I would never be able to write my daily posts.

Before World War II there was a lot of anti-semitism going on all over the world.  In the USA only a certain amount of Jews were allowed in our higher institutions of learning and country clubs and whatnot.  I assume that goes way back to the emergence of Christianity as a power, because there is that tangled relationship between Judaism and Christianity, but probably mostly because they were non-Christians living in a land of Christians.  it always seemed like an odd thing to me.  I could see where the huddled masses might go for something like that, but it was also prevalent among the well-educated.

I have heard those theories about how under the correct climactic conditions something that looked a little like the Red Sea parting might have taken place, but it seems pretty far-fetched that such a thing would have happened at the exact time when the Pharoah was coming after the Israelites (which almost surely never happened) and allowed thousands of them to cross and then closed up right exactly when the Pharoah came after them. 

I don't recall anything like the parting of the Red Sea happening on Lake Erie (Are you saying like at some point Lake Erie parted and all the Michiganders who had been held slaves in Cleveland hightailed it across to the promised land and then it closed up on the Ohio highway patrol?  And I certainly haven't heard of it happening in Chicago.  I imagine if any of our Cheesehead or Hoosier slaves attempted to bolt we would just let them go.  Well we would probably charge them a fee.

Weren't we talking about immortality?  You know the problem with that is, well I guess it works well enough for hell, being miserable for eternity is something that the human brain can wrap itself around, but eternal happiness, it just sounds boring.  How can there be good guys if there are no bad guys to compare them to?  I imagine life is pretty idyllic out there in Beaglesonia, but don't you like a little rain, a little snow sometime, maybe for Ronald Reagan to break down from time to time so that you can have the nice drive out to whatever town the dealer is in?  I imagine if everytime you went out to the blind a deer immediately walked up and put its nose against Old Betsy, or cute little Mama Grizzly, you would get tired of deer hunting.

"Just the Facts, Sir"

That's what Sgt. Joe Friday in the old "Dragnet" TV show used to say when a witness he was interviewing started interjecting his personal opinions into his testimony.

I think that most secular historians view the Bible as a mixture of history, mythology, and creative story telling. In addition to reading the Bible, I have also read lots of stuff written about the Bible. Of course that's not 100% believable either, but I can usually tell if a source is biased pro or con, or if it's written from a neutral point of view. I don't have access to all the stuff I have read over the years, but I do have a book put out by Reader's Digest back in the 70s called "People of the Bible and How They Lived", and I can look some of this stuff up later if you want. There's no point, however, if you're just going to reject it out of hand because it's about the Bible. Wiki should have lots of stuff on the Bible too, and they have a reputation for writing from a neutral point of view, although some biased stuff does slip in from time to time. Before I go searching around, though, let me get this straight: Are you saying that Jesus never said, "Love your enemies." or are you saying that every other religion says that too?

I agree that Christians have historically spent more time fighting among themselves than they have fighting people of other religions, at least for the last thousand years or so. Before that there was a little skirmish called "The Crusades", but there was some intramural fighting involved in that to. More recently, the Germans and the Russians have been pretty hard on the Jews occasionally, but not in our lifetimes. This may be attributed to the fact that, until recently, Christians had a lot more contact with other Christians than they had with people of other faiths. I read somewhere that most murder victims are acquainted with their attacker. I suppose that a person is more likely to get mad at somebody he knows than somebody he doesn't know. Well, I get mad at TV people more often than I do at real people, but I never claimed to be normal. In ancient times it was different. Most nations and tribes had their own gods who led them into battle, and the losers of a war were strongly encouraged to transfer their allegiance to the winning god. Often some of the attributes of the losing god ended up becoming attributes of the winning god, which is why many religions have beliefs in common even unto this day.

The Hebrews were Canaanites? Where did that come from? I could tell you what the bible says about that, but you would just reject it out of hand because it's the Bible, so why don't you tell me where you got your information?

You're right that the Hebrews were not carried off to Egypt like they were later carried off to Babylonia. Secular sources have told me that it was common practice for nomadic herdsmen to seek refuge in Egypt during times of drought and famine. In those days Egypt was a shoestring empire that hugged the banks of the Nile, not the square country that it is today. The surrounding territory in Northern Africa, and much of the Middle East, was marginal pasture or outright desert. When times got tough out there, people would come to Egypt or the cities of Mesopotamia looking for greener pastures. The locals might drive them away or, if they were in a good mood, they might let the refugees camp out in the suburbs and hire them to do odd jobs. The Bible tells how the Hebrews evolved from refugees to slaves in Egypt, but you don't want to hear about that because it's the Bible.

Secular sources generally agree that the Hebrews migrated out of Egypt, across the Sinai desert, and on to Canaan, which they invaded and eventually conquered. Some or the miracles that happened along the way are not so universally believed, but there has been much speculation over the years how there might be a logical explanation for some of them. The Red Sea crossing, for instance, might have happened something like this: The place where the Hebrews are believed to have made their crossing is a relatively shallow and narrow part of the Red Sea called "The Sea of Reeds". Shallow waters like that are sometimes subject to tidal influences caused by wind and/or differentials in atmospheric pressure from one side to the other. Lake Erie is famous for stuff like that, and it has even happened in Chicago few times. The Biblical account mentions a "pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud being seen" in the vicinity. That sounds like two different pillars, but some translations read "a pillar of fire and cloud", like it was one pillar. Either way, it sounds like there was some kind of weather disturbance like a tornado going on, which could have caused the wind and/or the barometric pressure to do funny things. Of course, this is just speculation, but so is a lot of other stuff that passes or science or history these days.

harp music vs a crumb of an Italian beef sandwich.

I don't mind talking about the bible in the sense that this is what the bible says and it has influenced religion in such and such a way, but i do object to using it as history, probably most things in the good book never happened. 

I've been consistent in saying that most, probably all, religions in their writings ask their followers to be nice to everybody.  Love your enemies is a phrase whose absence you used in some little piece of doggerel that I dug up on the internet about the golden rule, to assert that they didn't believe in loving their enemies.  I just objected to the phrase, which they may or may not have used, but whether they used it or not, I think they did teach them to love their enemies.  I'm not saying the people behaved that way, just that that is the way they were taught.

I think you have an odd idea in thinking that anybody of a different religion is an enemy and anybody of the same religion is a friend.  The latter is certainly not true, certainly not Christianity which has spent way more time persecuting other Christians than it has persecuting people of other religions.

Isaac Asimov, Asimov, was indeed a hero of my youth.  I felt so proud of my two volume set of The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science.  I went to college intending to become a biochemist, but that came a bit a cropper when I discovered that I could buy beer with a university ID, and later when I became a hippie.  Hippies didn't have much use for science, and I don't think I came back to science until maybe my early thirties.

Adler was a psychologist, which is to say, in those days especially, a philosopher.  Philosophers are always suspect.

The early Hebrews, or the early early Hebrews were Canaanites, just ones who got religion, or that religion, as opposed to the golden calf religion.  The Hebrews didn't bust out of Egypt.  The Hebrews were never taken there, the way the Babylonians took them into captivity.  Some Hebrews ventured down to Egypt to seek their fortunes in that more civilized land, but they were never hauled out there en masse.  And by the way the Red Sea was never parted.

I don't know about life after death, originating among the Christians, a little internet research indicates it was around.  But it always seemed to me like a powerful motivator.  Do you want to believe in this religion where you go to dust and stay dust, or do you want to believe in this other one where all you have to do is avoid sin (harder than it sounds apparently), and you can live forever?  They were always pretty vague about the nature of this afterlife.  What if after a few million years you get tired of harp music, and there is still an eternity to go?

Seems there was a lot of reincarnation going on.  That doesn't sound too bad, a way to see the world and the animal kingdom.  I was never with the part that said once you get it right you are out of the loop.  I think I would always want to stay in the loop, even if it meant being a cockroach.  You never know when you are going to come across a crumb of an Italian beef sandwich.

It's All About Power

We have had this problem before, you want to talk about religion, but you don't want to talk about the Bible, and now you don't want to talk about the Koran either. I made the statement, perhaps erroneously, that Christianity is the only religion that says "love you enemies". Later I backed off and admitted that the only two I was sure didn't say that were Judaism and Islam. Now you seem to be questioning whether anybody ever said "love your enemies", or that anybody even knew they had enemies. The only way to solve this is to look it up. You may or may not believe what it says, but at least you will know what it says. How can you decide whether or not you believe something until you know what it says?

I think the first time I came across the following was in "This Believing World" by Isaac Azimov, a book that I heard about from some guy I knew in high school: Early man formulated religion in an attempt to influence the forces of Nature, upon which he was so dependent. By appeasing the spirits, he hoped to improve his success in hunting and gathering, predicting the weather, healing the sick, and contending with his enemies. Early humans must have felt threatened by a host of things over which they had little control, so they appealed to the spirits to help them deal with those things.

A few years later, I read a book, the title of which I have forgotten, by Alfred Adler who, I believe, was a disciple of Sigmund Freud. Adler asserted that almost everything people do is motivated by their eternal quest for power. People like to control stuff, it's in their nature. Even when acting passively, people are trying to control someone or something indirectly. If they can't control it by force, they will try to control it by manipulation. Even running away from something is an effort to control it. If you can't remove the threat from your presence, you can remove your presence from the threat, which accomplishes the same thing.

Humans have always been both territorial and hierarchal. They like to control land and they like to control other people. If you want to control a lot of territory, you can't do it by yourself, so first you need to control some other people. Religion is one way to do that. You can only do so much with police power, to really control people you need to control their hearts and minds so they will obey your directives even when you or your enforcers are not around.

The early Hebrews might not have personally known anybody in the land of Canaan, but they certainly knew that the Canaanites were their enemies. You don't set out to dispossess and exterminate people who are your friends. If any of the Hebrews asked the question, "What did the Canaanites do to deserve what we are planning to do to them?", Moses explained that they have angered the God of Israel by worshiping false gods and committing unspeakable abominations. Without that kind of motivation, I doubt that the Hebrews would have busted out of Egypt and trekked across the desert to conquer a place that most of them couldn't have located on a map. To be fair, Moses was probably sincere in his own beliefs. If he didn't get them directly from God like it says in the Bible, he at least figured out that this was the best way to organize his people for their own good. If all he wanted was power and glory for himself, he could have stayed in Egypt where he was already pretty high up on the totem pole.

The Hebrews in the time of Moses probably didn't believe in life after death. They might have gotten some ideas about it from the Egyptians, but they believed that only the pharaoh was immortal. I'm not sure when the Hebrews started contemplating the possibility of immortality for regular people, but there was a substantial faction who were looking into that before Jesus came along. The Zoroastrians of Persia may have pioneered the concept of Heaven, Hell, and the Resurrection as early as 1,000 BC, and they had significant contact with the Hebrews a few centuries later. Whoever thought of it first, the belief in the immortality of the human soul was a quantum leap for religion. Now, instead of just influencing the harvest and the outcome of battles, people could aspire to overcome death itself. If that isn't the ultimate power trip, I don't know what is.

hunting for traitors

I don't know about the words love your enemy, most of the people in these religions probably didn't even know anybody in another religion, and your enemy was more likely to be in your own religion than in some other religion.

More bible study.  We don't know what Jesus said, we only know what his prophets, disciples, apostles, whatever, said like sixties years later and we don't know who they were.

I'm going to continue with my thesis that all religions say nice things.  It's what attracts people to them, but then when people implement them they have a tendency to become nasty because people are nasty.

But wait a minute, if people are nasty then why are they attracted to religions that say nice things?  Um, I think at the most grassroots people are nice, but then at some level the organization becomes big and begins to gain a little power and then maybe some people within the organization become corrupted, or maybe outsiders move in seeing some gain to be made out of the organization. 

A little vague there, but I think that's how you get from a bunch of slaves and women being nice to the poor to the Vatican army.  Seems like there are some holes in that, maybe they can be considered over the weekend.

Then there is this other thing, you get an organization with a purpose and everything goes along swimmingly until maybe it takes a turn that some of the members don't like, or maybe they get some other ideas and then the organization isn't as strong as it used to be.  And maybe that's okay, maybe there is something to be gained and if more opinions are allowed then that broadens the base and the organization can grow,  And maybe that's not okay because now the message is not so pure and the zeal is lessened, and maybe the thing to do is toss out or punish the people different than the herd, that's where I think we get out heretics.  People are never less attractive than when they are rooting out traitors.

Rules Are Made to be Broken

I looked up your link, and no where in it did I find the words "love your enemy", so I'm going to stick with my original premise that Christianity is the only major religion that tells you to love your enemy. They all say to be nice to each other, but none of them say to be nice to people of other faiths. I never said that they don't all have some version of the Golden Rule, just that the Golden Rule wasn't  applied to outsiders except in Christianity. The more I think about it, I'm not really qualified to say anything about the Oriental religions. I probably know more about them than the average person on the street, but I don't know nearly as much about them as I do about Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Both Judaism and Islam were extremely hostile to unbelievers in their early years, and Islam still is. To find out about the Jews you need to read the Biblical book of Leviticus, and to find out about the Muslims, you need to read the Koran. If you don't want to read those books yourself, then you'll just have to take my word for it.

The teachings of Jesus transcended the teachings of Moses, although Jesus did say that He didn't come here to abolish the law and the prophets. I think He was trying to say that you're still supposed to obey the old laws, and then He added new laws on top of that. The Jews had never been able to live up to the old standards, which is why they were always sacrificing animals to atone for their sins. Now along comes Jesus to lay even more guilt upon their shoulders. Of course He had a plan to resolve all that by sacrificing Himself to atone for the sins of everybody else which, if you think about it rationally, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Hey, it just occurred to me that Jesus might have been the great granddaddy of the liberals! Maybe I'll burn in Hell for saying that but, as Pontius Pilate said, "What I have written, I have written."

I found the Koran difficult to read, but I wasn't reading it for enjoyment. The reason I read it was that, with Islam being in the news every day, I thought it wouldn't hurt to learn something about it. My experience with Christianity was that a lot of people who talk about it don't know what they're talking about, and I suspected that it was the same with Islam. If you want to learn about Christianity you read the Bible, unless you're Catholic, in which case your parish priest will tell you all you need to know. If you want to learn about Islam, you read the Koran, so I waded through it as best I could. There were some parts that I found interesting, but I thought that most of it was pretty obscure. I probably learned more from the introduction, which I seem to remember was written by the guy who translated it. I think he was some kind of Englishman, which might be why he saw fit to translate the Koran into King James English instead of regular American English, which only contributed to the obscurity of the text. Lucky for me he wrote the introduction in modern English, although I can't say for sure that it was American English.

The only reason we have one Bible instead of a bunch of disorganized texts floating around is that the Roman Catholic Church had a committee or something that went through all the known religious writings of the time and decided what to keep and what to throw away. The stuff they kept was called "The Cannon", although it's not clear why they named it after a big gun that hadn't even been invented yet. I suppose that, when the real cannons eventually came along, people were getting confused about it, so they started calling it "The Bible", which comes from the old Greek word, "Biblios",  which means "a collection of books."

good books

This is what I got with a few minutes of internet research: http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html  I just remember hearing over and over about how all religions have some version of the golden rule.  One thing, I think those non Abrahamic religions don't really have books in the sense that the Abrahamic books have some form of the bible, they have teaching and writings but nothing like The Book. 

There was a Koran passed around the watercolor class.  I avoided it like the plague because you know how I feel about religion, but one day I forgot my magazine to read on the train home so I took it home with me.  I poked my nose into it a little but it was like all that religious crappo all flowery language and silliness.

I'm going to stick with my main thesis that all religions tell their followers to be nice to everybody.  I mean how could they ever become very popular if they didn't do that?

I think my even mainer thesis was that it doesn't matter how nice they tell people to be because people are going to use the religions for their own means and people aren't always nice.  Oh that's right I was talking about that Armstrong book and she was talking about how people wrongly blame religion for the violence that happens in its name, because its not religion's fault because if you read the scriptures they have nothing but nice things to say.

Religion just seems sometimes to be something like the atomic bomb, maybe something more than people can handle.  You know I think niceness comes before religion, and religion just uses it.  Maybe we'd be better off without it, but it also seems like no civilization gets very far in its development before it develops some kind of religion.

I'm not saying the Good Lord told me to tell you the names for your vehicles and tools of venison destruction, but I'm not saying He didn't either.  Don't you stand a little taller, a little prouder, looking out at Ronald Reagan standing indomitable in the freehold?  Don't you get a little thrill when you pick up Mama Grizzly on the way to the blind and coo, "Let's get us a deer Mama," and you can hear her purring back, "You betcha."

I'm just trying to make life in the freehold better for you, so you don't come down here and try to take us over.

"My Balogna Has a First Name......"

Remember that old TV commercial?
"My bologna has a first name, it's O-s-c-a-r.
My bologna has a second name, it's M-a-y-e-r.
I love to eat it every day, and if you ask me why I say,
That Oscar Mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a."

Funny, Oscar Mayer sounds like a Jewish name, and yet he made lots of money selling pork products. I read somewhere that, when somebody asked him about it, Oscar said that Jews aren't supposed to eat  pork, but nothing prohibits them from selling pork to the Gentiles.

God did indeed tell Adam to name all the animals, but He didn't tell him to name his tools and weapons. I don't think He told Adam not to name his tools and weapons either, but I doubt that he told an unbeliever like you to name my tools and weapons. Well, Paul the Apostle was an unbeliever himself before he passed out on the road to Damascus, so maybe there is hope for you yet.

Paul was indeed one of the prime movers behind the spread of Christianity, but he didn't do it single handedly. Jesus actually left Peter in charge when He checked out, and there was some kind of power struggle between Peter and Paul, but I think they resolved it amicably before they were both crucified by the Romans. I don't know about Peter, but Paul probably wouldn't have been crucified if he hadn't insisted on appealing his case to Emperor Nero, which was his right as a Roman citizen. As I remember it, some lesser official was inclined to let Paul off with a warning, but ended up saying "He has appealed to Ceasar, and to Ceasar he shall go". I don't think they had a lot of freedom of speech in those days, or Paul wouldn't have gotten in trouble with the authorities in the first place.

Without looking it up, I believe it was the First Commandment that said "I am the Lord thy God.......you shall have no other gods before me...." or words to that effect. Some scholars interpret this as evidence that the early Hebrews were not monotheists, they just believed that their god was pre-eminent over all the other gods. They also believed that their god wanted them to invade Canaan and slaughter all the inhabitants without mercy, perhaps because the Hebrew god was pissed off at the Canaanite god. So much for all the religions saying the "same nice things" about each other.

Islam came along much later, but it claims to be the original true religion of the one true God. I have read the Koran, and I don't remember Mohammed saying any nice things about anybody except his own followers. After Mohammed died, those followers fought a bloody civil war over who was to be his successor, and they are still fighting to this very day. Both the Jews and the Muslims believe in the same Old Testament, although their translations are not identical. I have read most of that too, and I don't remember anybody saying anything nice about anybody else's religion. Probably the most tolerant character in there was Cyrus the Great of Persia, and he was a Zoroastrian. The Book has some nice things to say about Cyrus, but none of them refer to his religion.

You may be right about the Hindus, there is lots of violence in their scriptures, but I don't know that any of it was directed against non-Hindus. I have only read a couple of their texts, and I understand there are many more that I haven't read. As far as I know, the Buddhists are supposed to be non-violent, although I seem to remember they had some kind of altercation with the Catholics in Vietnam back in the day. Now that I think of it, I think the Catholics started it, and the Buddhists retaliated by setting themselves on fire in public places. Like I said before, them Orientals are just inscrutable.



                                   

all god's naughty chillens

Wasn't that one of the first things the good lord had Adam do, name everything?  Didn't he have all the animals parade in front of Adam so that he could name each and every one of them?  Isn't that in the bible?  You would think if it was good enough for the good lord in the Garden of Eden, it would be good enough for Beagles in the Freehold of Beaglesonia.

Mighty particular though aren't you about whether Paul was an apostle or a disciple though?  A rather fine distinction to worry about the guy who really created Christianity.  Guys like Jesus were a dime a dozen back in that day, it was Paul who made him the cornerstone of the big religion.  If it hadn't been Jesus it could just as well have been any other guy.  It was Paul who was the starmaker.

Well certainly Christianity borrowed plenty.  It came of age in Rome in the hay day of New Age thought.  You know Christianity was kind of like communism, it came of age in a time of freedom of speech, but once it settled into the seat of power there would be no more freedom of speech.  You either believe this or you step up to the stake.

I don't know that if it says that in the rules.  Well it says something like that in the ten commandments, the one about having no other god before Him, but that is in the old testament, and the old testament is like that grouchy old uncle that we all love and revere, but we don't take him all that seriously.

Anyway when we were talking about loving your friends and hating your enemies we were talking about the rules of the religion, not the behavior of the adherents.  In that sense Christianity is no different than the other big religions, they all say the same nice things.

And in behavior of the adherents, as far as obeying the rules they like and disobeying the rules they don't, I don't think the behavior of Christians is much different than that of any other religion.

We are all God's chillens, and He is waiting for us to name things.  Sometimes we need an urban cousin to do it for us.

"A Rose is a Rose is a Rose"

Who said that? I think it was one of those sports guys, maybe Pete Rose. Anyway, I'm not going to play your naming game because I think it's just silly.

Actually, Paul from the Bible was an apostle of Jesus, he just wasn't one of the original twelve. The original twelve were disciples before they became apostles, and Paul wasn't one of those. Although people frequently use the words interchangeably, a disciple and an apostle are two different things. A disciple is a follower, kind of like an apprentice, and an apostle is kind of like a journeyman, one who goes forth and preaches the word to others after he has learned it himself. Before He died, Jesus made his twelve disciples into apostles. Paul was converted after Jesus had died, but he did the same work as the other apostles, spreading the Gospel all around the Roman Empire.

I've heard what you said about the saints, but I've also heard (read actually) that some of the pre-Christian Pagan deities were made into saints in an attempt to recruit the Pagans to Christianity. Truth be known, most of the older religions borrowed ideas from each other, although they don't like to admit it.

The Hindus are the grand champions of religious assimilation, probably because of their long history of being over run by invaders and immigrants. They must have decided at some point that it was easier to join them than to fight them. They even believe that Jesus was one of the many incarnations of Vishnu, one of the other incarnations being Krishna, which may be the origin of our word for Christ. I think the Buddhists are like that too, although it's hard to tell because Buddhists can be so inscrutable. To my knowledge, the only enemies the Hindus and the Buddhists currently have are the
Muslims, and they certainly hate them. The Muslims of course hate everybody, including all the other Muslim sects except their own. Muslims are just not interested in assimilation. The Jews are kind of like that, especially the ones who live in Israel. That's another good reason to evacuate them from Israel to the U.S. Once they're here, I'm sure they would learn to work and play well with others, just like we do. 

I think that just about covers all the major religions of the world, and they all hate somebody. Well, my daughter is a Wiccan, and I've never heard her talk about hating anyone. Wiccans and other Neo Pagans like the Druids have been steadily gaining ground for some time, but I don't think they qualify as major world religions yet. The original Pagan sects fought each other a lot, until the Christians stomped them all equally regardless of race, color, or creed. If you will tell me one major religion that doesn't hate their enemies, I will be happy to look it up or even take your word for it. The Amish and the Quakers don't count because they are Christian sects. Of course Christians hate people too, but they're not supposed to.

Christians do a lot of things they're not supposed to, which is the point I was trying to make yesterday. Their whole system seems to be designed to make everybody feel guilty because there is no way a mortal man could live up to those expectations. It's a good fit for somebody who is already wracked with guilt and is looking for a way out, but it's not so comfortable for somebody who is pretty happy with they way they are already......Like me!

the naming of things

Most people don't name their stuff so I have to do it for them, which they find annoying, but after awhile they get used to it.  Take Ronald Reagan (formerly known by the dull appellation of 'the tractor'), see how he takes to his name?  Doesn't he stand a little taller?  Doesn't he seem more eager to rev up and get to getting down with what is right?  And I'll wager the next time you steer him you will notice that he pulls a little to the right, and there is nothing wrong with that is there?

And for whatever gun that doesn't get the name Sarah Palin, may I suggest Michelle Bachmann, a newer, sharper, better-looking upgrade to Sarah? And Carly Fiorina, though I think that name is better suited to a handgun.  I think firearms are better with female names because we liberals know how attached you gun nuts get to your guns, and we know you don't want to get caught writing any love poems to Newt Gingrich.

The Anglicans were just Catholics with the king of England instead of the pope, so of course they would keep the saint thing.  And the Episcopalians obviously had to ditch King George come the revolution.  I don't think they replaced him with anybody in particular.  But I guess I didn't cling to the faith of the nearest protestant church long enough to know that you could call him just Paul.  Paul the Apostle (even though he wasn't an apostle), was that so that we wouldn't confuse him with Paul the guy who is always hanging out by the Seven Eleven?

The first church didn't have any saints, they didn't invent that for a few hundred years I think, about the time they were getting organized.  And at that time they realized that they didn't have any popes for those early years and they just made up these guys and stuck them in.  They are still there in the official church whatever even though everybody knows they never existed.  You can find it on wiki.

I believe a little bit of wiki research will show you that other religions do not urge their followers to hate their enemies.  Land sakes young fellow where do you get them fool ideas?

You know who turns the other cheek? The Amish.  There is a movie called Witness from 1985 where Harrison Ford goes undercover among the Amish to protect some witness, a hot young Amish babe natch, from mobsters or drug lords, or whatever, and at one point he gets in a dispute with one of The English (as I'm sure you know they call us) who is just ragging all over him because he thinks he is Amish and will turn the other cheek.  And Harrison looks around and notices there's nobody else around to blow his cover, and he pops him a good one, and the audience went wild I am sure.

See because even though Harrison Ford lived among the Amish and learned their simple and honest ways and cherished them he knew that the phrase turn the other cheek was not complete without the addendum, unless nobody is looking.

Cowboys and Christians

I have never given names to my stuff, not even my boat. I don't know why, I just never got into the habit of it. My muzzleloader, which you have christened "Old Betsy", is the one with the cracked stock. I have two other deer rifles, one of which I haven't used in years. That one was my father's, so I would never sell it. It's a classic lever action, which is what the Rifleman had, although his was all souped up. I don't know if one exactly like that ever existed in the real world. I think the creators of that series were trying to put a different spin on the cowboy image, which had already been done to death. As I remember it, the Rifleman wasn't a cowboy, he was a farmer and a family man, so he needed something different than the iconic six shooter. Nevertheless, he shot like a cowboy and fought like a cowboy, but his heart was pure as the driven snow, like all the other TV cowboys of the era. Those were the good old days, when everything was black and white. About the time they came out with colored TV is when this country started to go to hell. Coincidence? I think not!

I believe the Anglicans, which are called Episcopalians in the U.S., also put the "St." in front of Paul's name. The King James Bible refers to all the authors of New Testament books as saints, and that one was translated by Englishmen. My old tattered Revised Standard Version from Elsdon does not, Paul is just plain Paul. The folks at Elsdon usually called him "Paul the Apostle", although he wasn't one of the original twelve. Everybody had only one name in those days, usually followed by the name of his home town or his profession. Paul was originally Saul of Tarsus, but he changed his name to Paul after his conversion experience. I doubt that anybody called him "St. Paul" in his lifetime, I'm not sure when they started doing that.

Christians are frequently criticized for not living up to the teachings of Jesus, usually by people who don't even believe in Jesus themselves. I don't know what to say about that. People are people and they do what they do. All the other religions say to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, Christianity is the only one that says to love your enemy and turn the other cheek. In the real world, following all the teachings of Jesus would be extremely difficult, unless you only come in contact with others who are trying to do the same thing. That is precisely the main message of Christianity, nobody is good enough to deserve salvation, but it's available to everybody through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Don't feel bad if you don't understand that, I think there are a lot of Christians who don't understand it either. Maybe they're better off for it, about the time I understood it was when I stopped believing it.

turning the other cheek

I see in your first paragraph you are talking about somebody taking over,  and since that phrase has no definition I'll just ride right by it.

And my mind is eased that Ronald Reagan did not not need major surgery and a somewhat humiliating ride to that snooty Alanson in some tacky, squirrel-shit speckled, rumbling, terribly out of date, I am sure, trailer.  I have taken the liberty of naming your tractor Ronald Reagan because I don't believe you pursue the charming affectation of naming things.  I don't think you even call Old Betsy, Old Betsy.  And I know you guys love to name things Ronald Reagan.

I think Old Betsy was the muzzle loader.  I remember we talked about her a little bit about the time her stock cracked.  So that leaves the other one, her sister, who I assume to be a regular rifle, whatever I mean by that.  Oh I know, like The Rifleman where, well I wasn't sure what he did so I went YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2oZ6Kv_qo and I am still not sure what he is doing, some rapid fancy fingerwork with the breech(?) between kapows, with shells flying out every whichway, quite dramatic, and quite the action to give those RINOs some pause before they dare compromise with the Democrat/Socialist/Commie/Muslim/gay horde. 

So I guess a good name for her would be Sarah Palin, or maybe for those more intimate moments when it's just the two of you alone out there in the blind on a snowy winter day, you could call her Mama Grizzly.  She'd like that.

I think all religions have some kind of rule where they have to be nice to each other.  I've heard that the golden rule exists in some form in all religions.  I'd look that up, but I have already spent my internet research on The Rifleman, kapow, kapow. 

Anyway as a good Methodist I am sure you know that it was St Paul (Doesn't the guy have a name for Chrissake?  It's okay for those papists with their idolatrous ways to go around calling people saints, but it's not the sort of thing we Methodists cotton to (where is that Rifleman when we need him?)) who decided that Christianity was too good for just the Jews and belonged to everybody, and therefore you had to be nice to everybody.

And I guess it worked out pretty well as long as the Christians were a bunch of nobodies but once they got popular, once they got the cool kids and the jocks on their side, that niceness was just not practical.

How about turn the other cheek?  You see that quoted all the time.  Nobody doubts that it is something Jesus wanted us to do.  Nobody argues that we shouldn't do it, but who the hell does it?  How many episodes of The Rifleman ended with him bursting into the saloon where the bank robbers were holed up, and he walks right up to their leader and turns the other cheek?

That Old Time Religion

We'll get to that, but first let's clear up the old business:

Back in the 70s we had to absorb some refugees from the Black takeover of Detroit and other cities. Most of these guys were pretty bitter about being driven from their homes and, for years, it was "Nigger this and Nigger that",  just like it used to be in our old neighborhood. During the time of the riots, there was some paranoia about the possibility of the Blacks surging all the way up here, and people kept their guns loaded for awhile. Of course that was unrealistic, most of the Blacks Down Below probably couldn't have found Cheboygan on a map and, even if they could, they had no interest in taking it over. Our local National Guard Unit was sent down to the Detroit riot for a week or two. I don't know how close they got to the action, the ones I knew didn't seem eager to talk about it after they came home. Then in the 80s we had that Indian fishing controversy, which I have told you about before. I guess that's about all the racial trouble we've ever had around here.

The problem with the tractor involved more than just ordering a new part. I needed an expert consultation, which only took about 15 minutes, but the hour drive up and the hour drive back pretty well shot the day for me. We figured out a quick fix I can try and, if that doesn't work, we are talking major surgery. The hardest part will be getting the tractor to Alanson. I have a trailer that can carry it, but the tractor can't be driven the way it is, so I will have to winch it onto the trailer with a come along. The trailer itself has been parked in the woods for years, so I don't know what kind of shape it's in. Getting that thing road worthy might prove to be a problem in itself. I didn't get to try the quick fix today because of rain, maybe tomorrow. Ah the joys of rural living!

It's too early for deer hunting stories. The archery season is open, but I don't do that one. The regular firearm season is in the last two weeks of November, and the muzzle loader season is in early December. The gun that has the cracked stock is my muzzle loader, and the part has been on order since July, with delivery predicted just in time for muzzle loader season. I could have gotten it sooner if I wanted to pay for it, but they offered to send it free even though the warranty is long expired. The guy wouldn't say it in so many words, but I got the impression that they have had numerous problems with cracked stocks on that model. I fixed it temporary last year with tape, and I suppose I could do that again this year if worse comes to worse.

I think that Christianity is the only religion that tells their members to be nice to everybody. The rest of them say be nice to your own people and fuck everybody else. I think that the reason Christians have been historically lacking in niceness is that loving your enemies is easier said than done. That might have been excused in the early years because it was a new concept and it took some getting used to. I don't know what their excuse is nowadays. Some of the denominations are nicer than others, and a few, like the Catholics, have made considerable improvement in our lifetimes. I have not attended church in decades, but I think the really mean Christians, the ones who give the rest of them a bad name, are the fundamentalists. They say that about the Muslims too, but I can neither confirm nor refute that because I don't know any Muslims. All I know about them is what I have read and seen on television, and we all know how reliable that is.

As far as the books go, most of the niceness is found in the New Testament, and most of the mean stuff is in the Old Testament. Christians, Jews, and Muslims all believe in the Old Testament, but only Christians believe in the New Testament. The Jews and Muslims have their own new testaments (note lower case). The Muslim one is the Koran, and I think the Jewish one is the Talmud, or maybe it's the Torah. If it's the Torah, then the Talmud is what they call the Old Testament, and vice-versa.
The Hindus have developed a reputation for tolerance, but I have read some of their ancient writings, and they sound a lot like our Old Testament. The stories are different, but the message is the same: "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition".

playing with matches

So you see all these people fleeing war, and your first thought is that maybe if they were white you would be willing to do something for them, and they'd probably have to be the right kind of white, I'm sure you don't want any muslims.  What didn't you have as bad as the cities down below?  I assume it involves somebody taking over.

Clearly more people are having babies than are killing each other, and while some people are starving others are doing well enough.  Surely you could figure that out by yourself.

I don't know what to say about your tractor.  Surely you could get one on the internet.  Myself I hate that.  I like to go in a store, or dealership, and have a little adventure, maybe meet some new people.  Leave with whatever I came for snug in my pocket so that I am not waiting by the mailbox all day.  I haven't heard any deer stories lately.  Last I heard you were having some problem with Old Betsy, but I think you got it fixed.

So I was leafing through a book by Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood, mainly defending religion against the charge that it causes all these wars, and you know me, I am no friend of religion, but I don't agree with blaming all wars on it.  A lot of wars have not much to do with religion, and the ones that do, I always rather expect that they would be fighting without the religion too.

I guess the defense of religion is that if you look in the books they are mainly telling people to  be nice, and that's nice, on the other hand, in the hands of man, and of course religion cannot survive outside of the hands of man, it's sometimes like a pack of matches, or maybe Old Betsy with the safety off.

What do you think?

Blame it on Television

Like I said before, if I didn't watch television I wouldn't be concerned with any of this. We haven't had these kinds of problems in God's Country for decades and, even when we had it, we didn't have it nearly as bad as they had it in the cities Down Below. I guess what started me on this kick was seeing the film clips of all those mobs swarming into Europe, overwhelming the border guards by sheer force of numbers. Big crowds like that have always made me nervous, and I have tried to avoid them all my life. You never know what people like that are going to do, hell even they don't know what they are going to do. The gun nuts like to talk brave about it but, truth be known, none of them have enough ammunition to stop a mob like that.

I even confused myself talking about that land and people thing. I think what I was trying to say was that there are too many people and not enough good land. There's lots of vacant land left on Earth, but most of it is vacant for a reason, and people have been fighting over the good land for thousands of years. The land around here is classified as "marginal", which means you can live on it, but not as easily as you can live somewhere else. Most of us put up with it precisely because we don't want to be jammed together like sardines in a can. Of course your perspective is entirely different, which is why I enjoy talking to you. Hanging around with the same people all the time can make you funny in the head, or so I've been told.

I agree that we should change the subject but, before we do, there is one more question that I have always wondered about. You're much better at math than I am, so answer me this if you can: It takes nine months to make a baby, but you can kill a person in a matter of seconds. Why then does the human population keep increasing even though people have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years? It's been awhile, but we used to see a lot on TV about all the people starving in Africa. I don't remember the numbers, but it seemed to me at the time that there shouldn't be anybody left in Africa by now. We haven't heard much about Africa lately, but there is always someplace in the world where people are dropping like flies for one reason or another, and it's places like that where the population is increasing the fastest, or so we are told.

I've got to go now. I was changing the hydraulic oil in my tractor today, and I couldn't get one of the drain plugs to tighten back up. I've got to drive all the way to Alanson, an hour's drive away, where the dealership is, to get a new one. A day like that is a busy day for me anymore, so I'd better get an early start, like before the crack of noon. Hey, you said you wanted to talk about something else!

the same shit over and over and over and

I don't know what you mean by buffer zone.  The Russkies kept the iron curtain countries as a buffer zone.  Before you could attack Russia you would have to go through East Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia, but what that has to do with the Mexicans living in Gage Park is beyond me.  Except that I think you think the blacks and the whites are at war, that they spend all their time thinking of how to 'take over' each other.

That seems to be the way you see the world as a constant battle between people trying 'to take over' each other, and your main concern seems to be the white people, since you are white.

The basic problem is that you don't trust anybody.  You look at some stranger and assume they are going to try to take you over, and then you think because you think that of him, he must be thinking that of you, and so the only thing left is for you to fight it out.  For some reason though you think a white guy is less likely to take you over then a nonwhite guy, I guess because you think a guy who is not the same color as you, is even more likely to try to take you over and since you think that he must think the same way about you, and the only thing for the two of you is to fight it out even harder.

So it's probably a good thing that you live in Beaglesonia where the only thing you have to fear is the Indians taking over, which is not a problem because you are talking about land, but then, when it turns out that they are taking over the land, you decide that the land isn't a problem people are.  And then you are worried about the Hispanic and Asians and you want to balance it out with whites and blacks, blacks who you have always been against before.  Well maybe blacks who don't cause any trouble, who don't mind not being able to move wherever they want or to get decent jobs or schools, so they never make a spectacle of themselves by asking for any of that are okay with you.

In Chicago we all live in one city and we have to get along, and guys like you, and there are plenty among our whites and blacks and hispanics, who think they have to fight other races to keep from taking over, are nothing but trouble for everybody else.  So on behalf of all of us, let me thank you for living far away.

Does it seem to you that we are just running through the same shit over and over again?   Probably we need to move away from politics into something else, like philosophy.  I think therefore I am.  What do you think about that?

I Mis-Spoke

Isn't that what the politicians say when they want to weasel out of a statement that they previously made? The more I think about it, I'm more concerned about the people than I am about the land. My confusion may be attributed to the fact that the people and the land generally go together, but not always. I no longer worry about our local Indians taking over because I found out that there are not nearly so many of them as I previously thought. These guys are pretty tribal, so I don't think they are going to bring in more Indians from the outside and settle them on the land they have bought.

When I first moved here, a lot of vacant land in the area was owned by real estate speculators and development companies. Most of this land was subdivided and developed during the 70s when we experienced our last population surge. A plateau was reached after that, and we even lost a few people in the last census. I don't think the Indians have any plans like that for their recent acquisitions. They still want to build another casino-hotel complex next to Mackinaw City, which will attract more tourists, but no permanent residents. Mackinaw City thrives on the tourist trade, and most of their citizens are looking forward to it. Being at least 15 miles away from Beaglesonia, I doubt that it will ruin our neighborhood. Swamps and junkyards are not a big tourist draw anyway. The fact that the feds are unlikely to sell the tribal lands out from under the Indians is so much the better. Although the feds have done exactly that in the past, our modern Indians have learned how to hire good lawyers and play the courts to their advantage. Besides, they have money now, so nobody minds living next door to them anymore. Pass the peace pipe, brothers!

I agree that our European ancestors came here mostly to get rich or richer but, in those days, cash money was scarce and land represented wealth.

If you search "immigration" on Wiki, you will find reference to the immigration act that was passed in the late 1960s. It's been awhile since I've read it, but I seem to remember that the old quota system was replaced with a formula that gives preference to people who already have relatives here. This didn't help people like us because most of our living relatives are already here. It basically favored Asians and Hispanics because they tend to have larger families and they're not all here yet. Since then, the Asian and Hispanic percentages of our population have soared, contrary to what the politicians predicted when they were trying to get this bill passed. One story is that the politicians were mistaken, and the other story is that they did it on purpose. Can you guess which story I am inclined to believe? Anyway, a system that allowed an equal number of White folks and colored folks into the country would be a big improvement.

I asked you once if the Hispanics saved Chicago by creating a buffer zone between the Blacks and the Whites, and you said no. Now you tell me that our old neighborhood has gone Hispanic while the Blacks are still to the east and the Whites are still to the west. Sounds like a buffer zone to me. Nevertheless, I'm happy that you guys were able to come to some kind of accommodation, which makes it less likely that a bunch of you will come up here and try to take over.

There ain't no "we" about it, but I do generally approve of what the Tea Party types have been doing. Throwing a monkey wrench, or at least some sand in the gears, of the federal government is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. We already have too many laws in this country, many of which are not being enforced. Piling laws on top of laws serves no useful purpose except to provide job security to the lawyers which, when you think about it, isn't really a useful purpose. It would be a good thing if nobody took that speaker's job, but that's not going to happen, anymore than the next government shut down is going to really shut the government down.

We do not pay on the national debt, they just keep refinancing it by borrowing more money, some of it from some of us. Therefore, an increase in interest rates is a good thing. If the time ever comes that nobody wants to loan them any more money, they will just default and start all over again. This will send economic shock waves around the world, which is what the world deserves for establishing a global economy. It will not, however, be the end of the world, or even the end of the United States. Argentina did it a few years ago, and they're still Argentina.



  

is that a duck I see?

I thought you were against anybody taking the land, and now you say the Indian thing is okay with you because it is working.  Shouldn't the fact that it is working make you even more against it?  And what does it mean that it is working?  What would be happening if it wasn't working?  So I assume they get some kind of tax break.  Isn't that why everybody does whatever they do in this country?

So how is this better than a black or Mexican guy buying my condo?  Sounds to me like it would be worse in your taking over scenario, because once the property goes into that Indian thing I assume it stays with the Indians, whereas the black or Mexican guy may well resell my condo to some other white guys?

The situation in Europe was much more complicated than primogeniture, but I believe mostly they came here to get rich, or richer.

There is less racial prejudice in Chicago than there was back in our day.  Well there's less everywhere.  When I moved back to Chicago to live in my parents' attic, I was dreading that talk, and I did get some of that from the white neighbors, but not that much.  The neighborhood was about two-thirds Mexican at that time, and by now it appears to be almost all Mexican.  I don't think the Mexicans took it over, mostly just the Irish and the Polacks got richer and moved out of the neighborhood, or got old and died.  And now a lot of the Mexicans who live there now are moving out to better homes in the burbs.

I get out there once a year and I think I told you the old hood still looks pretty good, lawns mowed, houses kept up.  Mexicans are big on lawn ornaments and there are a lot of those.  I think when we lived there the neighborhood would be described as blue collar, and I expect it would also be called that today.  But I have seen a couple food pantries outside churches which we never would have seen in our day, but times anymore are a lot tougher on the blue collars then they were in our day.

My limited observation is that the ghetto is still there to the east, and further west across Cicero there are a lot of whites, mostly like cops and firemen who are required to live in the city.  On the borders of the groups there is some integration, I hear that Marquette Park is integrated.  the racial tension I remember from my youth is not nearly so evident.

I didn't say I would rather admit Mexicans and Muslims than white people.  I said I would admit them both the same.

I never said you were a card carrying member of the tea party, but didn't you Birchers have a saying about if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck?  And since when do you guys care about winning anything?  You are always holding votes for stuff that will never pass, and holding up the government for some issue that you never win on.  Nobody dares run for speaker because you guys will tear him down like you did Boehner.  You don't want to run anything you just want to bitch, bitch,  bitch, and if you can throw a wrench into the government and raise the interest on the national debt that we all have to pay, why even better.

There's Taking Over, and Then There's Taking Over

This Indian thing is kind of complicated, and you know how I am about remembering details. If you want the straight skinny, go to Wiki and look up the Indian Reorganization Act, which was passed in the 1930s. The way I remember, it goes something like this: The modern Indian tribes are run something like corporations, with a chairman and a board of directors. The members are something like stockholders, but not exactly. An individual Indian can own land in his own right just like anybody else, but he also has the option of turning it over to the federal government to be held in trust for his tribe. This land is administered collectively by the whole tribe, the state in which it is located loses all jurisdiction over it. The tribes have a certain degree of autonomy, with their own police and DNR agents. The feds have the last word, but they usually don't intervene except in cases of serious crimes like murder. There are also "consent agreements" between the tribes and the state that cover all kinds of things. These are not well publicized, and we usually hear of them only when a controversy arises that threatens to end up in court. I think that's where the consent agreements came from, lawsuits that were settled out of court, but I'm not sure about that.

You're right that I should be against something like that and, in fact, I used to be. The reason I no longer oppose it is that it seems to be working, I have not heard of any serious issues arising from this in decades. The Indians don't seem to want to drive out the Whites and reclaim the land of their ancestors, they just want a place to call their own, and they have attained it by legal and ethical means, which is more than I can say about the way it was taken from them in the first place.

I'm not sure about the deal with the Swedes, but I think it was a lot like the rest of Europe at the time. Most people were farmers in those days, so land was like a job is today. The land was owned by people whose ancestors got it the old fashioned way, by fighting for it. It was  passed down to the first born son, and all the other kids had to find some other way of making a living. Many of them ended up in the military, which may be why Europe had so many wars in those days. None of the noble families would consider selling their land, but some of them eventually did when one of the first born sons ran it into the ground and bankrupted the whole operation. Nevertheless, Europe was certainly crowded compared to North America, and still is.

When I left Chicago the Blacks and the Whites were at each other's throats, and our book bears witness to that. Are you saying that they are getting along fine now? How did this come about? It's not a trick question, I'm just curious. Were the neighborhoods eventually integrated? The book says no, but it was published in the 80s. The North Side doesn't count, I'm talking about the regular part of Chicago.

You ask me why I would rather admit European immigrants to this country than Mexicans and Muslims. I can ask you the same question: Why would you rather see the country fill up with Mexicans and Muslims? You say you want what's best for everybody. Aren't Europeans part of "everybody"? Okay, the Mexicans are not the same as the Muslims. They are right next door and wouldn't be a problem if there weren't so darn many of them. The Muslims come from across the sea and have developed a reputation for beheadings and suicide bombings. Of course it's not all of them, but how can we tell the difference when they come swarming in great mobs like they have been doing in Europe? I just feel sorry for the poor Europeans who will likely be driven out by this thundering horde. They are going to need someplace to live. Why not Here?

I keep telling you that I am not a card carrying member of the Tea Party, but I suppose all us White people look alike to you. I do find it interesting that, rather than form their own political party, they are attempting to take over the Republican Party. The thing about third parties is that they never win, so this seems like a more productive strategy to me. If the RINOs don't like it, let them form a third party. Maybe the DINOs will join them too, then nobody will be in the majority and we can all live together in peace and harmony like you guys in Chicago do.

coming home to roost in beaglesonia

Those Indians buying up the land in Emmet County sounds like something you would be against.  I thought you were against nonwhite people taking over the land from white people.  Is it because it is Indians that you are okay with it?  I don't understand how it becomes a part of a reservation, if it's not continuous.  What do the Indians get out of it?

And I don't see how it's different from nonwhite people in Chicago buying property from white people.  They don't come in and steal it.  They pay for the property.  I think you may be referring to blockbusting, which was something run by white real estate people and victimized both white and black people, and you know those white people, if they weren't so racist that they couldn't stand a black person living on their block, they could have just stayed and block busting wouldn't have been possible.

And from your strange viewpoint you have a really odd idea of what is going on in Chicago like there is some kind of big takeover struggle between whites and blacks and hispanics.  Well I think the problem is that phrase, 'taking over.'  You know in algebra if you do some operations that involve dividing by zero all your math after that is going to be screwy.  Same with this phrase.  If you use a word that doesn't have a definition then the rest of your discourse doesn't make any sense.

We also have Asians and Arabs and Indian Asians, and well all sorts of people, and rich people who have more in common with each other than poor people who have more in common with each other  regardless of whether they are white or nonwhite.  And when people move to Chicago, they move there for a job or family or whatever, they are not thinking that this will help whatever ethnicity they happen to be to take over Chicago.  And when people move from one neighborhood to another it's because they get a deal on a house or maybe they just like the way the neighborhood  looks, but they don't move just because they want their ethnicity to take over another neighborhood.

I don't know where you get that people like to live with their own kind. Well there is that birds of a feather adage thing that goes around.  Ah poppycock I say.  People in the same circumstances tend to be clustered together but that is just the chances of history.  On the north side people are pretty mixed up, nobody seems to mind. 

If everybody was for their own kind to the disparagement of others this country would be all fucked up, just like if the states were all independent countries up to their own destinies this country would be a backwater. 

Those Swedes you speak of moved because their government wouldn't let them own land, not because there wasn't any land.

I don't see any reason to keep somebody who is Muslim or Mexican from moving here as opposed to some white person who would also be a stranger.  And I don't see how letting them into the country is being overthrown.  Overthrown?  I think this is just another version of 'taking over.'

Maybe I've overstressed the goodness of Democrats, well especially here in Chicago.  I hate to say it, but I think we need some Republicans, of the RINO type, which means they would be reasonable not raving lunatics.  Why don't you guys go form your own party?  Why don't you put up some tents in the swamp and invite all those tea party people to come join you in the freehold, and you can all arm yourselves to the max and parade up and down the borders and hate everybody outside the borders and be happy all day because you are all living with your own kind?

Oh republicans.  The problem here is that we have one party rule.  Generally if the party throws its weight behind some candidate that candidate will win and so nobody needs to fear running against anybody and they can do what they want, which is mostly to pile up a bunch of money before they get carted off to the hoosegow.  What can I say, we voted in Blago for his first term, anybody can make a mistake.  But when he ran the second time and everybody knew he was a sack of shit he won in another landslide. Well nobody's perfect.