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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
thecosmicdance's InsaneJournal:
| Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 | |
| 7:38 pm | A lot of Catholic hospitals are upset with Obama for his administration's request that they include birth control in their employee's insurance packages. Only hospitals and universities have to do it, no other part of any religious organization would be required to. See, here's the thing, Catholic hospitals... ( the thing ) |
| Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 | |
| 11:43 pm | A Line in the Sand (and a Last Straw) pt 2 ( The Salvation Army's part in all of this ) |
| 11:01 pm | A Line in the Sand (and a Last Straw) Anti Gay denominations unite and align themselves. In an open letter to the United States (maybe the world) several Christian denominations stated that they believe they have a right not to employ, or even feed and shelter, anyone gay. That this is not just a spiritual right, but a legal one and they feel it should extend to every aspect of life, not just private church property. For example, a Christian shop owner otherwise unaffiated with a church should not have to hire a gay person, a Christian landlord who owns more than four units and does not live on site should still have the right to not rent to gay tenants. ( disappointment and disillusionment ) |
| Sunday, January 15th, 2012 | |
| 1:14 pm | Tim Tebow becomes first Christian to play in NFL People are "Tebowing" (an elaborate form of getting down on one knee in prayer) all over the place because Tim Tebow is cool right now, because his team is doing very well. People have also been treating him as if he's doing something brave and unique, that he is somehow a better person because he's being openly demonstrative about his religion. ( Tebow ) |
| Sunday, January 8th, 2012 | |
| 12:50 pm | Reconsidering Christian Rock pt2 ( I want to fall in love ) |
| 12:01 pm | Reconsidering Christian Rock pt 1 “I kinda like Christian rock. It’s so positive. They’re not like those real musicians, who think they’re all cool.” - George Costanza. Oddly enough, in the last year or two I've come to reconsider my previous stance on Christian rock. For one thing, I updated my knowledge of what is actually going on in that world. And for another thing, I decided that I didn't really care if other people didn't like that I might like it after all. And you've also got to realize that while I'm very devout, I no longer attend church- haven't gone in five or six years, not even for holidays. I resigned my membership in the church I used to attend but haven't been particularly up to making any sort of effort to join another one. I have my reasons, but it means that Christian music of any kind is something I won't hear, at all, never, period, unless I seek it out on my own. Mostly, I listen to it on a "music only" Christian station, that is generally devoid of sermons and politics. If I like a song enough, I download it illegally. So basically, since I never pay for it, I don't worry about what they're using my money for. I have the right, and ability, to use my own moral and artistic judgement to listen to whatever the frak I want to listen to. ( But I think what we need here is a little perspective. ) Current Music: Ken Burns Civil War |
| Thursday, September 29th, 2011 | |
| 11:43 am | Bell's Hells pt 5 ( But is there anything wrong with extra Biblical traditons? ) |
| Sunday, September 25th, 2011 | |
| 12:42 pm | Bell's Hells pt3 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjo First of all, I am impressed with the fortitude with which Rob avoids referring to God with a male pronoun. I usually do verbal backflips to avoid this in my writings, but Rob seems to do it with ease. I noticed at least once where he substituted “[God]” in a Bible verse for a “he,” although he lets the male pronoun stand in other biblical quotes. It’s no surprise to those of us who’ve been listening to Rob for years, that he has a robustly Old Testament doctrine of God. The deference with which he writes of God made me think of the Old Testament, and he refers at one point to his friends who write “G-d” in order to mimic the Jewish avoidance of saying or writing Yahweh. I actually take Rob’s avoidance of the male pronoun for God to be a continuation of this same tendency, and it’s one that I deeply appreciate. The Anabaptist perspective Another C.S Lewis comparison. I'm beginging to think I'll have to have an opinion on that... Slactivist: Do All Paths Lead to God? Questions like that are a path away from God. Whatever path you're on, God will meet you there. How you respond in that encounter matters far, far more than whatever path you happen to be on, or where you thought you were going, or whether or not the catechists think you have the correct answers to all the wrong questions. I really, really like that answer! I’ve never thought of it that way before. More Slacktivist on Rob Bell. The epistemology of Team Hell Rob Bell vs Team Hell cont Team Hell gets loud H e double hockey sticks (or, the Bible's lack of proof of Hell) You will notice that all the quotes Slacktivist (Fred) uses are New Testament quotes, aka from the 1st century or beyond, and in books written by Greek oriented proto Christians, in a Greco-Roman world. Luke specifically uses the word "Hades". |
| Sunday, September 11th, 2011 | |
| 11:32 am | Bell's Hells pt 2 There’s a whole list of articles discussing this controversy, but I’m going to link to them at the end. Right now, we’ll talk about what I have to call The Uber Post. A perfect sample post and thread on the entire issue. ( Comments ) |
| Wednesday, September 7th, 2011 | |
| 9:54 pm | Bell's Hells pt1 Who is Rob Bell and Why Do We Care? Rob Bell is a man. Rob Bell is white. Rob Bell is American. Rob Bell is from the Midwest. Rob Bell is an ordained Christian minister who has studied theology. Rob Bell seems surprisingly young. And it looks like, from his publicity photo, he wears glasses sometimes. ( Yeah, okay, <I>but why should we care? ) |
| Monday, June 7th, 2010 | |
| 9:49 pm | One thing I've been noticing is that Scientology really isn't very good for children. Not just because of the allegations of abuse, neglect and broken families but there's a marked difference in the writing quality of the testimonies from people who were either raised in it or joined as teens. It's like their writing ability is arrested at whatever age they joined staff or the Sea Org. I'm reading a story from someone who says they are 41, and I could've sworn the author was about thirteen at best. She was fifteen when she joined Scientology staff. Scientology displays a certain lack of interest in following through on the minimum legal requirements for school hours for minors. Especially those children who aren't accompanied by parents (sometimes in the past, children of Sea Org members were taken and raised as a group and only saw their parents on weekends). I've seen better writing from kids who went to Delphi Academy or other private Scientology schools. But if a parent is not willing or able to enforce their child's education, Scientology will not exactly prioritize it. It's a more "productive" use of time to put a ten year old straight to work doing laundry or passing messages. If the child wises up and wants to know why they can't go to school like other kids, it's explained to them that local schoolchildren will make fun of them for being Scientologists (which is sometimes true) and that "wog" schools are full of drugs. |
| Sunday, June 6th, 2010 | |
| 6:20 pm | The Cult News/Rick Ross Institute claims that Religious Tolerance.org is a "cult apologist" run website. Erm...well, that's a little worrying because so many people get their information from there. But on the other hand, most of the information in their Christianity sections, I know is usually correct. And see, these "Beware cults" listings and news services tend to be incredibly paranoid. It's why I stopped reading "Dark Christian" even though they did provide some valuable information. The Christian versions seem to find fundamentalists behind *everything*. When I've shown people "Talk to Action" they give me funny looks and I think, lose a little faith in my reasoning capabilities. |
| Saturday, June 5th, 2010 | |
| 12:22 am | So I've been reading a lot of ex Scientology websites. I don't know why, maybe it's the fact that it's not my religion that makes it a kind of welcome relief. It's, as Johnny Maxwell would put it, a “tv war”, I can watch the wank and the complete crack while knowing none of it personally affects me, I don't have to have an opinion on it and I can walk away at any time. One thing I keep seeing is statements that “Scientology doesn't work” or “Scientology doesn't deliver what it promises”. I think they're looking at the whole thing the wrong way. ( Scientology thoughts ) |
| Sunday, March 28th, 2010 | |
| 12:03 pm | |
| Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 | |
| 10:26 am | |
| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 | |
| 6:26 pm | Christmas Song Thoughts ( Song #1, Same Old Lang Syne ) |
| Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 | |
| 3:30 pm | |
| Friday, September 11th, 2009 | |
| 5:35 pm | Apparently conservative Christians are not happy with the idea of national healthcare reform. Now I don’t know this for sure. I haven’t even bothered to research it. But aside from wackadoo conspiracy theories about Obama’s secret Muslim terrorist roots, there is no other earthly reason for Christians to oppose health care reform (except maybe really out there fears that the OWG will make us all get the Mark of the Beast or something). You’d think it’d be the one thing they wouldn’t oppose, even a hardline conservative fungelical can’t actually turn their back on sick little kids and old people, right? Most of the fungelicals I know spend hundreds of dollars on charities, both foreign and domestic and are always the first to show up with a fruit basket when you're in the hospital. But I think they’ve somehow got it into their heads that a national healthcare system would mean the government would force doctors to treat gay people and to give abortions, or even just provide Plan B when specifically requested. They’re probably right. Once the US government gets involved, unless you’re in the military, there is no chance you’ll be allowed to simply pick and choose your patients based on your opinion of their moral fitness. The British NHS came into being just after WWII, and homosexuality wasn’t legalized in the UK until the end of the 60s, so being a national healthcare system probably didn’t really stop people from discriminating. We are, however, now in a different era and many changes have occurred in European and American social attitudes. If it’d been created in the 21st century or even the 90s, that sort of discrimination would not have been allowed (and it wasnt' seen as discrimination because gay people and women who wanted abortions didn't see themselves as having the right to demand otherwise-the medical community at large diagnosed homosexuality as a mental disorder and abortions were not spoken of in polite company). And I seriously think that’s what people are afraid of, deep down. Public health care will be like public schools and public libraries-it has to be open to everyone regardless of how you feel about their lifestyle. Right now, denying care based on a person’s lifestyle is just bad customer service, with the feds involved it’d be a illegal. Of course, rather than totally flipping out at the mere mention of the idea… they could always lobby for the plan to be under the control of individual states, you know, kind of like public schools or the DMV, the federal government gives all the states a broad outline of what they want and then leaves it up to each state to interpret. I mean, I don’t think the federal government could manage a national healthcare system run entirely out of Washington, but this would be something, maybe even something that worked for everyone. Except those people who get stuck in a state run by conservative Christians. |
| Monday, July 13th, 2009 | |
| 12:25 pm | SPN and Spirituality pt 5 ( Continuing on the Subject of Jimmy Novak, spoilers for S4 ahoy ) |
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | |
| 12:27 pm | Supernatural and Spirituality pt 4 One of the things I like about Supernatural is their ( Sympathetic Portrayal of Religious People: ) |