Category: Day Bidet

Seven days, seven links (ein bisschen spät!):

1. “[L]arge gathering, big auditorium, event-driven church expressions have been revealed to be very fragile during seasons of pandemic. Consequently, one thing seems clear: we are being called to a more solitary, contemplative, and monastic journey.”
2. I’ve updated the Health page to include this excellent list of fruits and vegetables (and fungi) by potentially harmful compound. (Related: “[A] decimal point error appears to have misled millions into believing that spinach is a good nutritional source of iron.”)
3. “Your children don’t need to see all of the latest hit movies and TV series.” (Related: “It’s the best life imaginable.” Related: “Public schools are literal prisons for children and the only time many people will ever encounter physical violence in their lives.”)
4. “This is decades of people correctly seeing it coming … being told all the way they were being completely paranoid.” (Language warning. Related. Related.)
5. “[Y]oung people are not abandoning religion but reinventing it to suit their own lifestyles.”
6. “Florida Woman Took Dishwashing Job So She Could Visit Husband with Alzheimer’s During Pandemic”
7. “If you think of God as a great city you have to explore, it was like, every street I walked down, there was Jesus waiting for me.”

More:

You can’t trust the experts. You can’t trust the experts. You can’t trust the experts.

“It may then be easiest to understand high places not as a reference to temporal space, but to a ‘higher’ theological place.”

Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Demon World. Demon World. Demon World. Demon World.

“[S]cientists are often tempted to transform what is really only a useful but limited method into a complete metaphysics.” (Related.)

Self-control is highly heritable. (Related.)

“Did God play mind games with His people Israel by giving them confusing prophecies and then sending a Messiah who did not fulfill them, at least not at that time?”

Seven days, seven links:

1. “A Short Defense of the Resurrection of the Christ”
2. “The white man will not be our equal but our slave.” (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)
3. “Knowledge of these difficulties in copying … should rule out altogether hypotheses according to which any of the synoptic authors were literally editing and grafting together earlier sources in anything like a complex literary manner.”
4. Pro-soldier, anti-war is the way to go. (Related. Related: “Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.”)
5. “[P]astors have already heard directly or indirectly from around one-fourth of the members that they do not plan to return at all.”
6. Good music. (Related. Related.)
7. “As the atheist, Nobel-laureate physicist Steven Weinberg said, ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.’ The scientific gaze strips the world of value.”

More:

“A Democrat operative is telling all about the massive voter fraud operation deployed to rig elections for Democrats through paying homeless voters off, taking advantage of the elderly, posing as registered voters, and printing up fake ballots.” (Related. Related.)

“Today, we are excited to announce the release of a 5-part podcast series with N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird called The New Testament in Its World.”

“The Venn diagram of journos who bought and peddled the Iraq WMD hoax, the Rolling Stone UVA rape hoax, the Russian collusion hoax, the Covington hoax, the Kavanaugh hoax, the Ukraine hoax, and the latest Atlantic hoax is a single circle. Take note of who’s inside it.” (Related. Related. Related. Related.)

“The first century BCE–CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria clearly notes that more than one synagogue existed in Rome during Augustus’s reign.”

“One has no choice but to rely on experts and authorities, but if the path to becoming an expert authority filters out anyone who doesn’t give full support to the consensus or mainstream view, then one has to start taking risks with outsiders with contrary views, and most of these are unreliable cranks, kooks, crackpots, etc.” (Related.)

“With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not be so.”

Seven days, seven links:

1. “[T]he ascension of Christ is far more important than a brief footnote to the resurrection.”
2. “[S]chools of education … sought to make education about ‘consciousness raising’ and instilling a ‘critical conscioussness’ into children as an educational priority.” Most schools are indoctrination camps. Homeschool your kids! (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)
3. “[T]he dominant influence agents—media, parents, government, schools, peers—do not seek to develop a biblical worldview among those they influence.”
4. “[T]he conformists to ideological fashions of today also erroneously imagine themselves to be some beleaguered minority of independent thinkers and heroes fighting against … The Man keeping them down. … When in reality, they are the very mechanism of the system’s power. They are The Man.” (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)
5. “Some early Christian readers of Revelation separated the economic prosperity they enjoyed as a result of Rome’s widespread trade from participation in the imperial cult. But here in Revelation 17-18, everyone who thrived from Rome’s economic power will weep and mourn [when] the empire is finally judged.”
6. “Only irresponsible barbarians can have as an objective the rejection of this invaluable treasure which is so critical to the betterment of our humanity.” (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)
7. “[W]hen the Voice arrives, it doesn’t act as the Eye would, it doesn’t force or compel Frodo. Rather, the Voice sets Frodo free, creating space where Frodo can become aware of himself.”

More:

Lots of respect for this woman. Pray for her son, her family, and for our country. (Pray also for Nick Wall and Laura Anderson and their family; Seth Smith and his family; and Kyle Rittenhouse and his family, among many others.)

Philippians 4.8 “is less about doing right and more about reflecting on and pursuing what is good and beautiful.” (Related.)

“[S]ix to 11 million Uyghur people are currently unaccounted for.” (Related. Related.)

“Despite all the Sunday school stories you heard and what they implied or stated, the synoptics never say that Jesus had never met Peter and Andrew prior to the famous ‘Follow me’ scene.” (Related.)

“Sorry New York Times, I decline to be interviewed.” Right answer. (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)

“[T]he Jewish Revolt was precipitated and prosecuted by the king and the princes of Edessa.” (Related.)

Seven days, seven links (back on track!):

1. “Help must come from the outside.”
2. “I have to remind my kids yet again that they do not live in a free country, all that stuff is lies now, and so they must never speak to anyone about certain topics.” (Related.)
3. “[D]econversions are all too likely to happen when the inquiring Christian is unwilling to ‘graduate’ from a simplistic or childish concept of God to a more complex, difficult, and deeper concept of God.”
4. “Anti-racism” continues to be quite lucrative (and totalitarian). (Related.) (Related.)
5. “Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new.”
6. “[T]he first Black Lives Matter era (2014–2016) saw the total number of homicides in the U.S. grow a record-setting 23 percent in two years. … Black Lives Matter has gotten more incremental blacks murdered than all the lynchings in American history.” (Related. Related.)
7. “[T]he fragility of that ‘big box’ expression–church as WalMart–has been exposed.”

More:

“#China’s consulate in #Houston promoted riot techniques among #BlackLivesMatter protesters through social media micro-targeting.” (Related.)

“A New Opportunity to Learn Greek and Hebrew”

“Yale rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race.” (Related.)

“Even as sick as Lori was, she loved her children and would have loved more of them. The joy they have brought us at every stage of life is beyond measure.” (Related. Related.)

Nature is healing.

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Seven days, seven links (late again—busy couple weeks!):

1. “Torley lists several alleged contradictions among the Gospel burial accounts, but all of these are manufactured.”
2. White liberals are far more mentally ill than any other group of Americans. (Related, also from Zach Goldberg.)
3. “[T]hree of the four great founders of American Zen ’caused major public sex scandals’…. The two most famous US teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, Chongyam Trungpa and Sogyal Rinpoche, both caused major public sex scandals. Trungpa’s immediate successor Ösel Tendzin caused a particularly horrifying major public sex scandal, and the current head of Shambhala Buddhism, Sakyong Rinpoche, also caused a major public sex scandal.”
4. “1946 into the 1970s was a golden age for broad-based middle class and working class prosperity in the U.S.” (What changed? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)
5. “Did Old Testament Saints Know Scripture Was Authoritative?”
6. Good music. Good music. Good music.
7. “By and large, secular moral systems are broadly and functionally christian. … [W]hy is your vision of the good just a warmed over version of Christianity?” (Related: “[W]ithout the underlying metaphysical commitments, the moral consensus of the West stands upon nothing solid.”) 

More:

Typos now a cancellable offense. (Related.)

“For Paul, the resurrection is central. To ‘go back’ would be to shift emphasis away from that key event. Yes, he talks about Jesus’ death, but this is necessary—it is what makes resurrection possible!”

“[T]he descendants of American slaves, again, taken as a whole, are the richest and most powerful and influential population of African descent on the planet.”

“Huge Kingdom of Judah government complex found near US Embassy in Jerusalem”

“[H]uman racial groups are more genetically diverse than previously assumed.” (Related. Related.)

“[O]n earth the great prostitute appears sovereign.”

Seven days, seven links (one day late this time—apologies!):

1. “Was there a guard at Jesus’ tomb?”
2. “Marx writes of his triumph after he shall have destroyed God’s created world…. An insatiable spender of other people’s money, Marx continually complained about a shortage of financial means. … Marx affected a hatred and contempt for the very material resource he was so anxious to cadge and use so recklessly.”
3. “Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would have never come, had I known the danger of light and joy.”
4. Fake news. Fake news. Fake news. Fake news. Fake news.
5. Peter Goeman argues that Nero is not the man whose number is 666.
6. Carnivore success story. (Related. Related. Related. Related.)
7. “Your being increases in the measure that you give it away. Your being decreases in the measure that you cling to it.”

More:

“Conservatism” hasn’t conserved anything.

“The healing in John 4 that Jesus performed in Capernaum while he himself was in Cana could well be what Jesus refers in Luke 4.”

Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Demon World. Demon World. Demon World.

“King Uzziah’s life has been affirmed and illuminated through archaeological findings over the course of more than 100 years.”

You can’t trust the experts: “[T]he economic cost of social distancing and lockdowns will likely be more than $1 trillion. And that’s an understatement of the costs when you consider increased suicides and other social losses not captured in gross domestic product. For example, parents of young children have widely noted their kids’ gloomy outlook when not allowed to be with friends.”

“Bible Briefly Consulted to See if It Supports Already Formed Opinion”

Seven days, seven links:

1. Jesus is the new Isaac.
2. “In a crofting community the people work in unison in the field during the day, and discuss together in the house at night. … [S]tories and tales, poems and ballads, are rehearsed and recited, and songs are sung … and many other literary matters are related and discussed.”
3. “[W]isdom fades when ‘lore wanes’ among a people.”
4. “What is conservatism in America today? … It’s getting trampled all over by History, but while yelling Stop!”
5. “[O]ne of the reasons Jesus came to earth, died, and rose again was to reveal to us that all human suffering, like the suffering of God Incarnate, is both ‘not okay’ and also not meaningless—not merely ‘not okay.'”
6. “A 99-year-old woman was also assaulted in her home by a man who broke in and wrapped her head in a blanket.” (Related. Related. Related. Related.)
7. “[F]aith is fealty“—expressed in love.

More:

“The lockdowns are causing tremendous economic harm … but … producing only marginal benefit at best.” (Related.)

“[John’s] dialogues … have the somewhat random characteristics of realistic conversation.”

Carnivore success story. (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)

Nijay Gupta argues that Philippians 2.5-11 is not a pre-Pauline hymn.

Progress. Progress. Progress. Progress. (What happened in 1971, by the way, is this. Thank God for Bitcoin.)

“Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?”

Seven days, seven links:

1. “The kingdom isn’t morally hard, it’s just hidden. The kingdom is here and available, but we cannot see it.”
2. “There’s a few good reasons to prefer the apprenticeship model to classes.” (Related.)
3. “The baptism of Jesus is a new beginning for Israel.”
4. “[R]acism is not the cause of differences in loan approval rates.”
5. “Matthew was aware of the some of the emerging traditions about Zechariah’s death attested in later Jewish texts.”
6. “A large number of well done studies have painted a rather consistent picture of sex differences in personality that are strikingly consistent across cultures.”
7. “God sent provision through someone who did not know my need.”

More:

“[W]e’re both using a service that we think is designed to help us connect when really it has turned into a place where we can all freak out together to make the creators happy.” (Related.)

“[T]he fact that Sennacherib records that he shut Hezekiah up in his royal city like a caged bird, but does not record the capture of Jerusalem is telling. It’s essentially a tacit admission of his failure to capture Jerusalem, which is in accord with the biblical account.”

“[O]ur universities are not universities. They are organs of a state church. This is why they all always agree with each other about all political and spiritual questions.”

“Name of Adonijah, the Royal Steward, Discovered in Jerusalem”

“White Christians are a declining proportion of the US population.”

“The Bible recognizes that a shaking cry to the universe can be the most profound act of faith.”

Seven days, seven links:

1. “[T]he disciples in the early church were committed to sharing their material goods and possessions with each other as they had need so that no one went hungry or went without basic human needs.”
2. “Masculinity and the Marvel Movies” (warning: some spoilers)
3. “The account in the Bible of Hezekiah’s life … align[s] with what is known about him from the archaeological record.”
4. Homeschool your kids. (Related. Related. Related.)
5. “Philippians was written while Paul was imprisoned, but during which imprisonment and precisely where?”
6. “Sunlight … reduces the risk of prostate, breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It improves virtually every mental condition you can think of. And it’s free.”
7. “The death of the Psalmist, of any of God’s faithful people, is not in fact desirable to God. It is painful. It is costly. It is expensive in his sight.”

More:

“China has already killed more Americans than World War 2.” (Related.)

“Like our leader, we’re a bit mad.”

Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Demon World. Demon World. Demon World.

“Paul uses shame as a pedagogical tool for Christic formation.”

“Once you reach a modest standard of living, additional income does not increase life satisfaction very much.”

“[T]he Fellowship [of the Ring] is an image of the church.”

Seven days, seven links:

1. “The scandal of the cross”
2. “[A]ll that is here are humans.”
3. “By maintaining His claim of equality with the Father in John 10:38 Jesus would then be claiming to be a co-regent authority over the divine beings of Psalm 82.”
4. “In 2018, the UK reported a 4,400 percent rise over the previous decade in teenage girls seeking gender treatments.”
5. “[T]he nomadic Edomites could and did form a powerful political entity more than 3,000 years ago, as the Bible suggests.”
6. “He said that it was hard to break the news to Whitaker’s son, who didn’t understand the implications of his mother’s death.” (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related.)
7. Despite superficial appearances to the contrary, all four Gospels agree on when the Last Supper took place.

More:

“Nation That Kills 3,000 Babies a Day Feels Morally Superior to Slaveowners from 200 Years Ago” (related; related)

“[John 21] is an allusion to Peter’s having boasted that even if all the other disciples abandoned Jesus, he would stand firm. … But … Peter’s boast, and his contrasting himself to the other disciples, appears nowhere in the Gospel of John! … It is in Matthew 26:33 and in Mark 14:29.”

Carnivore success story. (Related. Related. Related. Related.)

“[T]he conquest of Canaan meant defeating the Canaanite armies in battle and driving out of the land at least a significant portion of the Canaanite population” (rather than genocide).

Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World.

“Male/Female Parallels in the Gospel of Luke”