This blog post has no cause. I have Prof. Hawking on my side of the debate. See also. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
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Oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico[1][2][3]. Again?
[1] Une plat-forme pétrolière explose dans le golfe du Mexique
[2] USA: Une platforme pétrolière explose
[3] Explosion on Gulf of Mexico rig
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I thought that, since I am of the übermeschen, die neue aryan, and my skin does not burn under the bright assaults of the sun, that I would never get anything like sunburn, as do those other people. But windburn apparently is another issue, related but different, and from this I did suffer. Now the skin is peeling off my face. :o(
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Apparently, its name in English is “soursop”. In Luganda, it is called “kitafeeri” (some spell it “kitaferi”, but I think the first spelling is correct). Knowing only the Luganda name, I could not read about it on Wikipedia. I used Google to get from A to B, and there it is.
I got one yesterday. I had not eaten this stuff in like more than fifteen years. I used to eat them as a kid. It was nice.
The Wikipedia article says it is a close relative of the pawpaw. I say hogwash. That taxonomical table needs fixing. If you have looked at the two, there is only as much similarity as there is between phones and pens. If they had said jackfruit, perhaps. But pawpaw? Buzz off.
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I am one of those privileged jerks who will eat even if they do not work. Yet look how I work, just because it seems worthwhile to sow seed and combat the elements, and wait for produce.
And it is in this fashion that I end up covered now in waves of work; so much so, in fact, that I am not yet anywhere online in the last few days, or in the next few days (until about a week into the September month). Work, work, work.
I have not had the chance to tell you about the fishing expedition I was on, on Saturday; about the huge boat-tossing fish I caught, and so on and so forth. Or even about the few things I have found online.
But when I am done sowing, then the time for banter will return. And, O children, will the banter be much; for there is much to dispute about.
In the meantime …
Martin Luther on philosophy. Feck; the douchebag was right even when he was wrong! And as a summary for my recent first and second Discourses, Luther had that.
The fastest gun draw; I found the video. As the Irish say, Feck! —Saints preserve us!
Okay. Now, some work. I promise, when it is over, you are going to wish I still had lots of it!
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The 1995 documentary, The Last Feast of the Crocodiles about the drying of the Luvuvu River in South Africa’s Kruger National Park is probably the saddest picture on animals. Probably.
I countered it, after watching it, by watching Mrs Henderson Presents, which was a feebly-potent antidote. Feebly-potent.
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The logging I mentioned at the end of this post, I have stopped it. It was hogging my disk space.
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A monitor lizard—a baby, about a foot long from nostril to tail-tip—falls off the ceiling. I am not at home; I am at a neighbour’s place. Otherwise my cats would be tearing into it very harshly.
Anyway, so the lizard falls off the ceiling, and I cannot be arsed to chase it around. If it succeeds in finding an exit before someone decides to maul it, good for it. If it doesn’t … it should have stayed at the lake. There are some things about staying some few metres away from the lake, things that cannot be explained in text.
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The software that runs this blog is written by the same hands that write these blog posts. So, you understand why you should be surprised that it works at all. Still, if that is your bent, here is the code that runs the show. I call the software “1Bug” because of some snarky reasons I will not speak out loud. Alright, because “1B” is hexadecimal for “27”, and because—no matter what—this software has at least one bug lurking in there somewhere. :o)
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This is what happened on the debate I was participating in, after I had posted the initial report of it, without whose context this will not make much sense. At present, the debate seems to have ended, and this that you see below is all the input I have in it. It looks bad on me that I had the last word in, like I am some arguing two-year-old, but in my defence I asked questions which they did not answer, so it is due to their refusal to respond that I seem like that. All the same, a set of compact exchanges on Grace and the Law. Behold:
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From John Powers, I get this link. And since I have been a Net hermit, I did not know about that event. I will go back to my cave after this.
Also, I discovered, not very long ago, that my friend is Velma from Scooby Doo. (The “is” being, in this case, a transitive binary operator, it means that also Velma from Scooby Doo is my friend. Bow, ye vanquished; and pay obeisance to thy new sovereign.) It is as cool as it is weird; not least because I confirmed the revelation by extracting a confession from the horse’s mouth.
Princess has a new blog here, Book Lugambo. Doubleplus unterrible.
And then, a link about some publisher basically scamming professors. I do not understand their goal; but I can see why someone would think it up. Heck, I can see why I would think it up. Nothing nearly as good as catching some self-important guy in his words and making him make himself the butt of a joke so terrible that he would never get it. They should get only those who say “I do not believe anything unless I prove it.” And then tell them “But, professor … you proved that this was a legitimate request, and you were wrong.”
And … I was at the Happy Hour last night. Swell time. In more ways than one. I will await commentaries.
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Since I am stranded here tonight, and my long night of the soul is over, I shall give you links. Only little commentary, because I am drained of spirit.
On Naturalism and Scientism over there.
From where I this here link, on untruth in science. See also.
I just like how Peter Schiff cannot keep a sneer in, when he is facing off with economic wrongitudes (and he has the rightitude). Read him over here.
I am glad I took the New Fideism copyright. Apparently, Martin Luther was quite in line, in spite of his having been a Roman Catholic. (Yes, Protestants are Roman Catholics. Protestant Roman Catholics.)
Lastly, NIV.ug. Remember: you saw it here first. Now, use it on your Twitter.
[Update: Now I also learn of ref.ly. Coolness.]
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Sorry for the latest spate of preacherman mode. You should understand that it is really difficult for those who, like me, have no religion, yet who so strongly believe things that people of religion have so successfully hijacked; so we cannot safely talk about what we feel, think, and believe without provoking in those around the same (oft-justified) reactions that the religious people do.
All the same, I am putting preacherman on depressants, for now. Watch out for some erotica in a short while. Lemme go try to draw some erotica and put it up. For past issues, start here.
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I use the NIV because it is clear to modern English readers, while remaining as close to the literal as it makes sense to. For the most part, I like the “thought-for-thought” translation philosophy. However, sometimes our thought pattern has blind spots and biases, so that if we translate the thoughts, we end up reading into them our thoughts.
To overthrow that, I usually get Young’s Literal Translation, because this dude just decided to translate one word after another, not even changing the sentence structure at all. Sometimes, that is where we can find clarity of what the writer meant.
Consider, then, the following:
We who are Jews by birth and not “Gentile sinners” know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.Here St. Paul is insisting that he should not again return to living under the Law, because if he does so, then he becomes a law-breaker. If he does, then he is rightfully considered a law-breaker. Because (firstly) the law condemns, and (secondly) it never justifies, and (thirdly) it gives life to sin, and (fourthly) the Law was put in place to lead us to where we shall live by Grace, and (fifthly) it is for law-breakers. What St. Paul means is that for as long as he is not under the law, he is not a law-breaker.
If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
But if you have already made your mind up against the possibility of living as righteous apart from the Law, the above verse does not bring it out strongly. Then I bring you the crucial line from YLT:
having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through the faith of Jesus Christ, also we in Christ Jesus did believe, that we might be declared righteous by the faith of Christ, and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh. … for if the things I threw down, these again I build up, a transgressor I set myself forth;That is clearer, if you can understand the sentence structure. (Young writes Greek sentence structure in English.)
Others are more-obvious:
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.I hope it is clear. This is only valid, of course, if in your weakness you rely on Jesus. Those who are under the Law are so precisely because in their weakness they rely on themselves. “Thou shalt not,” rather than “It is finished.”
Those under the Law look at their works and know if they are being righteous. But we do not live by sight; we live by faith. We do not see our salvation—as we would, if we worked for it—we believe for it. We live by faith, not by sight.
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Eh, kid. Here; go read you some Galatians.
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If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
Source: Galatians 2:17-21
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As always, the chant was “Look and live!” It was never “Do … and live”, but merely “Look and live.” Behold, O children, how these two slushy Hebrew names—“Nehushtan” and “Yeshua”—are connected in giving enduring life to whoever will look at the bearer of them, when the bearer is hoisted up. It is going to be a long one, because it long overdue. I write it in this style, O children, that those who seek to confuse you—and they are many—may find you ready, that you may identify their poisonous whisperings and shut your ears to them; they will gleam with promise on the surface, but the bite you take of their fruit will kill you. To fore-arm you, I write at such length.
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Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Source: Isaiah 53. See also: The Message, and The punishment that brought us peace was upon him … and the Lord has laid upon him the evil of us all … for he bore the sin of many, and prayed on behalf of the transgressors.
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As God arranges things, I went and got myself into a debate on the Internet. I shall not link to where, but what I will say is that the blog post I was debating on is what provoked this post, Suicides, All. With that in mind, you will understand the things below without much explicit context. Another thing worth noting is that these are comments (written by me, on that blog post), and I expect that you will glean from the quotes the position I am debating against. That blog does not allow more that 2000 characters (it seems less, in fact, because I type Unicode), and even the text in tags is counted. As such, I do not post links to Bible verses; I just cite them generally (by quoting, or by citing the chapter), so as to reduce on wasted characters. The audience there did not seem affected, because they generally understand what I am doing. I have copied this here for you, O children, that you may see that I can actually be more-irritating that even you know me to be. I’ve left all the spelling errors in there. Remember: Grace is the Righteousness of God, and if it blows you away just how radical the Grace of God is, you understand why Grace is, as St. Paul puts it, what God did “to make the riches of His Glory known to the objects of his mercy”. Okay, your horror begins … now. ;o)
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