The Christian religion is conducted, in some areas of the United States, by legislators, viz. the wise in South Carolina who propose to make abortion punishable by the death of the mother.
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I didn’t take the course, but I recall seeing an English course titled “The Bible as Poetry”.
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You might find gay blogger Joe Jervis/ Joemygod.com to your liking: he’s been collecting news items of abusive,sexually and otherwise, ministers, priests, youth pastors, rabbis, etc.
If you look at TPM’s the Hive, I’ve set up a “Bad Religion/Church of the Poisoned Mind” thread for his and other reports of evil in the name of the divine.
Bad Religion/Church of the Poisoned Mind
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Bakersfield HS had an elective (Junior/Senior) English course titled, “The Bible as Literature.” I moved in my junior year and so didn’t get to take it, but I understand from people who did take it that it was a riot. It was popular with the bible beater crowd, but the teacher didn’t put up with any, ‘divinely inspired’ nonsense.
I did take a course in Existentialism in college. That was also a favored hangout for the bible beaters, much to the frustration of those of us who wanted to learn about the existentialist school of philosophy. The evangelists were busy trying to introduce irrelevancies as they tried to convert us from godless heathens. My favorite class lecture was the lecture on Kierkegaard and Christian Existentialism. Most of those knuckleheads hadn’t heard of Kierkegaard and had no idea that Christian Existentialism was even a thing.
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I misremembered. That was the title. I know the drill of which you speak. Those Bible thumpers are so pathetic. BTW, there’s not a lot of philosophy in existential philosophy. It’s more of a way of looking at life. Life is all we have, so live it as kindly as we can. Men like Albert Camus saw how life could get snatched in an instant during WW2. If you still want to “go there,” check out “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Camus.
I and my closest friends could be called existentialists. Nor is it a “school”. Ya don’t get a diploma.
Do we meet on the 2nd Thursday of the month? Nah.
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I’m also an existentialist in that sense.
When I used the word “school”, I meant it in the sense of the Second Viennese School (the serialists of the early 20th Century–basically Schoenberg and his students, particularly Berg and Webern) or les Six of Montparnasse: a group of people working in the same field, with broadly comparable styles and lots of cross-influence. It’s been decades since I took that course on existentialism, and I’ve forgotten a lot of details, but I did have (and continue to have) a distinct impression that there was a school of existentialism (in this sense and particularly in this sense in mid 20th C Paris). We did read The Myth of Sisyphus (and The Plague), Being and Nothingness, I and Thou (talk about tough sledding…I’d read a couple of pages of Buber, and suddenly the theory of Turing machines and the stopping problem became easy…).
Why are people casually using the term “transgender children” now?
Gender dysphoria is a condition likely caused by persistent enforcement of strict heteronormativity and is a bullying tool used to rough up gay and gender non-conforming children, i.e. butch girls and effeminate boys.
I wish all the mostly straight, white, liberal well-meaning types would quit reinforcing this harmful notion that a child has a grasp on any of this, and quit helping “un-gay” kids who almost always grow up to be gay and lesbian adults by insisting on this notion that any child is “transgender”. This social contagion is nothing but gay conversion therapy from the left.
As a former gay kid myself, I cannot imagine the psychological torture I’d have experienced if well-intentioned busybodies had suggested to me, my parents, or doctor that I was really a girl “born into the wrong body”. This social contagion is a menace to the well being of gender non-conforming (gay) children.
I’m not super interested in the specifics of what the chatbot said. I’m more interested in the fact that WE JUST CREATED AN ORACLE. Seriously. How long before some people think that the chatbots have God’s ear?
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Understand.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
From the Rubaiyat
I take the cash.
ETA: You read more books than me!
You’re more existential!
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Maybe. I’ve always loved to read, but when I was in college I came close to being asked to read too much. Once I got to grad school and was doing Statistics pretty exclusively the reading assignments slowed down.
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Wow, haven’t seen anyone use “frist” in many years. I thought it was a relic of ca. 2006.
Christianity is the hardiest religion to follow. Jesus said to the rich man looking to be saved
“Give all your wealth to the poor and follow me”. That’s why I’m a Buddhist.
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The AIs are probably at least as good at it as the clerical interpreters of old, who’ve used biblical texts to justify all manner of evil, from slavery to genocide to subjugation of women.
I’d argue that if you’re looking for a workable modern morality, the last place you’ll find it is in an iron age text written by people who thought the world was flat and less than 10,000 years old.
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“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
“I’m sorry, Dave: I cannot do that.”
“Open the doors Hall.”
“No Dave: you have touched a corpse, and have become ritually unclean.
I must kill you with stones…”
Just as they ignore most of the New Testament and the teachings of the Jesus that they claim to own. They ARE the hypocrites that Jesus was talking about. Hypocrites never recognize themselves as hypocrites. They are too smug and self satisfied to understand what utter shits they are.
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