Here's a Question I Like To Ask when arguing biblical accuracy versus scientific discovery: Postulating an omnipotent God and his potent yet subordinate nemesis: Which has the power to influence the minds of a few men to compose a persuasive text and create a regional following, and which to deposit…
I’ve been thinking about this since the initial post on our biases and all the responses. In the course of trying to come up with an “appropriate” response to the world, we often find ourselves caught up in endless exception-making, fudging, attempts to shoehorn certain proclivities and habits into convenient moulds so we don’t go through our days constantly flinching at our inadvertant insensitivities.
Does it do any good? The flinching? I mean, after the Sixties, one had to have been living on Mars for half a century not to be aware that there had been a Big Shift away from what might be called Gross Cultural Reliance to a more nuanced approach which has been (often derisively) termed Political Correctness. The former is a condition wherein one “borrows” wholesale from the culture to make associational choices. It doesn’t occur in this instance to question the wisdom of the culture–it’s what it is, and we are part of it, ergo…
But we realized that the Culture At Large was in many ways an Idiot. It stepped on people. It made too little room for variation. It tried to be all things to all people, but it was necessary that all people somehow be The Same in order for that to work. Those with a vested interest in keeping everything the same mightily resisted movement to change the rules.
We never did come up with a solid formulation that allows for prejudice.
You have to, you know. What we ended up …
Providing jobs for homeless people. We’d pretty much all agree that it is a fine thing to do. It hadn’t occurred to me before to complain about the jobs that might be offered, although I have complained that pay and benefits for many jobs are inadequate. A recent “news story” made me take notice. The story is here but you have to register to look at it. I’ve reprinted it below so you won’t need to:
Homeless Shelter Residents get Jobs at Collection Agency
August 28, 2006 – by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com
A Washington state-based collection agency owner is pairing up with a faith-based homeless shelter to provide jobs for homeless people in the area.
Wayne Garlington is the owner of Accounts Receivable Inc., and sits on the board of Open House Ministries – both based in Vancouver, WA. He is currently employing five women to work as collection agents.
Garlington said he has been pleased with their performance. “They’re not being handed something,” he told the the Columbian News. “They really want to work.”
The jobs not only give the women benefits, they also allow for them to increase their income through bonuses. The company collects on overdue accounts for the city of Vancouver and Clark Public Utilities, among others.
Garlington decided to try out the idea after hearing about a similar plan being carried out by a collection agency on the East Coast.
A ‘faith-based’ homeless shelter, why isn’t that an oxymoron? If you really had faith, would …
I can’t think of a dumber investment policy than to have our states spend three times more on average per prisoner than per pupil… We don’t really have a money problem in America, but a profound values problem and a profound priorities problem.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, during her lecture “Stand Up for Children Now,” on April 19, 2006 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Americans spend $60 billion a year to imprison 2.2 million people. This statistic compelled me to pull out my calculator. The result was shocking. In the United States we spend more than $27,000 per prisoner per year. Is this effective? Other than the violence, crowding, beatings by “goon squads,” rapes, riots, and high rates of recidivism, that is, is it effective? There are many reasons to be concerned. Here’s the main reason indicated by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons:
What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons. We must create safe and productive conditions of confinement not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it influences the safety, health, and prosperity of us all.
What might be more effective method of using our limited social resources than putting millions of people in prison? How about investing more in the training and education of disadvantaged children? This is not just an idealistic platitude. In the June 30, 2006 issue of Science (www.sciencemag.org – …
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a
Cheshire cat in a tree.
‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then,’ said the cat,’ it doesn’t matter.’
Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland
One thing fundamentalists have that many of us lack is a well-practiced response to why they exist and what life is all about. Their response goes something like this: “I am here to serve Jesus Christ so that I can join Him in heaven. How do I serve him? I follow these Ten Commandments.”
Pretty slick, eh? The entire purpose of a human life boiled down to ten seconds.
What about the rest of us? What would we say if someone asked us for our “purpose”? Would we even claim to have “a purpose.” If forced to answer, many of us might say that we’re “trying to get by” or that we’re simply “doing the best we can” or that we try to follow the golden rule. But most of us don’t have anything resembling the simplistic formula of fundamentalists. At first glance, that fundamentalist formula makes fundamentalists look decisive, strong and admirable. This succinct certitude probably gains lots of converts among the many people who join up. In reality, though, such a simple statement of purpose serves only as a mere placeholder that raises (or should raise) hundreds of questions among honest and thoughtful people.
I haven’t worked out any succinct statement regarding …