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Judges 11:29-40

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break.”

“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

“You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

Discuss.

Comments

  1. 1

    Whatever is equated with whoever. Interesting. Maybe if the whoever is a female?

    If you make a vow to God that requires you sacrificing your daughter, you may be a ….?

  2. 2

    I bet there was no “balm o’ gilead” from ol’ Jeptha’s wife for a long, long time.

  3. 3

    I’m late to church this morning! (Glad I got here before too late!)

    How fucked up is this passage? Like last week’s, one is forced to ask, is this god of the Jews, later to become the god of the Christians and the Muslims, the same one who in Genesis fairly clearly stated, “Do not kill.”

    How can that be?

  4. 4

    If there is this all-knowing and all-powerful, personal deity that the Christians and Jews and Muslims recognize and worship, how is it that the Ammonites (and whoever else were smited (smitten just doesn’t seem the right word!)) were not His children also? Were they not also created in His image?

    How could this “god” possibly be on the side of one little nomadic bronze-age tribe, and not another? Are we to believe that because Abraham was wiling to murder Isaac (again, there’s that killing thingy, though the tablets codifying that would come later…), that from henceforth “god” was going to mow down all the Jews’ enemies? Are we to believe that “god” made offers similar to the deal he made with Abraham, and that every one else told him to piss off, that they loved their eldest children? And because of this, only the Jews, and their religious descendants, the Christians and the Muslims, were favored by him?

    That’s completely nuts.

  5. 5

    I guess working over Old Testament historical accounts is better than looking at this–
    Sunday, September 19, 2010

    The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 28% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16.

    Among voters not affiliated with either major party, just 17% Strongly Approve and 52% Strongly Disapprove.

  7. 7

    (WARNING: graphic description of war, as it ever has been waged for millennia, follows.)

    I find this passage a bit, em, cleansed, to really get at what the LORD delivered to Jephthah in all His Glory. Probably some council in the 900s or 1300s cleaned it up for better mass consumption. Here’s a go at what was chronicled contemporaneously by Jephthah’s scribe:

    Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. The LORD allowed Jephthah and his armed thugs to go house to house, killing and raping and taking what they found desirable, be it a woman or a tool or a jar or simply rage. Once the Ammonite men of fighting age, as well as the older boys and old men, were hacked to pieces, pierced by arrows and spears, bled to death and disemboweled before their families, once this was done the LORD delivered unto Jephthah and his men the women and children of Ammon. They were hiding in secret places, in barns with animals, and below floors in cellars, in attics and in hollows in the hillsides and in caves. Jephthah and his men found each and every one, guided by the LORD, moving in packs flushing out the terrified Ammonite women and Ammonite children. Often the hiding places were given away by the crying of babes who could not be silenced, or the wailing of the mothers for their lost husbands and sons, for thus ever do mothers wail over the losses of wars. Sometimes hiding places of an Ammonite were given away and revealed by another Ammonite trying to find favor with the Jephthah and the Isrealites and their LORD. And the women and children thus found were raped and raped again, sometimes in front of their men who were to injured to move, yet still alive. And then they were killed by the sword and the spear and the stone, and all their bodies left for dogs and jackals and vultures of the air. Then Jephthah and his men moved from town to town, from house to house, scouring all that was the possessions of the Ammonites for that which held value, that which they might desire, as the LORD had given them all that was the Ammonites most prized possessions. And they found sheep and goats and cattle, and they found grain and jars of oil and wine, and these they took for themselves. And they found tools for tilling and pruning and the construction of houses, and these they took for themselves. They found and took the beautiful objects the Ammonites used to decorate their homes and temples and public places, for these would now adorn the places of Japhthah and his men, as if they were always their own. Of the Ammonites written words, and poetry, and stories of their god and their history, these they burned, for they were not good enough for the LORD, and displeased the LORD, and thus the LORD delivered them unto the cleansing hands of his servant Jephthah. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

  9. 9

    And when some troll downthread pipes in that I’ve created a straw man to whack at, does anyone really believe that

    He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramin

    means anything less than what I wrote?

  10. 10

    @8 The point is, so many here, and SO MANY in our republic, think that this book is somehow indispensable for the formation of a moral code. Fuck that.

  11. 11

    Which version of the Bible are you using Goldy? Some people will find it easier if you use the graphic one with the big letters and nice pictures.

  12. 12

    @ 11

    You mean the Texas version? Where they took out all the references to Jesus’s feeding and ministering to the poor?

    After all, thats socialism, and Jesus was anything but a socialist.

  13. 13

    @10

    That’s one way to look at it. Another would be is that Goldy would rather have people thinking about bible passages than how the candidates HE TOLD US TO VOTE FOR are fucking up the country and state.

    So go ahead and get sucked into Goldy’s game. But I’m not going to let him divert my attention (his real motive) away from how badly the Democrats are doing.

  14. 14

    @13
    Such horseshit.

    I find that the discussion of these Biblical passages are often (as you are dong here, in fact) derailed by trolls such as yourself into trivialities, and thus the value of discussion and argument are lost – which I suppose is your point. If you want to discuss political specifics, perhaps find an appropriate thread.

    (And if you want to discuss screwing up the country on a different thread, I would be happy to join you there, as you should be an expert, because no one screws up the country as well as a Republican)

  15. 15

    From the surviving writings of Jacinta of Aroer, recently discovered in an overlooked crate of manuscript fragments in the basement of the British Museum, discovered in a cave in Palestine District of the Ottoman Empire in 1867:

    (Codex I begins here) We called ourselves “Waorao” for this means people of the vine, though we were later called Ammonite, which is an ugly slur to our ears, but the name that survives our sorrows at the hands of the tribe of Japhthah. We were like a vine, surviving on the harsh soil and bringing forth sweet fruit and deep complex wine thus from these fruit, but only from the thinnest and rockiest of soil. Thus we took the places that others could not use, and we brought forth goodness and joy and comfort. And we traded and bartered our wines with our neighbors, but more often we shared, in great feasts, our wines with our neighbors the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Each nation and clan would bring their produce and their butchered lambs and wild-found fungus and sweet soft bread, from each the best of their hand and heart, and thus we would share and feast and sing and dance…(manuscript torn here)

    …(fragment of Codex II begins here) as our Mother God Leporidae guided and instructed us. We were not to kill, and we heeded this and we did not kill, ever. We were not to steal or covet, and thus we did not do these things. We were to share, and thus we did of all things in our lives. We were to assemble and organize ourselves, distributing the work and toil that was needed among ourselves, each according to our own abilities, and thus it was done. We found no need for overlords for we all found joy in our work and toil, for it was creative and life-giving. Nor did we toil long, for such as it was we each had time to rest and play the lute and shepherd our children, for these are as essential to the soul as bread is to the body. Those tasks that were of necessity nasty and foul, these were distributed to each in their share, for all shared the fruits of our shared labor. These fruits – our food, our delectable wine, our estimable and secure houses, our lovely tapestries and arts of the hand and of the mouth – our songs and poetry – these we shared one unto the other, and thus we brought joy to all. Each unto his need and the need of their family, for there was no jealousy, for there was not want and there was no gluttony. We were all created in the image of our Mother Sprit as secure gentle and generous angels… (Manuscript fragment ends)

    …(fragment of final Codex III begins here) in the year of the 714th Tzolk’in there came to the outermost of our valley a new people, a people we called tlhingan Hol, for they were warlike and violent and jealous. As with all people, as instructed by the Great Mother Leporidae, we went to them to bring them to our joy, for joy shared is joy multiplied. We brought them our wine and our poetry and the fruit of our gardens and fields. As did we so did our neighbors the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, each with their own gifts and joys and fruits of their labors and gardens and fields. However, the tlhingan Hol worshipped a jealous and violent warrior god, a madman that demanded that they sacrifice their precious children to him. A vile and violent god that promised the tlhingan Hol all of our lands and the fruits of our labors. They were led by Jephthah, and on the orders of their god as spoken to them by Jephthah they waged war upon us for no reason but to take…(Manuscript fragment ends.)

  16. 16

    Troll… all I’m doing is quoting the Bible. Surely, if this is the word of God, there most be some positive lesson to learn from this passage. Perhaps you, or the self-righteously devout Cynical could enlighten us?

  17. 17

    So Jephthah was a Rapublican?

    Seems to me this describes the age old conflict between venality and decency.

    Jephthah was greedy, mean and cruel. He was violent and chose theft over that of fair trade. It is possible I suppose, that the author of this passage was implying a lesson that would caution people against such behaviors. That it is criminal behavior, and therefore wrong.

    But at the same time, it is included as a description of God, that of the same god presently worshipped by the modern American Christian. It is included in the same book as the other descriptions, and therefore considered to be the same. As there is only one god, Christians could only assume this to mean that there were no other possible gods at all.

    The fact that he murdered his only daughter as a form of thanksgiving for his victories in battle, for his genocide against the Waorao people and their culture of altruism and peaceful coexistence with their neighbors, leads me to believe that the modern Christian, especially in the English speaking countries, is as murderous, greedy and cruel as that of any old warlike culture. Such as the Mongols, the Greeks, the Romans or the Russ.

    Or even the modern Nazis, or the British.

    In this case, it is further proof that history is written by the winners of wars. That victories in warfare are mere proof of the approval by God of their victors, that their murder and theft is sanctioned by God.

    So therefore, god is warlike, murderous, avaristic, and supports the gluttonous, the murdereristic and the covetors of their neighbors asses.

    Ayn Rand would have loved this god.

  18. 18

    The latest Tea Party darling, Christine O’Donnell, has dabbled in witchcraft according to news reports. It’ll be interesting to see how that sits with the GOP’s evangelical base.

  19. 19

    Nobody should die a virgin. If you have a post-pubescent daughter you’re obligated to sacrifice, send her to me! I’ll make sure she goes to Heaven happy.

  20. 20

    Ah, Christians:

    On this day, Sep 19 1692

    80-year-old farmer Giles Cory is pressed under stones in Salem, Massachusetts because he refused to enter a plea for the charge of witchcraft. More and more weight was stacked upon Cory, until his death two days later. According to one eyewitness account: “in pressing, his tongue being pressed out of his mouth, the sheriff with his cane forced it in again.”

    Again, rationalized through the worship of the god of Jephthah, of Calvin, of Moussolini and Franco. Of the modern American Christian.

    Christians must be so proud of their history. Islam and Judeaism is also full of such examples.

    It must be a wonderful thing to be religious. I guess it is sort of like being a cop. Once one takes on the vanity of a particular label for oneself, it allows one to do all the things that the philosophy behind the label or “faith” tries to forbid. It exempts one from being subjected to the same sanctions that one can apply to anyone not of the correct “faith”.

    Or skin color, or cultural heritage, or national origin.

    Once you’re a cop, you can assault, lie, steal and kill and be safely protected by your peers until the behaviors become public knowledge, and then only if it annoys enough people.

    The same goes for religionists, goosestepping for Jesus or whoever is the savior of the moment.

  21. 21

    From dailykos today, germane to this discussion of religion-as-weapon:

    So, yes, you could pretty much call this gathering establishment Republican. They were there arm-in-arm with people like this guy, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. Fishcer’s most recent greatest hits have been complied by PFAW.

    * Demanded that no new mosques be built anywhere in America. (8/10/2010)
    * Argued that inbreeding has caused Muslims to be stupid and violent. (9/10/2010)
    * Says that Muslims should be banned from serving in the U.S. military. (11/9/2009)
    * Insisted that all Muslims are traitors, called for the deportation of all Muslims from the U.S. (4/10/2010)
    * Claimed that U.S. service members died in vain because the U.S. failed to make Iraq a Christian nation. (8/19/2010)
    * Said that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office.” (8/5/2010)
    * Insisted that gays are biased, sexually deviant felons, not to mention pedophiles, and should never serve on the Supreme Court. (4/15/2010, 4/16/2010)
    * Called gay adoption “a terrible, terrible, inexcusable, inhumane thing to do to children.” (8/10/2010)
    * Argued that we should “impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse.” (2/3/2010)
    * Wrote: “The inescapable conclusion is that gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism.” (6/10/2010)
    * Said: “Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.” (5/25/2010)
    * Disparaged family values in the Hispanic community: “Also, the illegitimacy rate among Hispanic women is over 50%. I’m not sure pro-family values are as strong in the Hispanic community as Dr. Land wants to believe.” (7/23/2010)

  23. 23

    Hey Rog,

    Did you catch the name of the Waorao peoples’ deity?

    (Hope you’re feeling better, too!)

  26. 26

    It’s like a football game, where both sides pray to their gods. One team wins because their god gave them the victory, while the other team weeps and despairs because their god couldn’t protect them. And then the winning team gets home, and praise their god for his help, and they have to sacrifice a cheerleader at a party to appease their god for the victory. And then later they go to another game, and it starts all over.

  27. 27

    Some people would rather believe in an image that appears in a piece of toast than My very words on this blog.

    I am, of course, the truth. I am accessible from many sources … from the sky, from a baby’s love, from the wonder of quantum entanglement. I am accessible here too.

    The Nevi’im and Ketuvim do have value as well .. just as the biographies of the slaves and musings of Mother Theresa provide an insight into truth. But these insights are indirect, seen through the eyes of others. With all the immediate sources, why do some persist in using the vanity of those who write history as a replacement for My own word?

    I am that I am.

  28. 28

    @24

    “good thing the atheists have someone like Stalin or Mao to look up to.”

    How blind you are? Is it a good thing for Catholics to look to their current Pope or his predecessors? Is it a good thing for Muslims to look to the terrorists of 9/11 and Protestants to look to the witch burners of Salem? Was Ghandiji a bad man because he was an idolater or Jefferson a bad man because he did not believe in a divine creator?

    Are teachers your Christian Palin and Gingrich good people because they espouse hatred of my children the atheists and my children the muslims?

    I am that I am.

  29. 29

    @26 spyder

    What a trivial of me that would be!

    Do you really believe I intervene or even can intervene in football games or want be-skirted pubescent cheer leaders for supper?

    sad.

    I am that I am.

  30. 30

    @5 Still pointing out that the Obama is VASTLY more popular than the last time we let the childish immature illiterate anti-reality anti-science Republicans run things…then the President had a -30 approval index. Obama has a LONG LONG way to go to get even close to that.

    You KEEP pointing how much much more popular Obama and his policies are than the last Republicans we let run things…why?

    P.S. The “Republican Christian Taliban” (aka Tea Party) that believes in a massive super powerful Federal government with the right to control every single aspect of our personal lives for to “control our morals” based on religious tradition (see: Sharai) are nuts.

  32. 32

    So God,
    Was the author of this passage correct?
    Did you deliver unto Japhthah the Ammonites, and 20 of their cities?
    Did you have anything to do with that? If so, why? Moreover, did you know that you would demand the life of Japhthah’s (hymen-intact) daughter? Why would you do that, or allow him to make that rash promise? Help me see the love in that.

    While we’re at it, did you really demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac? Again, why would you do that?

  33. 33

    @32 “mysterious ways” = the monk was drunk on homemade wine when they scribbled down their crazy thoughts…never realizing 2,500 years later a group of semi-literate twits on the other side of the planet would think those rules applied to THEM as well. Insane. Just crazy. Isis, the true goddess, will punish you for your transgressions!

  34. 34

    @ 32

    Because God is a practical joker. He’s the kind of practical joker everyone knew in junior high.

    You know, the one that glued your locker shut in woodshop, or put a 100 foot cord on the belt sander and locked the trigger down before putting it on the floor. Or super glued a thumbtack on the teachers chair.

    You know, the dude that somehow had all the pretty girls hanging on him, even while he called them bitches and hoes.

  35. 35

    @32

    Do you believe that all the things people attribute to Me or of me?

    Do you have a dog? Does she blame you when it rains or when she hurts? Is she grateful to you when you feed her and does she fear your wrath when she piddles?

    Reading these books, like staring at the stars from within a sweat lodge, is only a means to seeking truth. Look at it this way, as a scientist you know that light is neither a wave nor a particle, in the same manner …

    I am that I am.

  36. 36

    @33 Do not diss Isis.

    Like many other now ignored deities, she has the time to help you .. or hurt you.

    I recommend doing as your ancestors and calling on Isis, Raven Hamatsa, … it can not hurt!

    I am that I am.

  38. 38

    Maybe Jepthra thought God would intervene, like he did with ol’ Abe.

    But then I remember what happened to ol’ Job just to prove a point.

    God, what a jerk, douchebag, piece of shit!

  39. 39

    @35

    My questions exactly. If people attribute to their book the provenance “the only divinely inspired Word of God” they imply your approval. This has been going on for millennia. If it’s in your power to stop it, then why don’t you? If it’s in your grace to improve the lives of your children, why don’t you? If you’re infinite and all-loving, why do you allow what we do to this planet and to each other (both often in Your Name) to go on?

    If it’s not in your power, just say so. Or if the haters have it wrong, then say so. If you don’t care, just say that. Just be clear where you stand.

    I personally just find your indifferent bullshit just that. So, cowboy up and do some good, or take a hike. As my good Catholic mother always said, the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those, who in time of great moral crisis, refused to act.

  40. 40

    @7 “for thus ever do mothers wail over the losses of wars”

    Not much has changed.

    #5 Dumbfuck KOWN sez, “I guess working over Old Testament historical accounts is better than looking at this–”

    I’d bet Jephthah had a few dumbfuck Klynical KLOWNS around who, like today’s KLOWNS, applaud the destruction of the innocent.

  42. 42

    “…She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.“

    Because it’s soooo important to God that a chick remain undefiled before you murder her by burning her alive.

  44. 44

    @39 Lib Sci

    “If it’s not in your power, just say so. Or if the haters have it wrong, then say so. If you don’t care, just say that. Just be clear where you stand.

    I personally just find your indifferent bullshit just that. So, cowboy up and do some good, or take a hike. As my good Catholic mother always said, the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those, who in time of great moral crisis, refused to act.”

    No I do care and yes those who hate have it wrong.

    When people are hurt, it is I who is hurt. Would I change things, if it were in My power and My intent were to be more than truth?”
    Are you a Roman appealing to some Caesar who claims to be the Emperor or a scientist seeking to understand how things work?

    If I made miracles, then where would be the eternal truth? That word is a baby’s birth, the tracks of an unknown animal, a glimpse into space as light curves about the sun, and the thoughts that led Siddhartha to his noble truths. All these reflect God.

    The God you criticize, the God of the haters as well as of the God those who claim that love for me transcends all else, is not the truth. If that God were, there would be no floods, no slavery, no AIDS, no A-bombs. God is not merely Caesar grown omnipotent and omniscient. Failure to believe in Caesar can get you hurt, failure to believe in me is a loss only to yourself.

    I am that I am .. no more and no less. Like the light from a distant star. What you do with that light, what future you make, is up to you.

    I am that I am.

  45. 45

    Saw a bumper sticker that said:

    “Jesus is Lord!”

    And all this time I thought Bruce Springsteen was The Boss!

    No one should take the Bible seriously. It is a collection of common myths and explanations of natural phenomenon by people who were doing their bet to survive day-to-day and needed an explanation of the natural world. Just follow the Golden Rule and you’ll be good to go.

  46. 46

    @44

    Precisely, precisely, precisely. Thank you, god, you make my point for me. I just wanted to be sure that there was no divine being, no deity with a personality, that did indeed deliver the Ammonites, and so many others, to the savagery of Jephthah and the Israelites, or of the natives of so many countries, ours included, to invaders with better weapons and lesser morals.

    My sense, I think I share with you, is that there is divinity in the world, everywhere and always, around us. Call it god or fundamental laws, as you say it is everywhere for the discovering and exploring.

    I am reminded of a line by Katsumoto, in the film “The Last Samurai” (quote the truth wherever you find it…), in which he says about cherry blossoms (paraphrasing) “a man could spend a lifetime looking for the perfect blossom, and it would be a life well spent”

  47. 47

    @45
    Indeed.
    I’ve always loathed that particular grammatical construction.
    I think it’s somehow intended to be grating on the ear (not unlike calling the party of Jefferson the “Democrat Party”), as well as broadcast a certain combination of a desire to be dominated with an absolute refusal to consider any other alternative. Quite a powerfully destructive attitude.

  48. 48

    Re 39

    To play devils advocate for the person who uses the tag ‘God’-

    If you accept the Judeo Christian narrative God made free will an integral part of his creation of man. This was necessary for an independent and sentient creation rather than a set of elaborate figures in a wax museum. While it carries the risk of poor or evil decisions it carries the possibility of divinely inspired and sublime ones as well. Without that free will neither would be possible.

    Thus, Hitler could be and do what he was and did. It lay with created man to stop him. What was the quote? “All it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.” Or something very like it.

  49. 49

    @20: The inspiring thing about the Cory story is that right to the end, he never knuckled under, and refused to enter a plea, simply calling for “more weight”. Thus he “died a Christian” and saved his family’s property from confiscation.

  50. 50

    In the spirit of divinely created free will, I’m choosing to take the kids and dogs for a hike. Have a pleasant and instructive Sunday afternoon.

  51. 51

    @48 LSIB

    To play devils advocate for the person who uses the tag ‘God’-

    Odd.

    Do I frighten you? Do you also take the part of the devil when you consider the printed words in Revelations or Judges?

    As for free will, of course ” Hitler could be and do what he was” he was, after all Hitler, as you are you. Man has the same free will as the photon passing through a slit. But Man, unlike the photon, also has the gift of knowledge of good and evil.

    Hitler’s followers shifted their responsibility for knowing My word to others. They claimed to follow orders. Is it better to shift your obligation to find truth to the unknown author of Deuteronomy than it is to the authors of mein Kampf, The Fountain, or Foundation?

    You say, “All it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.” Perhaps but how is that different from “All it takes for evil to thrive is for bad men to do their will.”

    Look and learn to history, including the bible, for examples of good and bad men. Was Avraham a good man when he followed My orders to kill his son? Was Moses a good man when he ordered the slaughter of the idolaters? Was the Prophet doing good when he enslaved the people of Yathrib? Is Sarah Palin good when she endorses persecution of witches in Kenya? Was Dr. King a good man for standing up to Bapists who preached the inferiority of some of us to other humans?

    The truth is there for anyone to read. Choose your teachers carefully. If you can only judge by their following the book, you fail to see My true word just as Newton and Einstein were blinded to the reality found by Bohr and Heissenberg.

  52. 52

    @46 Lib sci

    Precisely, precisely, precisely. Thank you, god, you make my point for me.

    You are welcome.

    By the way, while We do not take contributions, I do suggest contributions to Medecin sans Frontier and the this website. Funds given to oppose evil candidates such as O’Donnel or Sharron Angle are also part of My plan. No rewards other than those intrinsic to knowing you have done the right thing, but that is a fine reward indeed.

    I am that I am.

  54. 54

    Guns Don’t Kill People Dep’t

    A Texas man shot and killed his three children, ages 7, 12, and 13, this morning because he was upset about possibly losing visitation rights in an upcoming court hearing. The shooter claims people who accused him of having a violent temper were “lying.”

    Hey, what’s three dead kids compared to protecting the right of every looney yahoo north of the border to have a gun? Preserve Second Amendment licentiousness, er excuse me, freedoms at all cost!

  56. 56

    @13 The people I voted for aren’t fucking up the country. The country was fucked when they got it. Obama and the Democratic Congress have done about as good as anyone could have, given the mess that Bush and the Republican Congress left them.

  57. 57

    Wingnut Christian and would-be American president, Mike Huckabee,

    “It sounds so good, and it’s such a warm message to say we’re not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition,” Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. “Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, “I’d like to buy some insurance for my house.” He’d say, “Tell me about your house.” “Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I’d like to insure it today.” And he’ll say “I’m sorry, but we can’t insure it after it’s already burned.” Well, no preexisting conditions.”

    To a wingnut Christian, if you lose health insurance coverage for whatever reason, your pre-existing condition should leave you totally fucked. To to a wingnut Christian, it makes as much as much sense to insure you as it does to insure a house that’s already burned down. Or more briefly put, “Just go somewhere out of my sight and fucking die already.”

    Wingnut Christians threw the teachings of Jesus under the bus a long time ago and lost their souls in the process. Hell, Delaware has a wingnut running for senator who got her brains fucked out on the Devil’s alter. The Kentucky wingnut senate candidate abducted a young woman and then demanded that she worship the AquaBuddha. To hell with all of them.

  58. 58

    why does the former judge who posts on this site hate the constitution?

    seems very odd.

  59. 59

    @48: Regurgitating the party line is not “playing devil’s advocate”, but let us look at this devil reasoning. In your role, you aver, “This was necessary for an independent and sentient creation rather than a set of elaborate figures in a wax museum.”

    Ay. The devil is indeed clever. The assertion of Free Will implies a limit to God’s Omnipotence, leaving room for Satin’s power. You might take this up with one J. Calvin.

    Making choices? Certain you’re gonna’ go to heaven? Certain that your conception of “god” exists?

    I’m booking all bets, and give fair odds. Would God want it otherwise?

  60. 60

    LSIB: “In the spirit of divinely created free will, I’m choosing to take the kids and dogs for a hike.”

    God knew you were going to do that.

    –He is what he sez He is, or not….choose wisely, grasshopper.

  61. 61

    To Lost @48:

    How’s that “freewill” thing going to work once you guys are in Heaven? Do you no longer have freewill, or are you going to keep right on making the same mistakes you all made down here?

    Will Heaven have its own version of a Hitler whose personal judgment just was quite tuned into God’s will?

  62. 62

    I was praying one day and suddenly realized I was talking to myself. Does that make me God?

  63. 63

    Re 59
    Regurgitating the party line..”
    “Party line? I wasn’t aware this was political. Nor do I play devils advocate as an indictment of Christianity or the major text informing it. That was a not so clever thrust at the person posting as God. Sorry, but I never claimed to be Mark Twain.

    “The assertion of Free Will implies a limit to God’s Omnipotence…”
    It might. Or I might understand that free will operating within the limits of space and time don’t contradict divine omnipotence. You might read up on your Kant (Critique of Pure Reason).

    Assuming that God exists and is omnipotent he (she, it, or whatever pronoun seems best to you) exists outside of space and time which would be inherent limitations and violate the definitions of omnipotent and omniscient. (To be fair, you left Omniscience out, but most Christians believe that God is both together and inseperably.) Knowing the outcome of my decisions while occupying all points of space and time is not the same as controlling those decisions. I would love to be able to say this is the pure invention of my own mind. Alas, I can’t. I have CS Lewis in explaining all of this from the perspective of his remarkable mind to thank. To my lasting admiration he is a much more competent exponent of Christianity than I am or could ever be.

  65. 65

    Re 57

    The usual confusion between Christian voters and a Christian government…

    I thought you folks were all about an airtight seal between Church and State. This being so the principles of Christianity as applied to government hardly seem relevant.

    Even if they weren’t Christ exhorts personal charity. That is, I freely give of the property I have a right to give, my own. I have no moral right to do so with property belonging to others through taxation. Nor does it alleviate the responsibility of a Christian taxpayer to be charitible merely because he is being forced at the point of a gun to contribute to the welfare of others.

  66. 66

    @65
    Taxation is immoral? Inherently?

    Is community immoral? Is organizing a community and delegating leadership immoral? Is enforced participation (taxation), if one lives withing certain physical bounds, and therefore enjoys the fruits of the community’s actions and shared resources, immoral?

    he is being forced at the point of a gun to contribute to the welfare of others.

    Why exactly haven’t you moved to your own island yet? Why do you stay here? Isn’t there a libertarian corporatist paradise somewhere more to your liking?

    I am always reminded of the sea gulls in the movie “Finding Nemo” when I encounter libertarians: the only thing they ever did was fight over food, and the only thing they ever said was a screeching monotonous “Mine! Mine! Mine! MINE!!”

  67. 67

    @63
    Lost, the philosophical contortions you’re trying to execute remind me of Olga Korbut.

    How about this: did God indeed deliver to Jephthah the Ammonites under his sword, as it were? Does “He” delve into the affairs of men? Is the OT really the chronicle of “God’s” relationship, covenant, real personal interaction, with the Jews? Was this “God” the entity, imbued with personality, that chose to aid the Jews in this fight, as well as the one last week against the “Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites”

  68. 68

    @63, 67

    And, Lost, if you are in the affirmative to my questions, is this chronicle of “God’s” actions necessary for the formation of a moral code by contemporary people?

  69. 69

    @65 “Even if they weren’t Christ exhorts personal charity. That is, I freely give of the property I have a right to give, my own. I have no moral right to do so with property belonging to others through taxation.”

    Since when have governments ever operated on charity? It wasn’t so long ago the king took what he wanted and you got what was left. And it’s an army, not “morality,” that makes you a government.

  70. 70

    @67 “Lost, the philosophical contortions you’re trying to execute remind me of Olga Korbut.”

    Not really. Olga was graceful.

  71. 71

    Lib Sci

    The specific comment at 65 had to do with charity as exercised by the government and the Christian support or lack thereof for it. Not taxation in general. Which, if you care for the Christian context, is covered by ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesers.’

    Nor was it an argument about the right of government to tax. It was a philosophical point responding to Steves philosophical point. That is, forced charity does not dispel the obligation to charity enjoined by Christ to his followers.

    However, as far as taking my money for the sole benefit of another citizen in the form of housing, food, medical care etc goes-

    This is pretty simple. We owe taxes to pay for those functions of government required by the Constitutions (federal and state.) We commonly enjoy the protections of the armed forces and police and the courts. We commonly enjoy interstate highways and other transportation infrastructure, schools and fire departments and all the other functions government was authorized to perform. And we should commonly pay for them in taxation.

    No Constitutional right or duty exists for government to steal one mans money for the sole benefit of another man. Nor is there a Christian basis in your minds for requiring them to do so. For you and yours Christianity is an evil influence with no business in government or the public domain whatever. So what it has to say or not say doesn’t matter. To you.

    This is to say nothing of the damage progressive social programs do to the recipients. This says nothing of the destruction of work ethic, self reliance and the loss of talent caused by these programs. It says nothing of generations lost to sloth and indigence whose talents might have helped society had they not been atrophied by these programs. That’s a different discussion.
    So by your own argument the moral basis for welfare and all the other forms of theft at the point of a federal gun aren’t relevant.

    Oddly I’m reminded of those seagulls too. The only difference is that progressives yell that about things that aren’t in fact theirs.

  72. 72

    Re 69

    I was responding to a specific comment of Steves at 57. It was not intended to be a commentary on the nature and function of taxation generally.

    Re 70

    Yeah yeah yeah. I did say, twice, that others have written about this much more concisely, clearly and elegantly than I. Unfortunately I have to operate with the poor mental equipment I was given. Darn.

    Olga who? I assume ballet? Ice skating? Sorry, us redneck republicans don’t hold with none of that there sissy commie dancing stuff.

    Parenthetically, hope you’re feeling better.

  73. 73

    Seemingly yu nare unaware of who Caesar was …

    He was not “the government.” He was not even the appointee of God. He was a vicious conqueror. So it seems yo are supposed to give unto the bully whatever the bully says is his?

    On the other hand, Jewish law does recognize taxation and an obligation to support the government. Was this overturned by your church?

  74. 74

    “This is to say nothing of the damage progressive social programs do to the recipients. This says nothing of the destruction of work ethic, self reliance and the loss of talent caused by these programs. It says nothing of generations lost to sloth and indigence whose talents might have helped society had they not been atrophied by these programs.”

    What a load of generalized horseshit. I survived and became a contributing member of society because of social safety nets. It did not destroy my work ethic, self relaince and talent. It did not leave me a indigent sloth, atrophied by those programs. Those programs gave me a chance at life and your every argument is to have let my Mom die and for me to be thrown to the wolves to die young myself. Whether you realize it or not, you are an advocate for the death of Americans less advantaged than yourself. You do so out of greed and ignorance – “mine, mine, MINE!” Society made the choice, give Steve a chance at life or let him become someone who would gladly slit your throat, take what is yours and call it, “Mine, mine, MINE!” But instead of wiping the blood of you and yours from my knife this morning and polishing the trinkets that used to be yours, I’m preparing to work another day at my chosen profession – the work I do today because long ago our society’s safety nets gave me a chance at a better life.

  75. 75

    Continuing an earlier opthalmic exam of blind faith, via Jenny Uglow in New York Review, 24 June 2010:

    Everywhere in these assaults on unquestioning reverence [for science and its “method”], parallels are drawn between science and religion. At bottom, the key issue is the nature of belief and credibility. Acceptance of religious truth involves surrender to authority or a leap into the arms of faith, while a scientific truth (or as [Steven] Sharpin would say, “whatever it is that counts as Truth in a range of historical settings”) is supposedly provable to reason, its results confirmed by experiment or calculation. But how have we learned, or been persuaded, to accept the “facts” presented to us as “true,” to regard science as a secular enlightenment, in contrast to the obscurantism of religion? Why should we believe in quarks and not in demons?

    Mr. Science Person, Carl Sagan, was coming close to heresy when he questioned our baptismal immersion in the cesspool of a quark-haunted universe. Discuss.

  76. 76

    Sciece = Science

    Blind faith in regulation = blind faith in regulation:

    Virtually all developed economies have long had official institutions responsible for regulating their banking systems. To a lesser extent, there has been oversight of financial markets and nonbank financial institutions. In the United States, there has been a particularly complicated and intrusive institutional structure. But as a broad generalization, these existing structures, in all their variety, largely failed to prevent cascading financial failures, with severe economic damage.

    That’s from Paul Volcker, who knows regulation. Liberal faith in regulation has been at least as blind as liberal faith in science. Discuss.

  77. 77

    I’m willing to admit when I make a mistake. Fortunately, I don’t have to do so very often.

    How often do you admit your errors on this forum?

    As often as I lose a low-profile argument to Brother YLB, I immediately or promptly admit that I got it wrong. (That’s moi @68.)

    Perhaps, rhp, you’re suffering from what Brother Puddy calls moronic memory moonbat! malady. Or perhaps you remember that I usually win the low-profile arguments and always win the high-profile arguments. That’s why my comments often get whacked and yours don’t.

  78. 78

    @ 74 – Agreed. What seems to escape the limited intellect of the libertarian mind is that justice and compassion are as vital to the functioning of a society as roads, police, fire departments, etc. (unless one wants to delve into the Orwellian concept that hate is as vital and powerful a motivator as love.) We commonly enjoy the social stability created by justice and compassion, and we should commonly pay for them with taxation. There is a great dissection of the conservative contempt for the poor at Crooks and Liars:

    Here’s a fact: Christians are no more likely to reach out and help those in need than non-Christians, despite the call of their God to do so. No. more. likely. Christians are as morally bankrupt as anyone else. Equally. Christians do not have any right to claim moral superiority or higher-minded values because it is not what anyone says, it is how we choose to live.

    Right now, this minute, while millions of Christians across this country are sitting in church crying “Amen” to the preacher’s diatribe, people are hungry, living in poverty, doing without. More people than ever are in need. Food banks across this nation have empty shelves. Children are living with their parents in the back seat of the family car, which may be the next thing they lose. Right now. This minute.

    Right now, this minute, while millions of Christians across this country are sitting in church silently applauding their pastor’s subtle condemnation of gays or the President or the stimulus or health care reform, someone is not receiving a cancer, diabetes or heart disease diagnosis because they have no money to go to the doctor and find out what it is that’s causing their fatigue, breathing difficulties, or dizziness. Right now. This minute.

    Right now, this minute, while millions of Christians across this country are sitting in church silently thanking God that there’s a Mike Pence coming to save this nation from the black guy in the Oval Office with the weird name and the Kenyan father, other people are doing whatever they can to help the family living in their car, the undiagnosed sick patient, the hungry and the homeless. They don’t call themselves “values voters.” They call themselves human beings. Right now. This minute.

    So to the Mike Pences, Mike Huckabees, Dan Gainors, and the rest of you who think it’s perfectly righteous to stand in united opposition to “Obamacare” and deny your fellow citizens the right to access and pay for health care they need, I ask you which of these statements is more representative of your “values”?

    “In God We Trust”
    “In Wellpoint We Trust”

    Indeed, in whom (or what) do these alleged Christians trust? What drives there blind allegiance to corporatism at the expense of the “values” they claim to uphold?
    Hypocrisy.

  79. 79

    Oh, look, more vile hypocrisy form those “values” folks

    Happy days came back Friday to Spring Hill, Tenn., when General Motors announced it would rehire 483 laid-off workers to build four-cylinder engines. On hand to cheer the news: Three Republican lawmakers who opposed the bailout that saved GM.

    the plant recently held a ceremony to welcome back the new workers to begin production of the Ecotec engines. Attending the ceremony were three local Republican legislators, Sens. Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Ironically, all three of these lawmakers opposed the plans to save General Motors and other U.S. auto companies. This didn’t stop Corker from taking credit for the federal rescue, anyway. At the event he claimed he “contributed to strengthening the auto industry in this country.”

  80. 80

    “Hypocrisy.”

    And greed. Out of greed they would destroy the social contract that allows folks like Lost to sleep at night without fear that I will come to take their lives and possessions.

  81. 81

    Blind faith in liberal sustainability, anyone?

    Meanwhile, America, which pioneered nuclear power, is squandering money on wind power, which provides 1.3 percent of the nation’s electricity: it is slurping up $30 billion of tax breaks and other subsidies amounting to $18.82 per megawatt-hour, 25 times as much per megawatt-hour as the combined subsidies for all other forms of electricity production.
    Wind power involves gargantuan “energy sprawl.” To produce 20 percent of America’s power by wind, which the Obama administration dreamily proposes, would require 186,000 tall turbines—40 stories tall, their flashing lights can be seen for 20 miles—covering an area the size of West Virginia. The amount of electricity that would be produced by wind turbines extending the entire 2,178 miles of the Appalachian Trail can be produced by four reactors occupying four square miles of land. And birds beware: the American Bird Conservancy estimates that the existing 25,000 turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds a year. Imagine the toll that 186,000 turbines would take.

    Solar power? It produces less than a tenth of a percent of our electricity. And panels and mirrors mean more sprawl. Biomass? It is not so green when you factor in trucks to haul the stuff to the plants that burn it. …

    America’s nuclear industry was a casualty of the 1979 meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, which was and is referred to as a “catastrophe” even though there were no measurable health effects. Chernobyl was a disaster because Russians built the reactor in a way no one builds today—without a containment vessel.

    – via (Let’s Nuke) George Will, “News”week.

  82. 82

    Montana GOP Policy: Make Homosexuality Illegal
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....9243.shtml

    “”I looked at that and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,'” state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. “Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn’t be in the Republican Party.”
    – He’s going to be kicked out in his next primary!

    I liked some of the comments
    >>If homosexuality was made illegal, what would be the punishment? Locking homosexuals up in a prison with a bunch of other men? Very cleaver. Also, isn’t that just another step towards sharia law?

    >>Republican and hate, two words that go together.
    Followed by
    >>Yea….just like Liberal and Welfare go together.
    (Apparently helping people till they can get back on their feet is a bad thing to conservatives?)

    Lost, Cyn, Puddy do you think the republicans should call for such actions? Do you think it’s appropriate?

  83. 83

    @81
    Puh-Leez…George Will is a well known and documented liar, particularly on the subject of climate change.

    FAIL!

  85. 85

    @75

    Why should we believe in quarks and not in demons?

    Um…data? Repeated, independent observation? Close fit to a falsifiable model?

    As opposed to…’cause the preacher told me so. Because it’s in the Bible. Or as my born-again Pentecostal grandmother’s lapel pin stated, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

    This comparison between religious faith and “faith” in science is a canard, a typical attempt by the superstitious and anti-reason folks to assert a false equivalence. Teach the contraversy, as it were. It’s bullshit.

  86. 86

    It’s likely that only lying liars are allowed to take up space in ObamaAllTheTime, formerly known as “News”week. Maybe that’s why they hired George Will as their token conservative … although it doesn’t explain why they have Robert Samuelson as their token teller of inconvenient truths.

    And it’s possible that liberal scientist Hillary’s Media Matters, liberal and scientific about everything, isn’t lying about liberal scientist Phil Jones, who isn’t mentioned or alluded to here:

    wind power, which provides 1.3 percent of the nation’s electricity: it is slurping up $30 billion of tax breaks and other subsidies amounting to $18.82 per megawatt-hour, 25 times as much per megawatt-hour as the combined subsidies for all other forms of electricity production.

    Tax breaks of $30 billion?
    Subsidies of $18.82/megawatt hour?
    Mega subsidies for a bird-killer technology that can’t compete?

    You assert or imply that those are lies. Now prove it.

  87. 87

    Modern wind farms do not have the avian mortality that pre- 2000 technology created.
    From ABC, June 15, 2010:
    “Not all bad news for Big Oil on Capitol Hill today. Senators just voted 35-61 against stripping big oil companies of $35 billion in tax breaks they’ll get over the next ten years. (More than ten Democrats voted with Republicans.)”
    As to the other, if you want to divide the amount given in research grants, start up costs, etc. by the amount of electricity currently produced, go ahead. It only further proves how mentally incompetent you are.

  88. 88

    As my conservative friend (Well, he was a friend till I kept challenging his conservatism and then he stopped talking to me.) joked “If the King James Bible was good enough for JEE-zus, it’s good enough for me.”

  89. 89

    @75 More liberal ….
    ” Why should we believe in quarks and not in demons?”

    No reason at all. “Quarks” are not matters of belief, they are a model a tool we use to explain how matter works.

    If you are comfortable basing your world on demons, go ahead!

    In fact, I think I should set up a company devoted to demonic science. We will call the company DEMONICS. If you will invest a few 100K, why you and I should become rich!

    BTW, there already is a related biotech in Seattle .. though it tech is based in antidemonics. The company is called Ave Maria Biotechnology and I am positve they would welcome an investment as well!

    Give me a call whenever you are ready to invest.

  90. 90

    @85 Lib Sci

    Would you consider joining the staff of DEMONICS? We will be hiring as soon as I get the check from More Liberal Sciece High School.

    D,inc is especially interested in people with expertise in the use of demons to multiplex electrons in multilayered circuits. Is this an area of your expertise?

    We are also looking for software engineers who can use prayer to debug firmware used in aerospace to assure that panes do not crash.

  91. 91

    @ 15 – Nice find! For me the codex reinforces my suspicion that Christianity (as well as the other two Abrahamic religions) was evil from the get go. We should have stuck with our animistic and pagan beliefs, centered around mutual respect and sharing.

  92. 92

    @89, 90

    BWAHAHAHAHA!!

    Love it.

    Back in high school (Jesuits!) my sophomore theology teacher, an older priest and a very significant alcoholic (we did a lot of quite “meditating” in his class) was reputed to have been in on the exorcism that had taken place in my home town that was the inspiration for the Exorcist book and movie. (I know, lots of second hand info; though he was on a documentary about the episode) Anyway, I guess that gives me some very tenuous connection to the practice you propose to monitize (I trained with an Exorcist!!) (I’ll take on Palin anytime – the Catholics have been doing this much longer than anybody still practicing, I’d wager, though there are some druids still around.)

    And…nice catch about Ave Maria Biotech – I learned about them when I googled the plaintiffs in the stem cell case – what a pack of whakadoodles!

    (PS I’ll get my $0.02 about the Will wind idiocy in a bit – got to go save lives again – back in a flash!)

  94. 94

    @86
    Your post is of course a red herring – we’re talking the Bible here. Why do you not want to talk about the Bible?

    But…I note that Will uses the denomenation $/megawatt-hr instead of the usual $/kilowatt-hr, and thus vastly inflates the number – so that the subsidy in question is really less than 2 cents per KWH – a very modest amount.
    I assume that the incentive to which you refer is the PTC – Production Tax Credit for renewable energy – first emplyed in 1992, under the first Bush Administration.

    Good discussion of PTC by the Union of Concerned Scientists here.

    As noted above by warf, subsidies to the oil and gas industry are immense and a vast waste, and an incentive for environmental degradation. So, in answer to you inane post, MORE TAX INCENTIVES FOR WIND AND SOLAR!
    Only $30 Billion?! Let’s double that – let’s start taxing churches! And guns! And stupidity!
    (If we did that, then Mississippi, Alabama and Alaska would go from vast net recipients of wealth transfer from educated Democratic areas of the country, to finally pulling their own weight and contributing to the common good!)

  95. 95

    @91
    Oops, sorry worf – as with my post #6 just above it, I employed some creative license to make a point – it’s a piece of fiction. I thought that that was obvious – my bad if it was not so, and sincere apologies.

    google the terms ‘Leporidae’ (that one for Rog), ‘tlhingan Hol’ (hope you appreciate that one), and ‘Tzolk’in’. The term “Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites” was directly from the Bible quote from last week as well. And Jacinta was a particularly beautiful naturopathic medical student I once knew.

  97. 97

    Worf and LibSci

    Folks like you are disgusting. Why must you use a family friendly blog like this to deuteronomize?

    I have nothing against deuteronomy, in private, not in public places.

    Just remember WHO Ezra was working for … hint, it was not God!

  98. 98

    @97
    SJ, Bodhisattva, you wound me. Did you not say that in Buddhist tradition, even an error or a fiction can be a vehicle to the truth?

    I was of the mind that what you call deuteronomizing was illuminating, and kind of fun – I was thinking of writing an entire inspired/revealed holy book of my people – why not?!

    And Ezra, Uzair of Basra, perhaps was a bit of a nationalist. Do you refer to his employ by the king of Persia? Your point, sir?

  99. 99

    @98 LS

    Yes, as a devotee of strict adherence to the true revelations of God, it has seemed to me that Ezra ought to be viewed as we would view the opinions of a physician in the pay of Pfizer.

    As for being a Bhodi, no Bhodi has ever been a Bhodi, merely one who seeks to be an arhant.

  100. 100

    WADR,

    If the truth is in you, make your own book. Leave Deuteronomy to those who masticate old meat.

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