Politics: A new beginning

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
when GOP leaders say stuff like "We're a Christian nation" when what they really mean is that their home town was 100% Baptist and they think everyone in America should have experienced their childhood.

I visited a client in N. Carolina and went to a golf course with the CEO and sales managers. they told stories about copperheads and timber rattlers down there and i could not bring myself to go into the woods to look for my ball.

I'm just saying, a little snake handling at an early age would have helped me.

So far, no benefit from drinking stryknine, other than maybe being able to tolerate Buckhorns in college a little better.

[pretermitted_child]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I'm just saying, a little snake handling at an early age would have helped me.

I'll bet that you didn't grow up in Texas. I've spent some of my formative years in Austin and Lubbock, and every year they provided snake safety training in the elementary schools, complete with live demonstrations. (Do they still provide this? I was there in the early 80s.)

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by pretermitted_child
I'll bet that you didn't grow up in Texas. I've spent some of my formative years in Austin and Lubbock, and every year they provided snake safety training in the elementary schools, complete with live demonstrations. (Do they still provide this? I was there in the early 80s.)

Obviously you did not spend enough time in Austin and Lubbock, or you would have gotten the snake handling/fundamentalist Christian connection. I'm not sure if it's a Baptist thing (a narrow portion of the Baptist church, not widespread across Baptists) or if it's more really small fundamentalist churches that aren't part of a broad category that do it.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Not Me
I think this article illustrates a barbaric and primitive culture. And unfortunately, we need them as our allies because they have nukes and for other strategic reasons like the war on terrorism.

You are standing in the wooden shoes of a frenchman for any day in the last 50 years. They use the death penalty and 30K or 50K homicides a year to characterize us the same way.

Your Frenchosity should come as no surprise to your red-blooded detractors on the FB.

Hello

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Obviously you did not spend enough time in Austin and Lubbock, or you would have gotten the snake handling/fundamentalist Christian connection. I'm not sure if it's a Baptist thing (a narrow portion of the Baptist church, not widespread across Baptists) or if it's more really small fundamentalist churches that aren't part of a broad category that do it.

During undergrad, I saw a news piece on a NYT reporter that had gone to The South to cover a story on snake handling. Snake handling is practiced amond people who view the Pentacostals and 7th Day Adventists as just a little to permissive. One of their preachers thought his wife had been unfaithful and demanded that she thrust her hand into a pit of rattlers to prove her virtue. She was bitten (it is unclear whether she had been unfaithful, but I have not known a snake to lie) and the preacher was charged with attempted murder.

The NYT reporter assigned to the story became enraptured by the snake handling sects. He left his wife and children in NYC to follow them around The South. He became so involved that he eventually started handling snakes himself. He said he could feel God when he lifted the snakes. Then I guess he decided he was nutty and went back to his family in NYC.

I related this story to my existentialism professor, a devout Catholic. He was intrigued. "Did he really believe he felt God?" he asked. I answered yes. "Well if he truly believed he encountered God, why did he give it up?" I didn't have an answer.

Back to politics . . .

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
"Did he really believe he felt God?" he asked. I answered yes. "Well if he truly believed he encountered God, why did he give it up?" I didn't have an answer.

Maybe it's like meeting that famous person you've admired for so long, and then realizing that you really don't like them, personally.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
During undergrad, I saw a news piece on a NYT reporter that had gone to The South to cover a story on snake handling. Snake handling is practiced amond people who view the Pentacostals and 7th Day Adventists as just a little to permissive. One of their preachers thought his wife had been unfaithful and demanded that she thrust her hand into a pit of rattlers to prove her virtue. She was bitten (it is unclear whether she had been unfaithful, but I have not known a snake to lie) and the preacher was charged with attempted murder.

That's nothing. There is this other religion, I cannot recall the name right now, and in that religion if a woman commits adultery, they dig a pit and put her in it and have her male family members crush her head with stones. And if in this religion, whatever the name is since I cannot remember, you blow yourself up while killing Jews, you go to heaven and you get to fuck virgins! Like 7 of them.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Not Me
That's nothing. There is this other religion, I cannot recall the name right now, and in that religion if a woman commits adultery, they dig a pit and put her in it and have her male family members crush her head with stones.

And if it's done in this country, and she doesn't die, they are charged with attempted murder (or battery, I guess). If she does die, they are charged with murder. What's your point? SS's point was that the snake thing is a superstitious practice, not entirely unlike the throwing women suspected of being witches in the water and, if they float, executing them as witches because that is "proof." At least in the testing by snake, the innocent get to live . . .

This other religion you describe just has a different standard than we do for what merits a death penalty. Standards I don't agree with, but it's a totally different issue.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
SS's point was that the snake thing is a superstitious practice, not entirely unlike the throwing women suspected of being witches in the water and, if they float, executing them as witches because that is "proof." At least in the testing by snake, the innocent get to live . . .

Are you drunk again? NTTAWWT.* Ummm, well, hun, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. See, that other poster (cannot remember who it was who posted that and too lazy to scroll) was making fun of a religion for a husband ordering his wife to stick her hand into a cage of rattlesnakes, which if she gets bit and doesn't get to the ER in time for the anti-venom (or if, like the influenza vaccine, they just don't have any on hand), she will die.

Explain to me again the difference between a religious belief and a superstition?

*you might want to move on up to crack, though, because, however bad it may be for your heart, it doesn't kill neurons the way alcohol does. At your age, I am sure that your heart can take it, but clearly, your brain is taking a beating from the booze.**

**booze is another word for alcoholic beverage, and apparently, so is hooch. However, hooch is also another word for vagina, as in "hoochie mama." Go figure.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
Explain to me again the difference between a religious belief and a superstition?

No one asks you to tithe to a black cat.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
No one asks you to tithe to a black cat.

Ok, I can see that one, but what about in terms of hats? Tell me what is the difference between a superstitious hat like say this one:



compared to say, a religous one like say this one:



or another religious one like this one*:





*which is techinically not a hat, but, rather, a dishtowel,** but if you say that on the FB, I am pretty sure that you will be called a racist.

**in particular, a Handiwipe

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Not Me
Are you drunk again? NTTAWWT.* Ummm, well, hun, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. See, that other poster (cannot remember who it was who posted that and too lazy to scroll) was making fun of a religion for a husband ordering his wife to stick her hand into a cage of rattlesnakes, which if she gets bit and doesn't get to the ER in time for the anti-venom (or if, like the influenza vaccine, they just don't have any on hand), she will die.

Explain to me again the difference between a religious belief and a superstition?

*you might want to move on up to crack, though, because, however bad it may be for your heart, it doesn't kill neurons the way alcohol does. At your age, I am sure that your heart can take it, but clearly, your brain is taking a beating from the booze.**

**booze is another word for alcoholic beverage, and apparently, so is hooch. However, hooch is also another word for vagina, as in "hoochie mama." Go figure.

There is really no difference between religious belief and a superstition. I think people refer to what they believe as "religion" and what other people believe as "superstition." Superstition, at least to me, has a connotation of some type of assignment of meanings to random physical objects and occurrences (such as, a black cat crossing one's path (random occurrence) causes bad luck, a snake biting you means you are guilty of whatever crime you are charged with).

Of course the stoning thing you were talking about, though you are now pathetically trying to change the terms of the argument (because you realize that it was a total non sequitor) away from the whole stoning thing, is really, neither religion nor superstition. It's a criminal justice system. If part of the stoning involves something like "if the person being stoned first bleeds from the left side of her forehead, it means that she is innocent of adultery and her husband must be stoned to death as a liar," that would be superstition. If they say that some higher being guides the stone that breaks the skin and causes bleeding, that seems to be the type of superstition frequently called religion.

It's really not a difficult concept. There may be a wider variety of terms that could be used that would carry additional shades of meaning. www.m-w.com has a thesaurus you should consult.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

One thing we can all agree on:

Saddam Hussein captured and positively identified, hiding in a small, camoflaged hole 8 feet deep in a village about 15 km south of Tikrit.

Captured without a shot. :flag:

Sorry -- no martyrdom.

Excellent!

S_A_M

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
One thing we can all agree on:

Saddam Hussein captured and positively identified, hiding in a small, camoflaged hole 8 feet deep in a village about 15 km south of Tikrit.

Captured without a shot. :flag:

Sorry -- no martyrdom.

Excellent!

S_A_M

Hmmmm. As happy as I am that we got him, I am not sure that it is better to have taken him alive than to have killed him. Maybe it is.

Interestingly, SH's capture appeared to have been a cakewalk. And by all reports, the people are dancing in the streets. Are they going to give us flowers, too?

I wonder if the French are worried that Saddam will spill his guts about their duplicity?

[Not Me]

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/...106445,00.html