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vovat1. Maybe this is crazy on my part, but I don't really like following other people's cars, or other people following mine. The few times I've had to do that, it's worked out all right. Still, I'm always afraid that I'll lose them at a traffic light, or someone else will get in between us, or something like that.
2. I picked up The Tragic Treasury at a music store today. I've also read the first few chapters of The End. So far, no answers to any of the Big Mysteries in Lemony Snicket's series have been forthcoming.
3. Another thing I've been reading recently is Slate's Blogging the Bible series, in which a Jewish editor attempts to read the Bible all the way through, and comments on it as he goes. So far, he's gotten up through Judges. It's pretty interesting, and his take is neither overly snarky (like, say, the Skeptics' Annotated Bible, which I also enjoy) nor totally apologetic. He mentions both the good and the bad. I still hope to read the entire Bible someday myself, but I've only managed to get up through 1 Samuel so far.
4. You know what argument I'm tired of seeing? No, not "allowing gay marriage will also mean people will marry their pets" or "if you do [X], the terrorists win," although those are also pretty high up there. I'm talking about "if you don't believe in God, you're not accountable to anyone." Um, what about being accountable to society, and to your own conscience? It could also be argued that doing the right thing simply because you're concerned about how someone else will react to it is a mentality that we're supposed to grow out of, but that would be getting into some complicated issues of behavioral psychology and where morality comes from in the first place. Suffice it to say that people tend to share a lot of the same basic morals and ethics, regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
2. I picked up The Tragic Treasury at a music store today. I've also read the first few chapters of The End. So far, no answers to any of the Big Mysteries in Lemony Snicket's series have been forthcoming.
3. Another thing I've been reading recently is Slate's Blogging the Bible series, in which a Jewish editor attempts to read the Bible all the way through, and comments on it as he goes. So far, he's gotten up through Judges. It's pretty interesting, and his take is neither overly snarky (like, say, the Skeptics' Annotated Bible, which I also enjoy) nor totally apologetic. He mentions both the good and the bad. I still hope to read the entire Bible someday myself, but I've only managed to get up through 1 Samuel so far.
4. You know what argument I'm tired of seeing? No, not "allowing gay marriage will also mean people will marry their pets" or "if you do [X], the terrorists win," although those are also pretty high up there. I'm talking about "if you don't believe in God, you're not accountable to anyone." Um, what about being accountable to society, and to your own conscience? It could also be argued that doing the right thing simply because you're concerned about how someone else will react to it is a mentality that we're supposed to grow out of, but that would be getting into some complicated issues of behavioral psychology and where morality comes from in the first place. Suffice it to say that people tend to share a lot of the same basic morals and ethics, regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 09:22 pm (UTC)Still, while I don't think a religious upbringing is necessarily important to a child, I do think some children lack knowledge of the most basic Biblical ideas. Whether you think the Bible is God's Word, a work of fiction, or somewhere in between, it's still a significant part of our culture. I'm in favor of public schools making more of an effort to teach the basic ideas of major world religions without actually advocating (or dismissing) any of them, but I'm sure some parents object to that kind of thing.
The national organization also publishes the jefferson bible which is the four gospels with all the miracles and improbablities deleted (no virgin birth, no rising frrom the dead, just the life and teaching if Jesus) which I think is excellent.
Why does that remind me of the recent Internet trend of removing Garfield's thought balloons from Garfield comics? {g} Anyway, I think that's an interesting idea, especially when you take into account that scholars seem to think the earliest gospels were indeed "sayings gospels," which simply contained the words of Jesus without all of the narrative.
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Date: 2006-10-21 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-22 09:25 pm (UTC)Get behind me, Koopa!
Date: 2006-10-23 07:16 pm (UTC)Actually, there WAS an episode of the old Mario cartoon called "The Ten Koopmandments," where Mario parted the Red Sauce Sea to lead the Mushroom People out of Pyramid Land.
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Date: 2006-10-19 06:54 pm (UTC)You can extrapolate that to all areas of my life, not just driving.
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Date: 2006-10-20 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-19 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 12:19 am (UTC)If you don't ban gay marriage, people will marry terrorist's pets!
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Date: 2006-10-20 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-20 01:32 am (UTC)Good; when they ARE forthcoming, you WILL of course be keeping them under wraps...!
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Date: 2006-10-20 09:30 pm (UTC)I actually wonder how many of my LJ friends are planning on reading The End. Aside from you, I know
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Date: 2006-10-21 01:22 am (UTC)I've only read the first three books so far. I need to get my hands on the others before I can come close to The End.
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Date: 2006-10-22 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 07:17 pm (UTC)