Why then do we have depictions of Him?
Here is a rather compelling lecture about it:
Makes sense. Thanks to Josephus Flavius.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Wherein 23&me helps me fix things.
I am somewhat hopeful that a few rather disturbing issues I've had for the past few months are cleared up. In the summer I went to the hospital, pretty sure I had appendicitis, but all the test came back clean of everything, so they said I had irritable bowel syndrome. It seems there are a growing number of these sorts of syndromes, which are actually synonymous with doctors saying they don't know what to do.
So, I chased around various fixes on the internet, the largest one being FODMAPS. FODMAPS are a bunch of carbohydrates that are osmotic and can cause havoc in the gut. So, sometimes I felt better, sometimes I didn't. But there are more things on the internet- how to improve your gut health, war stories about candida, various issues about histamines, etc...
Well, I had signed up for 23&me last year, and there was this interesting little thread in their forums about problems with various forms of sulfur.
I had a few of the polymorphisms (I think that's the right word), and I already knew I had problems with sulfur medications, so I tried some molybdenum, which is a vital part of the sulfur oxidase enzyme in the body.
It made things much, much better.
So, I have dropped a lot of foods, supplements, and drinks that have sulfur- except for coffee. I am hoping I'll be able to eat many of these foods again, and that I just need to heal up a little. I think it was ultimately a few of the supplements that pushed the sulfur up to the point where my body just couldn't take it. I still have to focus on gut health, but now that can be done in the context of a stable environment.
So, I chased around various fixes on the internet, the largest one being FODMAPS. FODMAPS are a bunch of carbohydrates that are osmotic and can cause havoc in the gut. So, sometimes I felt better, sometimes I didn't. But there are more things on the internet- how to improve your gut health, war stories about candida, various issues about histamines, etc...
Well, I had signed up for 23&me last year, and there was this interesting little thread in their forums about problems with various forms of sulfur.
I had a few of the polymorphisms (I think that's the right word), and I already knew I had problems with sulfur medications, so I tried some molybdenum, which is a vital part of the sulfur oxidase enzyme in the body.
It made things much, much better.
So, I have dropped a lot of foods, supplements, and drinks that have sulfur- except for coffee. I am hoping I'll be able to eat many of these foods again, and that I just need to heal up a little. I think it was ultimately a few of the supplements that pushed the sulfur up to the point where my body just couldn't take it. I still have to focus on gut health, but now that can be done in the context of a stable environment.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
When Your Ideological Position on Gender Does Not Compute
The Center for a Stateless Society put out commentary called Patriarchy on Steriods: The Case of Venezuelan Plastic Surgery Fever. Here's a taste:
I was told once, by a Venezuelan woman that machismo is a Mexican thing and if you try stuff like that in Venezuela the women will knock you out.
But much worse than this is the extreme bias against women here. Why would I say that? Well, the very next day, here is The Center for a Stateless Society proclaiming Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013. Wait, what? Are we remembering the poor misguided souls who actually believed the lie that gender is a social construct and allowed some inhumane surgeon disfigure them? No, instead we are remembering the progressive's sacrificial lambs- the ones that were killed by people who were afraid they had cooties. In other words, they are people who were encouraged to advertise their differences before the ravening masses- masses which would kill even me if I went on about particular subjects in public. I take enough of a risk not saying the pledge.
So, the boob job in one case is all good, but in the other not?
Well, as a would be patriarch, also very interested in a stateless society by the way, let me tell you that a patriarch is largely interested in family, and none of these surgeries translate well into family. All of these surgeries represent short term thinking. This is a corporatist culture that provides you with poor substitutes, the mere appearance of things on the best day, while reducing your ability to have what is authentic.
The patriarchy has nothing to do with the choices Venezuelan women are making. They are making these choices on their own. If a person's decision to change gender is lauded in progressive circles, despite the continuing inability of these con artists to actually provide true sex changes, then why would you denigrate a woman's decision to amp up her gender? And, worst of all, why would you blame it on fathers? Fathers generally don't want either of these things for their children. Sure, sure, maybe you don't mean what I think you mean when you say patriarchy, but you better come up with a new term fast. Hillary Clinton is no patriarch, nor is Merkel, nor are a half dozen other women obviously in powerful positions and happily taking the assets that we would be using for family formation and using them instead for their nefarious programs. This a global power structure of thieves, and thieves come in every gender.
There’s a prejudiced notion both in and out of academic circles that might lead some to argue that the whole thing boils down to machismo, a term frequently used to denote the supposedly stronger patriarchal nature of Latin American cultures when compared to other Western societies.
But patriarchy is as pervasive as it is a perverse, universal social legacy. And while many other social factors might strengthen its pathological consequences, statist economies put them on steroids. In Venezuela, or elsewhere.
I was told once, by a Venezuelan woman that machismo is a Mexican thing and if you try stuff like that in Venezuela the women will knock you out.
But much worse than this is the extreme bias against women here. Why would I say that? Well, the very next day, here is The Center for a Stateless Society proclaiming Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013. Wait, what? Are we remembering the poor misguided souls who actually believed the lie that gender is a social construct and allowed some inhumane surgeon disfigure them? No, instead we are remembering the progressive's sacrificial lambs- the ones that were killed by people who were afraid they had cooties. In other words, they are people who were encouraged to advertise their differences before the ravening masses- masses which would kill even me if I went on about particular subjects in public. I take enough of a risk not saying the pledge.
So, the boob job in one case is all good, but in the other not?
Well, as a would be patriarch, also very interested in a stateless society by the way, let me tell you that a patriarch is largely interested in family, and none of these surgeries translate well into family. All of these surgeries represent short term thinking. This is a corporatist culture that provides you with poor substitutes, the mere appearance of things on the best day, while reducing your ability to have what is authentic.
The patriarchy has nothing to do with the choices Venezuelan women are making. They are making these choices on their own. If a person's decision to change gender is lauded in progressive circles, despite the continuing inability of these con artists to actually provide true sex changes, then why would you denigrate a woman's decision to amp up her gender? And, worst of all, why would you blame it on fathers? Fathers generally don't want either of these things for their children. Sure, sure, maybe you don't mean what I think you mean when you say patriarchy, but you better come up with a new term fast. Hillary Clinton is no patriarch, nor is Merkel, nor are a half dozen other women obviously in powerful positions and happily taking the assets that we would be using for family formation and using them instead for their nefarious programs. This a global power structure of thieves, and thieves come in every gender.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Small Diesel Engines
There are no small pickup truck diesels. There may be a car or two, but from what I understand the newer small diesel engines have been kept out of America, and this is a shame. Diesel is easier to store, safer, and easier to make. People can make biodiesel, or use pyrolysis and make it out of plastic. This makes it ideal for small communities. It seems to make sense for the country too, since it seems like a sensible thing for people to be able to be resilient.
I am generally against wasting my time with politics, but I do wonder what a lobbying campaign to repeal whatever laws are on the books against small diesel engines. I know Toyota sells similar trucks around the world, so I know there must be a legal reason they don't sell them here too.
I am generally against wasting my time with politics, but I do wonder what a lobbying campaign to repeal whatever laws are on the books against small diesel engines. I know Toyota sells similar trucks around the world, so I know there must be a legal reason they don't sell them here too.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Faith, Reason, Evangelism- Or Not
Over at First Things, Dale Coulter, riffs off the assumption that there are two different evangelical camps:
Is this the case?
Well, in my attempts to figure out how Christianity should work, I came across a certain praxis for interacting with God.
It seems to me Christians used to engage in a meditative practice which served to provide some distance between a man's thoughts and a man's self. We can imagine our daily thought stream and our sense of attachment to it as someone with their nose to the screen, watching for the next text, zoomed in on this little square of pixels, and the linear story that texts tell. But the mind is like a void, like the night sky in a dark place, and the Milky Way your thoughts, existing in apparent disregard for you. There are myriad thoughts there, and not very many actually seem like 'you'. This is why there are people desperately afraid of being alone; the abyss is disorienting, and the thoughts can scare you, especially if you think you have to take responsibility for them.
So, let's ponder a word from God. One has to, first of all, realize that a word from God ought to be a bit more than just a word, phrase or sentence- the Word of God is Jesus Christ, so I suspect anything actually coming from God is going to be a bit deeper than 140 characters. Secondly, it can't be coming from the plane of your thoughts. Eventually, parts of it will get integrated into your thoughts, as you think about it, but it ain't there to start. The way do deal with this to do a series of (preferably cheap and small) experiments to see if you are understanding correctly.
Instead, what I see are evangelicals who, if they meditate at all, use some version of meditation that specifically engages thought. If you imagine yourself in a biblical scene or even just try to meditate upon the meaning, you are engaging your mind, keeping yourself locked into a thought stream, and building up the sense of your 'self' among a certain set of thoughts. Then there is this modern seeking of a word from God, which has all the hallmarks of New Age/psychic practices.
2 Peter 1 NIV, 20 & 21:
The New Age game has an economy of attention, so it is the opposite of what Peter is saying here. Instead of being moved, the pyschic attempts to develop impressions. Now Christians can do the same thing, and if they aren't aware of the nature of their mind, they can create what they think is a word out of their own thoughts. Do this in the morning, and the pattern matching software in your brain- the stuff that kept our species alive for generations- will kick in and try to make sense of your 'word'. I spent a day once, wandering all over New Orleans trying to chase this silly stuff. I know the shape of it- at best it is a waste of time, and at worst it is something unpleasant feeding off of your attention.
The new evangelical practice keeps people locked into the mind, and the mind provides it's own praxis. The action bias allows for the presumption that doing something is always better than doing nothing. Indeed, one can point to one's doing to justify one's thinking (even if you call it something else) and one's thinking to justify one's doings. This is not religion- it is ideology, and as such is a part of and not an effective defense against the destruction of Christendom.
Ultimately, the Christian needs a place. There is no place. The new evangelicals are like matadors, dancing around with a red cape. Men and women engage with them, because clearly God means something, but the governance is gone. This is the great amnesia of Christianity- most of us never get doctrine, anyway; the greatest rupture was the destruction of the aristocracies- the monarchies. Even a sacramental church has, as part of it's essence, a governance that is shut to us now. During a wedding we declare that what God has put together no man should tear apart, but before that wedding, we have to go down to the courthouse and get a marriage license that ultimately grants state courts the right to tear apart, and redefine, this thing we sought to make sacred.
At first blush a marriage license seems a sensible thing- and it was in a small jurisdiction where the leader had some sort of interest in how things went in his land. What does our state have an interest in? It seems many courts and lawyers make a living off of the destruction of our families.
Now, given that the new evangelists also exist within this mainstream culture and are propagandized to it just like everyone else, it is easy to see how they are made ineffectual. We see precious few Christians suggest we get married without reference to the state. It is simply assumed we must comply. No house, no church, no street, no city is built that could protect. The idea of church as hospital is gone, and with it the societal structure necessary for high civilization.
There aren't to wings of evangelism, but the two hemispheres of the mind. The emotional and the intellectual, the Democrat and the Republican, the false choices that keep us in our minds, unable to respond to God and unable to respond to the realities on the ground. Your attention is somewhere on this left/right line, somewhere in your head, and you are probably trying to defend a position that exists in your mind, while everything that exists in the world- including the people you are trying to evangelize to- are undefended. As long as evangelicals are on this line neither results nor a word from God has much relevance, except to the extent they can be used to support the ideology.
Well, evangelicals have two wings, one devoted to that mystical ascent of faith and the other toward the rational exposition of the faith.
Is this the case?
Well, in my attempts to figure out how Christianity should work, I came across a certain praxis for interacting with God.
It seems to me Christians used to engage in a meditative practice which served to provide some distance between a man's thoughts and a man's self. We can imagine our daily thought stream and our sense of attachment to it as someone with their nose to the screen, watching for the next text, zoomed in on this little square of pixels, and the linear story that texts tell. But the mind is like a void, like the night sky in a dark place, and the Milky Way your thoughts, existing in apparent disregard for you. There are myriad thoughts there, and not very many actually seem like 'you'. This is why there are people desperately afraid of being alone; the abyss is disorienting, and the thoughts can scare you, especially if you think you have to take responsibility for them.
So, let's ponder a word from God. One has to, first of all, realize that a word from God ought to be a bit more than just a word, phrase or sentence- the Word of God is Jesus Christ, so I suspect anything actually coming from God is going to be a bit deeper than 140 characters. Secondly, it can't be coming from the plane of your thoughts. Eventually, parts of it will get integrated into your thoughts, as you think about it, but it ain't there to start. The way do deal with this to do a series of (preferably cheap and small) experiments to see if you are understanding correctly.
Instead, what I see are evangelicals who, if they meditate at all, use some version of meditation that specifically engages thought. If you imagine yourself in a biblical scene or even just try to meditate upon the meaning, you are engaging your mind, keeping yourself locked into a thought stream, and building up the sense of your 'self' among a certain set of thoughts. Then there is this modern seeking of a word from God, which has all the hallmarks of New Age/psychic practices.
2 Peter 1 NIV, 20 & 21:
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The New Age game has an economy of attention, so it is the opposite of what Peter is saying here. Instead of being moved, the pyschic attempts to develop impressions. Now Christians can do the same thing, and if they aren't aware of the nature of their mind, they can create what they think is a word out of their own thoughts. Do this in the morning, and the pattern matching software in your brain- the stuff that kept our species alive for generations- will kick in and try to make sense of your 'word'. I spent a day once, wandering all over New Orleans trying to chase this silly stuff. I know the shape of it- at best it is a waste of time, and at worst it is something unpleasant feeding off of your attention.
The new evangelical practice keeps people locked into the mind, and the mind provides it's own praxis. The action bias allows for the presumption that doing something is always better than doing nothing. Indeed, one can point to one's doing to justify one's thinking (even if you call it something else) and one's thinking to justify one's doings. This is not religion- it is ideology, and as such is a part of and not an effective defense against the destruction of Christendom.
Ultimately, the Christian needs a place. There is no place. The new evangelicals are like matadors, dancing around with a red cape. Men and women engage with them, because clearly God means something, but the governance is gone. This is the great amnesia of Christianity- most of us never get doctrine, anyway; the greatest rupture was the destruction of the aristocracies- the monarchies. Even a sacramental church has, as part of it's essence, a governance that is shut to us now. During a wedding we declare that what God has put together no man should tear apart, but before that wedding, we have to go down to the courthouse and get a marriage license that ultimately grants state courts the right to tear apart, and redefine, this thing we sought to make sacred.
At first blush a marriage license seems a sensible thing- and it was in a small jurisdiction where the leader had some sort of interest in how things went in his land. What does our state have an interest in? It seems many courts and lawyers make a living off of the destruction of our families.
Now, given that the new evangelists also exist within this mainstream culture and are propagandized to it just like everyone else, it is easy to see how they are made ineffectual. We see precious few Christians suggest we get married without reference to the state. It is simply assumed we must comply. No house, no church, no street, no city is built that could protect. The idea of church as hospital is gone, and with it the societal structure necessary for high civilization.
There aren't to wings of evangelism, but the two hemispheres of the mind. The emotional and the intellectual, the Democrat and the Republican, the false choices that keep us in our minds, unable to respond to God and unable to respond to the realities on the ground. Your attention is somewhere on this left/right line, somewhere in your head, and you are probably trying to defend a position that exists in your mind, while everything that exists in the world- including the people you are trying to evangelize to- are undefended. As long as evangelicals are on this line neither results nor a word from God has much relevance, except to the extent they can be used to support the ideology.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Why I Am No Longer Part Of People Of Praise
I finished up all the talks, and was ready to make the covenant this past week, but the local leader told me Mike was concerned with whether or not I trusted leadership. Names were brought up in this conversation, so I knew what this was about. I also knew it wasn't easy. Leadership had made mistakes and hurt people. Then, to top it all off, Mike gave a talk about not complaining. I talked to him after the talk and basically told him this wasn't good. I went over what I knew. I didn't know everything, but I knew it wasn't good. Subsequent events suggested other people in People of Praise get their point across by not participating. There was a summer when they had plenty of teens for projects, but not enough adults around to supervise. Personally, if I were in a leadership position, I'd prefer complaining. In fact, instead of giving a talk about not complaining, I would have been apologizing and promising things would be better next year. I'd probably even trying to get commitments from people that day to come back.
So, here was the local leader telling me this discussion I had with Mike was about to come up again.
But Mike came down for a wedding and during the reception he asked me if I was going to the retreat. He knows I don't go to these retreats; I haven't gone in years. I realized, probably two years after going on a diet, that I needed to just stop eating certain things completely. There's plenty of wheat and soy in everything at this place. Anyway, Mike said if I don't go on the retreat he doesn't think he can let me make the covenant.
This is classic crap, baby boomer leadership.
If I am not careful about what I eat- and lately even if I am- I suffer. I expected some sort of conversation, probably a sit down, but no attempt was made, and that Sunday, I was busy suffering. Now my guts, and my 'friends' may betray me, but my mind does not. Mike didn't want to have a conversation. He just wanted to shut me out, and this was an easy way to do it. Most of the covenant talks were given to me after I stopped going to the retreat. There was no indication that this was an issue until Mike grabbed at it in desperation to do what People of Praise has come to do best: make up a story.
You tell yourselves stories, but how many people- how many of your own children for that matter, must present you with existential proof that your stories are lies before you stop?
I don't see where you are going. You seem committed to an evangelism that would look remarkably like an algae bloom should anyone actually respond to it- algae blooms are fast growth and then die off quickly. Where is the ecology? Don't get me wrong, I know there are people trying for something more stable. I just seriously doubt you are capable of listening to them. In the larger world the baby boomer generation is primarily responsible for our QE infinity- in other words, the constant attempt to manufacture economic growth by increasing the money supply. Sooner or later, it will become apparent that, regardless of money supply, we have no real economy. Guess what? I think a similar thing will happen to People of Praise as well. I was hoping to help, if it ever dawned on you that you needed help, and I was content to do rather mundane things in the branch in the meanwhile, but I suppose you really do have to cut your nose off to spite your face after all.
So, here was the local leader telling me this discussion I had with Mike was about to come up again.
But Mike came down for a wedding and during the reception he asked me if I was going to the retreat. He knows I don't go to these retreats; I haven't gone in years. I realized, probably two years after going on a diet, that I needed to just stop eating certain things completely. There's plenty of wheat and soy in everything at this place. Anyway, Mike said if I don't go on the retreat he doesn't think he can let me make the covenant.
This is classic crap, baby boomer leadership.
If I am not careful about what I eat- and lately even if I am- I suffer. I expected some sort of conversation, probably a sit down, but no attempt was made, and that Sunday, I was busy suffering. Now my guts, and my 'friends' may betray me, but my mind does not. Mike didn't want to have a conversation. He just wanted to shut me out, and this was an easy way to do it. Most of the covenant talks were given to me after I stopped going to the retreat. There was no indication that this was an issue until Mike grabbed at it in desperation to do what People of Praise has come to do best: make up a story.
You tell yourselves stories, but how many people- how many of your own children for that matter, must present you with existential proof that your stories are lies before you stop?
I don't see where you are going. You seem committed to an evangelism that would look remarkably like an algae bloom should anyone actually respond to it- algae blooms are fast growth and then die off quickly. Where is the ecology? Don't get me wrong, I know there are people trying for something more stable. I just seriously doubt you are capable of listening to them. In the larger world the baby boomer generation is primarily responsible for our QE infinity- in other words, the constant attempt to manufacture economic growth by increasing the money supply. Sooner or later, it will become apparent that, regardless of money supply, we have no real economy. Guess what? I think a similar thing will happen to People of Praise as well. I was hoping to help, if it ever dawned on you that you needed help, and I was content to do rather mundane things in the branch in the meanwhile, but I suppose you really do have to cut your nose off to spite your face after all.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Math, Community, Evangelism
Metcalfe's law of network valuation makes absolutely no sense if you are talking about a small community being able to absorb new people.
You could say it just belongs in the realm of computer networks, but I think if a thing is going to work, well it ought to track reality in some way.
So, obviously, 20 people can't take on 180 people and have the original 20 successfully turn the total 200 into something similar to what the 20 had.
But, as per Odlyzko, 20 people could take on 6 people and integrate them into their society, and subsequently the 26 could manage around 10.
So, if you have heard me suggest that God could be telling you to do X, and the devil, knowing your predisposition could show up and say evangelize, well, now you know why I am saying that. You can evangelize yourself out of existence.
It is important to understand what is on offer in America. The effect of women entering the workforce has been pretty devastating on wages. Additionally, the nature of the workplace has changed. Men are in danger in the new environment, and H.R. seems hell bent on creating interview processes self-respecting men can't even go through, much less complete. The proliferation of credentials (degrees or otherwise) function as a bar between whatever work a man can actually do and the job. Meanwhile, the legal nature of marriage in this country means a man has no rights, but rather he gives a woman license to destroy him through the courts if he gets married. If you are concerned about raising your children as you see fit, well, everything is precarious.
So the evangelist may meet with temporary results, but the realities keep coming back. The recidivism rate of people who have been evangelized is rather high because the incentives don't change and Christian communities have not been built up enough for different people to have a real path within them.
The math above, I think, gives a more realistic view of what could be done. All of the issues with it suggest a sober, measured attempt at growth. The nature of the 20 must be determined in the first place. When does 1 of the 6 become one of the original group? How are these things determined? What's the time frame?
Interesting things happen at 150, which also happens to be Dunbar's number, and may be the appropriate size to shoot for first, before any outright evangelization. The valuation suggests 150 people can support a little more than another 150. 105log(150)=326.413688858. 326-150=176. I can imagine a communal form of mitosis here, where the kind of fast growth evangelists like to dream of actually might be able to happen.
It just struck me that this is like a weird form of the parable about the seeds. American evangelists throw seeds on barren ground. If a plant comes up, it must fend for itself.
You could say it just belongs in the realm of computer networks, but I think if a thing is going to work, well it ought to track reality in some way.
So, obviously, 20 people can't take on 180 people and have the original 20 successfully turn the total 200 into something similar to what the 20 had.
But, as per Odlyzko, 20 people could take on 6 people and integrate them into their society, and subsequently the 26 could manage around 10.
So, if you have heard me suggest that God could be telling you to do X, and the devil, knowing your predisposition could show up and say evangelize, well, now you know why I am saying that. You can evangelize yourself out of existence.
It is important to understand what is on offer in America. The effect of women entering the workforce has been pretty devastating on wages. Additionally, the nature of the workplace has changed. Men are in danger in the new environment, and H.R. seems hell bent on creating interview processes self-respecting men can't even go through, much less complete. The proliferation of credentials (degrees or otherwise) function as a bar between whatever work a man can actually do and the job. Meanwhile, the legal nature of marriage in this country means a man has no rights, but rather he gives a woman license to destroy him through the courts if he gets married. If you are concerned about raising your children as you see fit, well, everything is precarious.
So the evangelist may meet with temporary results, but the realities keep coming back. The recidivism rate of people who have been evangelized is rather high because the incentives don't change and Christian communities have not been built up enough for different people to have a real path within them.
The math above, I think, gives a more realistic view of what could be done. All of the issues with it suggest a sober, measured attempt at growth. The nature of the 20 must be determined in the first place. When does 1 of the 6 become one of the original group? How are these things determined? What's the time frame?
Interesting things happen at 150, which also happens to be Dunbar's number, and may be the appropriate size to shoot for first, before any outright evangelization. The valuation suggests 150 people can support a little more than another 150. 105log(150)=326.413688858. 326-150=176. I can imagine a communal form of mitosis here, where the kind of fast growth evangelists like to dream of actually might be able to happen.
It just struck me that this is like a weird form of the parable about the seeds. American evangelists throw seeds on barren ground. If a plant comes up, it must fend for itself.
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