BVMLTT

https://www.outkick.com/twitter-the-master-of-illusion-turns-dwayne-haskins-into-example-of-black-qb-injustice/ 

I've listened to and read Whitlock since he was a young columnist for The Star and trying to pimp his street cred on AM Sports Talk radio.  Of late, he's been a refreshing voice on matters beyond sports.    He doesn't seem to be afraid of people taking shots at him, and seems to be speaking his mind.   

But, lets assume that his recent persona is just a schtick to get clicks, I'm not sure that it's any worse than the folx he talks about in the piece. 

Trendy

I'm noticing a trend recently that might be amusing if it wasn't serious.  As we learned from the postmodern worldview, there is no truth,

 So, it's strange when someone who is free with the term "your truth" and who denies the existence of truth, gets bent out of shape when they decide that someone else is lying.   There's not truth, but lying is bad doesn't seem to make sense.

 This phenomenon is being supplanted by people who always demand proof of everything, they want research.  Yet, they seem to believe in things that not only haven't been proven true, but that have actually been proven false.   It's almost like there are certain subjects that must be protected from research, from looking at the data, from being falsified.   

One of the hallmarks of the Scientific Method was that something be falsifiable, yet now it's out of bounds to even suggest that some things could be falsified, let alone actually trying to.  

What a strange time we live in. 

Is this really what it takes to get people to vote for Biden?

https://www.outkick.com/tana-mongeau-booty-for-biden-votes/ 

While this is a kind of silly thing and something to share a laugh about, the reality is that it certainly looks as though this little joke was or could be against election laws, as well as potentially encouraging folx to break the laws against ballot selfies.  

We all know if this was for Trump what the reaction would be, but since it's not we'll probably see it just go away.

Supernatural

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

 

There has been a lot of back and forth over the notion of God acting in a supernatural way recently.  Given that the God described in scripture is a supernatural being, who's described as "Spirit and Truth", it seems like any time He interacts with humanity, the encounter is supernatural.  One question I asked is, "If God doesn't act supernaturally, then why pray?".   Yesterday, in the installation service for our senior pastor there was a lot of talk about God; calling, leading,  comforting, inspiring, blessing, etc.  To me it seems obvious that any of those requires a supernatural interaction between a God who is Spirit and humans who are flesh.  

It's often hard to look at scripture in these cases because so many people have adopted a mindset that things said by Jesus carry more weight than things said by others.  This makes it difficult to use scripture from the OT and from Paul's epistles.   Fortunately many of these folks are particularly attentive to the Sermon on the Mount, and give great credence and worth to those passages.  So, let's look at the part of the SOTM where Jesus talks about prayer.

The first and most obvious point is that Jesus is exhorting us to pray and to pray to "Our Father who art in heaven".   It seems safe to conclude that Jesus is telling us to pray to a supernatural being.    This being is to be "hallowed" which means "holy, consecrated, greatly revered, or honored",  which is a lot to unpack here.

Then we move to "thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven."

I believe that the only reasonable conclusion that we can draw from this phrase is that we should expect God to bring about His will on earth the same way He would in heaven.   That His will for what happens in our natural world is aimed at the same thing as in His supernatural world.  That when we pray, that we should expect some of the supernatural to invade and influence the natural.   I can see no possible way to reasonably conclude that Jesus is not telling His followers to expect some degree of supernatural response.

"Give us this day our daily bread."    In our 21st century, first world, lives, we probably take this phrase a little figuratively.  After all we go to work, we earn our paycheck, and we go the the grocery store to put food on the table.  Yet, anyone who's spent time with believers in the third world realizes that they literally depend on God to provide them with the ability to eat.  No one is talking manna from heaven or anything, but we are talking a sincere belief that God will help them find what they need to sustain life.  Compared to even the poorest in the US, this sort of life seems brutally hard and discouraging, yet many worldwide live this line of scripture daily with an immense amount of faith.  

"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

There's probably several books worth of stuff to unpack here, so I'll be brief.   It's reasonable to conclude (especially in light of Jesus other teachings) that the first forgiveness is from God to us, which by definition would seem to invoke some level of supernatural activity.  If we sin against a supernatural God, and he forgives us, then it seems foolish to deny that some supernatural activity is taking place.  Further, it seems that that supernatural forgiveness is something that we model in the natural world.   

"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."

 The terms "lead' and "deliver" suggest that God takes an active role in directing our actions.  It seems unlikely that a supernatural God would lead or deliver us without some level of supernatural intervention.  Even if that intervention is leading someone else to help us.

 "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever."

Starting with the obvious, any being with the ability to do anything "for ever and ever", would necessarily be supernatural.  Again, if one looks more broadly at the teachings of Jesus, it's likely that He is referring to this kingdom as being supernatural in that it expands beyond time and space.

This isn't supposed to be a deep theological treatise digging into every nook and cranny of Jesus prayer.  It's simply meant to point out that it's incredibly difficult to escape that Jesus most clear teaching on prayer was filled with language that points to a supernatural God intervening in our natural world in response to the prayers of His people.

Maybe the problem is that we misunderstand what is supernatural and fail to see the supernatural in the small things.   Obviously we can look at Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, making the blind see and the lame walk.   We can look at the fate that befell Ananias and Sapphira in Acts.  We can look at Jesus feeding thousands with little.  We can look at His death and resurrection,  There are all sorts of those kinds of things that can be dissected, I'm sure that many who say that follow Christ will argue against any or all of these things actually happening, and even more who'll insist that absolutely none of these kinds of things happen today, and if that's how you want to limit God that's your choice.   Yet, we do see things that can't adequately be explained in 100% natural terms.  Am I saying that all of those are supernatural acts of God?  No.  Am I saying that they're absolutely not?  Also no.   

I think that worshiping a God that doesn't care enough to intervene in the lives of His people, or who's too impotent to, is a god that's probably not worth our worship.

After, is it fair?

 There are several options for what happens to us after we die, I’ll list a few and go from there.

1.   We cease to exist.

2.   Reincarnation/Karma/Nirvana 

3.   Eternal reward for believers  (heaven)

4.    Eternal punishment (hell)

5.    Eternal separation from God

6.     Eternal reward for everyone (Universalism)

I’m sure there are more, but these should be sufficient to make the point.   In terms of what most people would consider "fair" #'s 1&2 are probably the most fair.  1. We're all equally gone.  2.  We're all equally trying to achieve something that really doesn't seem well defined.  

#'s 3 & 4 seem like they need to be connected if we're talking about fairness.  It seems reasonable that if reward is eternal, then punishment should be also.  (For purposes of this example, I'm choosing to set aside the Calvinist perspective)

#5 seems pointless to me, although some would argue that it is preferable to #4.

6.  Honestly, this seems to be the least fair of all of the options.  The thought that Hitler and Mother Theresa will both be rewarded seems grotesquely unfair.

I suspect that part of the problem is that most humans tend to define fair, as what benefits me more, which means that it's possible that we're using the wrong measurement.

Credible

 Is Jim Acosta a credible media source?

Trump's taxes

 This recent brouhaha over Trump's taxes makes me laugh.

Despite that NYT article stating that Trump paid over a million dollars of income taxes in the "$750.00" years, the narrative persists apparently impervious to truth.

But what's even more amusing is that a veritable horde of people who' vast experience with taxation is their W2 income job, with government mandated withholding, and filling out their 1040EZ, (maybe the regular 1040 if they're lucky), who get giddy on the feds are benevolent enough to give them a $500.00 refund, are all of a sudden experts in taxation.   People who wouldn't know what a schedule C is because they jealously guard their standard deduction, are all of a sudden experts on deductible depreciation and the rest.   Not to mention that all of this is based on a newspaper story by people who haven't seen the returns.

I get that, taken out of context, many of the specific legal deductions sound absurd.  Yet, like so much, the problem doesn't lie with the people who take advantage of every possible legal tax deduction, the problem lies with the people who actually have the power to change the tax code, but don't.   

I'm going to guess that every one of these "experts" behaves exactly the same way that Trump does when it comes to taxes.  They try to squeeze out every single legal deduction that they possibly can, and they probably take the risk of a few that aren't so legal in the hopes that they don't get audited.   

I feel confident in saying that the problem isn't the Trumps of the world (y'all are lying if you think that the lefty 1% ers don't do the same things), it's the tax code.