Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Clean Water

Given the sudden interest in clean water in North Dakota,  doesn't it seem slightly strange that no one is protesting the lack of clean water in Flint?

Monday, November 21, 2016

Two claims

Recently I've heard people make a couple of claims, that evidence seems to show to be false.

1.  People broad brush all Republican candidates with the supposed "ism's" of Trump and therefore the GOP is becoming irrelevant.

Other than the obvious, that Trump won, the fact is that the democrat party lost ground virtually everywhere.  Congress, state legislatures, governorships, etc.   If the GOP is becoming irrelevant, this seems a strange way of showing it.

2.  Progressive theology is causing liberal churches to grow faster than more conservative churches.  Except that a new scientific study contradicts that notion.  The fact is that the folks the liberals think are the next generation of progressive christians are probably more likely to end up as "nones" than anything else.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Anybody recall...

Remember back when, one of the debate moderators asked Trump if he would abide by the results of the election?    Trump gave the only rational answer he could have which was in essence, "I'd have to wait and see what might happen before I make any decisions.".   The left, predictably, got their collective panties in a wad and tried to portray this as Trump preparing to stage a coup or something sinister.   (Let's leave aside the fact that the only recent high profile election results challenges were both by democrats.)

Now we fast forward to the actual election results and what do we see?

Angry mobs in the streets.
Calls to abolish the electoral college  (Because we want our president elected by San Francisco, LA, Chicago, NYC and a few other large urban democrat strongholds)
All sorts of vitriol on social media.

And, my favorite.

"Nothing like an election to shine a light on the actual pieces of shit in your family."

The above is from someone who claims to be a Christian, is publicly involved in a leadership role in a local church, and has young children.   Yet for some reason felt the need to publicly call one or more family members "pieces of shit" on social media.  

In what way is this mature?
In what way does this advance your political agenda?
In what way does this set a good example for his kids?
In what way does this remotely resemble the Christ he claims to follow?

It seems to me that it's possible that there are a bunch of folks out there on the left for whom liberal politics is effectively their religion.

One last great example.  Jim Wallis of Sojourners wrote a long piece about how we as Christians are called to love the marginalized etc.   Which is fine, as far as it goes.  But then he just couldn't resist turning this little epistle of love into a fundraising appeal.   That's class for you.




Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Post election fallout

There are a number of things that can be taken from last nights election.   An election in which I didn't really have a dog in the fight, and which absolutely blew my mind with the results.   I was at work for the bulk of the evening and I was shocked at how many of my millennial co workers were seriously and vociferously pro Trump.   Anyway, here's my first few thoughts.

1.  It seems clear that the election results were a big middle finger in the air to the establishment, especially the democrat establishment.

2.  It seems clear that the value of polls has got to be questioned.  Obviously the documented instances of over representing democrats out of proportion, plays a role.  But it appears as though there is an increased willingness of people to hedge or lie to pollsters because they are afraid of something.

3.   Calling people who's votes you hope to get names, is probably counterproductive.

4.   For all of Trump's faults, it seems safe to say that he doesn't lack energy or the will to take on challenges and to see them through.  I'm not sure that is enough to make for a good POTUS, but it can't hurt.

5.  It's been kind of amusing to watch my leftist (pastor/church) friends on social media trying to pretend that they haven't spent the last several months re-posting any unverified negative articles about Trump they could find,  referring to Trump in all sorts of negative and derogatory ways, and trying to make any excuse (other than that Clinton was a bad candidate) for Clinton's loss.  Instead, they are all about some faux "Let's all try really hard to love the bigoted, homophobic, anti-woman, uneducated folks that did this to us." postings.

6.  Also social media has been full of the hysterical "they're going to take away all abortion, and end gay marriage" posts.   These are both hysterical and wrong.  IF (yes, IF) Trump does get to nominate enough SCOTUS members to make a difference, and IF (yes, IF) they actually are presented with a case on either topic, IF (yes, IF) they vote the way conservatives would prefer them to.   (That's a lot of IF's)   The absolute worst thing that could possibly happen is that both of those issues would be put to the states to determine how each state would handle this issues.  In other words, through legislative or ballot measures at a more local level than national level.    So, how about we dial back they hysterical screeching and show a little patience and grace.

Reasonable 2.0

Is it reasonable to "put your trust" in something or someone who you deny the existence of?

For example, one of the most common examples of trust is a chair.  When we are ready to sit down, we turn around, and lower our selves towards the chair seat because we trust that the chair will hold our weight.

So how would you respond to someone who says that they deny the very existence of chairs, yet simultaneously tells you to have a seat in this chair right here?

Karma

Karma.
Karma?
Karma!

Karma Chameleon?


Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Autonomy

How much autonomy do we as humans have?

Is unlimited autonomy desirable?

Reasonable

Is it reasonable to believe that something's is objectively true based primarily on the fact that some person or people assert the truth of the proposition?

Is is reasonable to assert the truth of a proposition based on the fact that others also assert the truth of a given proposition?