Monthly Archives: July 2008

MzEllen’s Law • 4 Comments

MzEllen • July 23, 2008

Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

MzEllen's Law: "As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”

Godwin wrote: “Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,”Well, when a person compares [something] to Islam, I’d like them to think a bit harder about

female circumcision
honor killings
forced arranged marriages
beheadings for being raped.
being stoned to death for pre-marital intercourse.
being killed by your father for dating the wrong boy
being stabbed by your brother for going to a dance club

I want you to think a bit harder about those things.
Again, MzEllen’s Law (if it’s out there someplace else, let me know!)

“As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”

From Wiki:

The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that “a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument.” And in October 2007, the “Last Page” columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, “you have only to say ‘Godwin’s Law’ and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles.”

“As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”

A Letter From My Great-great-grandfather

MzEllen • July 22, 2008

A letter from Thomas McElhinney to his son, my great-grandfather

July 30th, 1876

My dear son,

You have of late occupied much of my thoughts. Of my sons you are my first born. My pride, my strength and it is natural that I should desire your welfare and happiness. Allow me then to talk plainly, yet kindly to you. I would not irritate you, but I would help you to escape some of the ills of this world. The old proverb sounds "Thyself to know, make use of every friend and every foe." What your habits are I know not, but this I know that men are known by the company they keep. I know also that habits once formed are hard to break. If a person has formed the habit of smoking, drinking, gambling or indulging any (propensity) passion or desire unlawfully it is very hard to overcome this trouble or evil. The person becomes the slave of his own passions, the worst slavery in the world because ruin is its terminus. If you have any habits it is time for you to assert your manhood and say that you in every respect govern yourself.

One thing is sure "You must govern your passions or they will govern you." The brute, the animal is governed by his desires. Man should be governed by his reason found on the Laws of God as revealed in His Word and in the wisdom of the wise.

...continue reading →

Genesis 3…here’s the thing… • 16 Comments

MzEllen • July 22, 2008

Gen 3:4-7a But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked(...)

(vv.22-24)Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (ESV)

I was in Starbucks yesterday before meeting an old friend for coffee. At the table next to me were you young men - one of the still quite young, either in middle school or early high school. The other one was a bit older, maybe college age. They were reading Scripture and taking notes. I asked them what they were studying and the older one looked at me, duh. "the Bible." Okay...yeah. What part of the Bible? They were reading through Genesis and Psalms. Cool.

That side-note from yesterday over, I've noticed a couple of things from Genesis 3.

- Did sin enter the world through Eve? She played a part, certainly. But Scripture does NOT say, "the woman ate, her eyes were opened, she gave it to the man and his eyes were opened. Either it was a total joint effort (the time involved not being defined) or...their eyes were NOT opened until after Adam ate because (a) Adam was the only one who was given the direct command by God and/or (b) Eve was deceived, but Adam rebelled.

Question: if sin entered the world after Adam ate (and not after Eve ate), does that mean that Adam truly is the "federal head" of the human race, since when Eve ate it did not effect their "eyes being opened" until after Adam ate?
- Were Adam and Eve punished for eating the fruit? Yes. What was the punishment? Read the curse...pain in childbirth, subjugation to the husband...sweat of the brown, weeds (and I'm thinking mosquitoes) and so forth.

Was being sent from the garden of Eden part of the punishment? A plain reading of the text says...no. That surprised me. My answer (before reading verse by verse) would have been, "of course."
Being driven from the garden of Eden was not part of the spoken "curse". It was not part of the punishment, it was a preventative measure: "lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever...the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden."

Question: Why did God not make being driven out of the garden part of the spoken curse? (from a philosophical standpoint and not reading into Scripture that which is not there)
- Were BOTH Adam and Even driven out, or just Adam?

I have heard egalitarians argue that it was only the man who was driven out of the garden and that the woman followed out of choice, since it is אדם who was driven out.

I have also heard egalitarians argue that we should have gender-neutral language in Scripture because אדם also means "human race".

If אדם means "human-kind" then it is certainly a proper reading to say that "human-kind" (אדם) were driven out of the garden...both of them.

If it was only the male-type-person (אדם) who was driven out of the garden, that argues against gender-neutral language anywhere else in the Old Testament were אדם is used, unless there is a gender-specific name to go along with it.

Question: Which is it? Does אדם mean the only male-type-person was driven out of the garden, or that or human-kind was driven out of the garden?

MzEllen’s Law

MzEllen • July 21, 2008

Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
MzEllen's Law: "As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

Godwin wrote: "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,"

Well, when a person compares [something] to Islam, I'd like them to think a bit harder about

female circumcision
honor killings
forced arranged marriages
beheadings for being raped.
being stoned to death for pre-marital intercourse.
being killed by your father for dating the wrong boy
being stabbed by your brother for going to a dance club

I want you to think a bit harder about those things.
Again, MzEllen's Law (if it's out there someplace else, let me know!)

"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

From Wiki:

The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that "a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument." And in October 2007, the "Last Page" columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, "you have only to say 'Godwin's Law' and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles."

"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

lunes linkage – July 21, 2008 • 4 Comments

MzEllen • July 21, 2008

MzEllen Reads: "Save the Males: why men matter, why women should care" by Kathleen Parker.

~~~

~~~
Next up:

Yet another false rape cry.

Clearfield police said a teenage girl's claims that she was raped in the middle of a church parking lot in broad daylight are false.

In a statement sent to the Deseret News on Friday, Clearfield Assistant Police Chief Greg Krusi said laboratory test results and other evidence analyzed did not match up with the girl's claims about being attacked.

"The juvenile was formally interviewed again by investigators at which time she admitted to fabricating the story due to personal issues occurring in her life," Krusi wrote.

At least this one wasn't aimed at a real person whose life could be ruined by a "wolf" cry.

~~~

~~~
And...the most offensive site of the week:

Since I followed a couple of links to this site, and the sites that I followed to it are full-egalitarian (and don't seem to much care that "soft-complementarian" is different than "hard-patriarchy"...I really have no clue whether a Godly man who leads his home and church is equivalent (in the eyes of this blog-writer) to the taliban, Hitler and those who kill their daughters for dating the wrong man.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...this says volumes about what the posters of this logo think about those who disagree with them on the gender issue.
~~~

~~~
In the spirit of the above link (NOT), here are a few things to ponder...

"Muslim "judge" rules kidnapped Christian girls "converted to Islam and cannot return home"

Two girls (ages 10 and 13) are kidnapped by a Muslim "fruit vendor" who turned them over to a friend, who organized a "marriage". Here's the thing...

The girls' uncle does not conceal his preoccupation, and denounces to AsiaNews that the Muslims involved in the kidnapping are acting as a "gang", recruiting the girls in order to "make them work in a bordello". This alarm has also been heard by the Catholic commission for justice and peace (NCJP) in the country, which confirms the words of Khalid Raheel: the kidnappers are believed to be human traffickers linked to prostitution, known to the police and under the protection of some local politicians.

New York: Muslim stabs his sister because she was a "bad Muslim girl"

Infuriated because his younger sister was going to clubs, wearing immodest clothing and planning to leave her family for a new life in New York City, Waheed Allah Mohammad stabbed her outside their Henrietta home, prosecutors allege.Afterward, he told Monroe County sheriff's investigators that he attacked his sister because she had disgraced their family and was a "bad Muslim girl," according to court documents.

Mohammad, 22, is scheduled to appear Friday in Monroe County Court on charges of attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the May 8 attack on Fauzia A. Mohammad, 19.

Remember these two girls?

"Contrary to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline, he didn’t actually say he was innocent. He said he had done nothing wrong. That’s not the same thing. According to an earlier story on this case, he confessed to killing his daughter, and explained that he had done it to cleanse his family’s honor. When he appeared before the judge, it is unlikely that he changed this story. He just said he didn’t do anything wrong. And by the lights of the Islamic culture from which he comes, which thinks that a father killing a daughter who has sullied his family’s honor is perfectly justified, he indeed hasn’t done anything wrong. "

~~~
Here's something new:

A popular Hamas children's television program shows a giant bunny character who is lured into stealing money — and then is sentenced by a child host to have his hand chopped off.

Oh wait, that's not very "new", Muslims have also made anti-Semitic children's programs as well.
~

Contrary to "popular belief", complementarians do not teach that it's "nothing wrong" to kill their daughters, sell them to prostitution rings or stab them for going to clubs. Nor do we make children's shows that encourage amputations as punishment for minor crimes.

To those who are attempting the comparison between godly male leadership in Islam. NOT HELPFUL.
~~~

~~~
Another set of "black and white" twins! (although being a fan of a certain adult beverage, I'd most likely call them "black and tan".

😉

~~~

"No Subpar Food for Senators"

The Senate restaurants, which include not just the stately Senate dining room in the Capitol but a huge cafeteria and coffee shops scattered in the two-building Senate compound, have lost $18 million since 1993 and are slated to lose $2 million this year.

Without an immediate $250,000 subsidy from the taxpayers, they won't be able to make payroll next month. The restaurants have lost money for 37 of the 41 years they have been in “business,” but the taxpayers have made up the difference.

The food in the Senate eateries is “noticeably subpar,” said California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who, as chair of the Senate's Rules and Administration Committee, supervises these culinary/fiscal horrors.

MY favorite quote?

And the Senate that knows it can't even run a restaurant will soon vote to have the government run health care.

Indeed.

~~~

File under: Look, mom...it followed me home...can I keep it?

GORHAM, Maine -- A woman checking her laundry Wednesday afternoon found an 8-foot-long snake wrapped around the clothes inside the washing machine at her Gorham home.

~~~

The pope would not have been impressed

(personally, I like snakes - the big ones...I don't like surprises)

~~~

Global COOLING?!?!?

Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out.

However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way.

~~~

eatpes.com

(mostly) "clean" (the only off-color one was "roof sex" and that involved furniture. The part that made it worth watching was the apartment owner getting after the cat for scratching up the furniture). "Western Spaghetti" is wonderful!

~~~

Photo of the week:

John Calvin…the beginning

MzEllen • July 20, 2008

Born July 10, 1509 in Noyon, France, Jean Calvin was raised in a staunch Roman Catholic family. The local bishop employed Calvin's father as an administrator in the town's cathedral. The father, in turn, wanted John to become a priest. Because of close ties with the bishop and his noble family, John's playmates and classmates in Noyon (and later in Paris) were aristocratic and culturally influential in his early life.

Like many (most) of the early Reformers, Calvin was born in the Roman Catholic church. Like Luther, Calvin has a disagreement with his father over how his life would be spent.

By 1528 Calvin moved to Orleans to study civil law. The following years found Calvin studying in various places and under various scholars, as he received a humanist education. By 1532 Calvin finished his law studies and also published his first book, a commentary on De Clementia by the Roman philosopher, Seneca. The following year Calvin fled Paris because of contacts with individuals who through lectures and writings opposed the Roman Catholic Church. It is thought that in 1533 Calvin experienced the sudden and unexpected conversion that he writes about in his foreword to his commentary on the Psalms.

I recall that in the time of Calvin, "humanist" didn't carry the negative meaning that it does now.

(per wiki)

Renaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of many Latin and Greek texts. Initially, a humanist was simply a teacher of Latin literature. By the mid-15th century humanism described a curriculum — the studia humanitatis — comprising grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied via classical authors. The early beliefs of humanism were that, although humanists knew that God created the universe, it was humans that developed and industrialised it.

And later...

By 1536 Calvin had disengaged himself from the Roman Catholic Church and made plans to permanently leave France and go to Strasbourg. However, war had broken out between Francis I and Charles V, so Calvin decided to make a one-night detour to Geneva.

But Calvin's fame in Geneva preceded him. Farel, a local reformer, invited him to stay in Geneva and threatened him with God's anger if he did not. Thus began a long, difficult, yet ultimately fruitful relationship with that city.

It was in Geneva that Calvin did the bulk of his writing, studying and teaching. He remained there until his death in 1564.

“Who Does Obama Think He IS?

MzEllen • July 20, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Indeed.

“Tongues” in other religions (or not) • 6 Comments

MzEllen • July 19, 2008

"Speaking in tongues" is not only a Christian phenomenon. Regardless of whether or not the "gift" is for today, one still cannot point at speaking in tongues as "proof" that they are baptized in the Holy Spirit.

~~~

History of the Church 1:295-297, November 1832: "About the 8th of November I received a visit from Elders Joseph Young, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball of Mendon, Monroe county, New York. They spent four or five days at Kirtland, during which we had many interesting moments. At one of our interviews, Brother Brigham Young and John P. Greene spoke in tongues, which was the first time I had heard this gift among the brethren; others also spoke, and I [Joseph Smith] received the gift myself."

While Mormons share our Scriptures (while translating and interpreting them differently) and are (in their own sense) followers of Christ (although not a Christ who is in full equality and deity with the Father), are not "saved", in the way we are.

~~~
The Oracle at Delphi needed interpreters to pass along her "wisdom". There is speculation as to whether or not the wisdom was "tongues" or "riddles" that needed interpreting. There does also seem to be some indication that the trance of the Oracle was due to some intoxicating substances that seeped out of the lower regions of the cave that she prophesied from.

This is not a wonderful example, but it does indicate that "ecstatic speech" was an indicator of the prophetic in religions other than Christianity - and before Christ walked on earth.

~~~

in 1956 Carlyle May wrote an article in "American Anthropologist", "A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian Religion." I cannot get to the entire article, but the first page is here.

"Ecstatic vocalization in the form of incoherent sounds and foreign words has long been on interest to students of religion. (...)This paper will show that glossolalia and similar speech-phenomena occur in various forms during shamanistic rites of the New and especially of the Old World. (...)

Herodotus (Lombard 1910:90) speaks of an inspired priest in Greece who suddenly spoke in a barbarian language, and Virgil in the Aeneid (1953: vi. 44-49, 97-99) tells of a Cumaean sibyl who spoke strangely while possessed. The Old Testament (Lombard 1910:89) alludes to a form of ecstatic behavior similar to glossolalia. Guillaume (1938:144-45) states that in 853 B.C. four hundren prophets raved in ecstasy before the gate of Samaria, and in ancient Egypt (Erman 1894:352-55) necromancers uttered formulas, believed to be revelations from the gods, made up of foreign words and senseless noises. The more mysterious and incomprehensible these formulas were, the greater their power was thought to be.

~~~

What about xenoglossia?

Swarnlatta Mishra:^[1] A girl in India who lived entirely among Hindi-speaking people but was able to sing songs in Bengali, as identified by Professor P. Pal of Itachuna College in West Bengal, who studied the case after Professor Stevenson and transcribed some of the songs.

Uttara Huddar:^[2] Uttara was a woman in India who normally spoke Marathi but, after participating in a meditation during a hospitalization, began speaking in Bengali, much to the bewilderment of her parents.

Two hypnotic regression cases: Professor Stevenson is quite skeptical of most hypnotic regression work but he did have two cases that included responsive xenoglossy; that is, hypnotic subjects who could converse with people speaking the foreign language, instead of merely being able to recite foreign words. One is that of Jensen^[3], an American woman who, while under hypnosis conducted by her physician husband, described being a Swedish peasant farmer and was able to converse in Swedish. The other is Gretchen^[4], an American woman who was hypnotized by her Methodist minister husband and began spontaneously speaking in German. She described the life of a teenaged girl in Germany, and Professor Stevenson, who is able to speak German, was able to converse with her. (from wiki...hopefully the links to the citations are there, the link to the page is here.

~~~

It seems clear that (whatever "tongues" is) and whether or not "tongues" is for today, that the phonomena is not limited to Christianity, or even to religion.

In "testing the spirits", we need to look at all the evidence and not blindly follow. It may very well be real (in some cases and in some cases not), but we need to look realistically.

Photo Hunt – “What is it?” • 3 Comments