Insightful observations about extraordinarily complex behaviors and mental processes.

Good observational skills can be developed, but they also require that one be open to the flow of cues, signs, subtle behaviors, and so on. Sometimes I have 'closed the door' to the clues others are broadcasting for a sort of self-protection from too much information.

The most sensible persons I have known have all been homosexual men. — baker

Yes, absolutely, Homosexual men are definitely the most sensible of men.

A homosexual man told me that most homosexual men are macho types like heterosexual men. — baker

Some gay men are even more macho than straight men, but maximum-machismo is sometimes more 'art' than 'nature'. That is, some gay men cultivate machismo (and so do some straight men). Lots of men and women find machismo attractive, though maybe not as a steady diet.

the quickest way for a woman to find a good friend is among homosexual men. — baker

Yes. Gay men can be close friends with women because they are not sexually interested in the women. They are 'safe'. Conversely, a woman may make a very good friend for a gay male because there is no sexual attraction. Gay men can, of course, be very close friends with each other, but there is often a sexual tension between gay men that also exists between straight women and straight men.

Right. People generally don't shower marginalized groups with positive traits. Generally the opposite. But marginalized groups can shower positive traits on themselves, justified or not. (Or, marginalized groups can buy into their own negative reputations.). Marginalization, however a group of people arrived, is itself a cause of negative attributions. Highly privileged groups may have many negative traits, but privilege alone results in these negatives being overlooked.

We live in a world where there are many layers of RELATIVE marginalization and privilege. This further complicates things. Where one stands in the hierarchy can be difficult to figure out, and people generally don't like this kind of ambiguity. One way to lessen the ambiguity is by arbitrarily imposing prejudicial evaluations on others.

It's a can of worms.

I won’t really be participating myself: — I like sushi

Why the hell not?

I would say anyone stating that oppressed minorities cannot be racist are deluded. — I like sushi

I agree.

It seems like "delusional" is our default state. There are convenient delusions, necessary delusions, harmful delusions, and so on. We can achieve rational thinking, but we have to work very hard to do it successfully. Of course, we may be deluded about how rational our thinking is.

To judge someone just on color,race,ethnicity or even just because they are identified as a certain religion is racist and in the last case just bigoted. — Zenny

So, a positive judgement based on color, race, ethnicity, or religion would be bigoted to?

No, there is ample, hard evidence that life sucks. Reality is a bitch and then you die. And the dead stay dead, nothing more. So in the meantime, gather ye roses while ye may. or whatever it is you like.

It seems that I have much more faith in the idea that we’re all deluded (cannot know reality) than you do. — praxis

That's probably so, especially if you say it. Delusions are, as I said, our stock-in-trade. Why, if we can perceive reality, do we cling to delusions? Because reality is often harsh, cold, and in ever so many ways, unpleasant. We literally can not bear an unrelenting diet of harsh reality without some sort of comforting delusions. To what extent delusional thinking is a feature or a bug varies, depending.

Take happiness: Freud summed up our situation this way (paraphrasing): "Happiness just isn't in the cards." We long for happiness but it evades us. We respond with delusional thinking to cover over our serious disappointments and painful experiences. Delusions help many people carry on, doing what needs to be done.

This doesn’t really make sense, does it? — praxis

Yes, it make sense. First, there is objective reality. Second there is us, the observers. We are both capable of observing objective reality (which is why we have science) and we can delude ourselves and others in various ways. Delusions are objectively observable in people. Donald Trump and a few million Republicans have "stolen election delusions". Most Republicans and Democrats are not affected by "stolen election delusions". They recognize that Trump lost the election.

We name "delusion" for beliefs which have no objective support. A belief in an afterlife (hell or heaven) is delusional because there is zero evidence that such a thing exists. A belief in a 6 day creation is delusional because there is extensive evidence that the stars first shone 13 billion years, and so on.

A devout Christian can believe in his or her own salvation, know well the theology of their faith, perform worship and good works splendidly, and still be deluded. What they are deluded about is the truth of what they believe in. The delusion is invisible.

Many Americans believe their country is the home of the brave, land of the free, the best place on earth -- by objective standards. That is a delusion (maybe one of those 'necessary delusions').

find it extremely hard to believe that a transsexual doesn't realize what they are. I would think that they would tend to be keenly aware of themselves and their sexuality, much more so than ordinary folk at least, who have less of a reason to be self-conscious. — praxis

Under ordinary circumstances, transsexuals are not deluded about how they feel, what they wish to accomplish trough therapy, the kind of sexual experiences they have. What they are deluded about is the idea that one can change one's sex from male to female or visa versa. What they can do is change their appearance, but not the underlying biology.

A successful trans person is not deluded about their fully passing as a woman or man (or, unhappily, failing to pass). Other people provide the evidence that one is passing, or (possibly very cruelly) that one is not.

Nor are they deluded about wanting to change from one sex to another. The delusion is thinking that one can change their biology.

As I said above

I believe there is an objective reality, but one important aspect of reality is that humans are delusional. My theory is that everybody is deluded to varying degrees. It is a question of "how much" and "about what". Delusions and illusions are the human stock-in-trade. — Bitter Crank

interesting and perhaps revealing that your description of gender mentions only who one is sexually attracted to, and nothing about what I would consider to be a more central aspect of gender for many in the gay community, which has to do with a global perceptual-affective style — Joshs

I will have to plead guilty to your charge.

When it comes to "being gay" which as you say involves a global perceptual-affective style, I find myself with a deficient vocabulary to adequately express what I experience. I meet men in ordinary social settings and we may immediately recognize each other as gay, but I find it difficult to pin down exactly what the signals are. This may be one reason I have always preferred to look for sexual partners in places where "pre-sorting" had taken place--bath houses, gay bars, night-time cruising areas in parks. Some people seem to be able to walk through a figurative Grand Central Station and reliably find prospective partners.

These is something abut deportment, grooming, details of dress, speech patterns, interests, and so forth that together add up to a strong signal. It's like art -- I know it when I see it. Some people are better at this than others, and some people with sharp gaydar are actually pretty straight. An some very gay guys (part of the 2.5%) don't signal their gayness very strongly. And some straight people see gay, but are not. But, gay signals and gaydar work well enough most of the time.

Gay men perhaps display a less guarded posture with perhaps more relaxed musculature; they seem a bit more carefully groomed; slightly better put together clothing -- regardless of what they are wearing; a more open sort of verbal expression. Perhaps one is more likely to find gay men at an art gallery than a used car auction, but I know people who contradict that. Gay men do seem to regard (see, evaluate) other men more carefully than straight men.

Some say homosexuality is a just a state of confusion — frank

In some cases it is. As you know, only a small percentage of men are exclusively homosexual--about 2.5%. They are not confused. (One group that is confused about this is gay advocates who want to inflate the number of gay people as possible for political purposes.) A much larger share are exclusively heterosexual; they aren't confused either. Most men, though, are somewhere in the range described by Kinsey, varying in what they fantasize about and what they actually do. The confusion is a conflict between what they are doing and what they fantasize about. So married fathers may fantasize about sex with men, but perform sex with women. That (seems to be) much more common than men who have sex with men but fantasize about sex with women. A prison setting comes to mind.

Bisexuality, which is perhaps the norm for a large number of people, has a "bad reputation" among both gays and straights, because they fail gay and straight individual's expectations (not in terms of performance but in terms of group identification). "B" was added to "GL" early on. That's probably less of an issue now than say, 40 years ago, because the "gay community" as such has become more vague and amorphous.

Then there is polymorphous perversity, but that's difficult to pin down and analyze. I am not sure how, but I am absolutely sure that Donald Trump lives on many levels of polymorphous perversity.

I don't have x-ray vision into people's souls so that I can sort out who's deluded and who's living their truth by the their lifestyle choices. Why do you think you do? — frank

Well, fuck. You should have gotten the upgrade of Soul Vision when it was on sale! It will cost you an arm and a leg, now.

I believe there is an objective reality, but one important aspect of reality is that humans are delusional. My theory is that everybody is deluded to varying degrees. It is a question of "how much" and "about what". Delusions and illusions are the human stock-in-trade. "Mental health" means having some awareness of how much distance there is between our de- and il-lusions (derived from ludere, play) and harsh reality (that 'reality' is soft, rose-tinted, and gauzy is a delusion). Merely knowing that we are deluded doesn't make the delusions go away.

Freud thought that religion was one big fat delusion.

I would use her preferred pronoun because I am at least semi-civilized, and and would not want to make a scene. That doesn't mean I think she has changed her sex.

I have know several transsexuals well, and I know that they go through a LOT of sturm and drang on their way to a satisfactory conclusion. A lot of homosexuals go through a lot of sturm and drang before they reach self-acceptance. Making any major change in life can be quite difficult.

There are two questions here:

a) Does the trans individual believe what they are saying about their sex/gender?
b) Can one change one's sex/gender in fact?

I think the adult transsexual believes what they are saying.

I do not think that transsexuals can change their sex/gender, but they can, through 'art', appear to have done so, without close examination.

Is transsexualism a delusion? Yes. That's not as dismissive as it sounds. Human beings maintain a variety of "necessary delusions" to get through life. Hard hearted/hard headed examination reveals delusions, but it doesn't make them less necessary.

Example: I think I am an exceptionally good person--fair, honest, kind, etc. A closer examination will reveal instances of unfairness, dishonesty, cruelty, etc. A mentally healthy person can admit their serious flaws, at least in private, but they will want to give priority to the delusions which make them feel like they are decent human beings.

My guess is that the delusion of trans people requires an unusually strong commitment to maintaining the delusion.

People have equally strong commitments to political and religious positions Strong though their commitments may be, they may be altogether mistaken.

all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female — praxis

Yes, that's the case, until the xx and xy chromosomes are activated and the pubic hump is differentiated into female or male body parts. The rest of the body is differentiated as well -- pelvic width, musculature, bone length, CNS, etc. This is true for mammalian development across the board (except for duckbilled platypuses (platypusi?). Nipples, likewise, again across the board. But men don't start lactating without a major hormonal push.

Men are men, women are women. East is east, west is west, and never the twain shall meet. (Kipling. Not a serious quote)

What have they given up — praxis

Might-have-been history is always fun to write, if unreliable.

"What was given up" probably won't be visible to younger gay people, let alone heterosexuals. Even old folks like myself are too young to remember some aspects of "gay liberation". But briefly:

forming gay all-male communities
outsider status
an alternative set of values

Stonewall, 1969, was not the beginning of gay liberation: It was a landmark that was latter mistaken for the beginning. Pieces of gay liberation had been happening for the previous 80 yers, here and there. Whitman's Calamus poems (1859) were about "the manly love of comrades"--eros, not agape or brotherly love. Gay men were around before then, of course, but mostly unacknowledged--which is what made it possible for them to exist (carefully) in plain sight.

Sex and companionship were a key part of the early gay community, and its forms could develop outside of the mainstream culture because, again, it was scarcely acknowledged. To the extent that gay men violated norms on sex roles, race, class, and age, the less visibility to the outside world, the better.

There were some high ideals in the Stonewall era too, but by the mid-1970s, gay activism was focused on opening the American military to gay men (Leonard Matlovich). Some of us never thought that that fight was worthwhile. BUT, high ideals had given way to across the board acceptance in everything from the military to marriage.

Outsider status is a valuable element, in that those who have it are free to develop a culture as they see fit. Join the mainstream, and that's no longer possible. Gay men developed a sexual culture of having many partners with less emphasis on long-term commitments. The mainstream objections to gay culture were about morals, and how promiscuity was immoral. Later (1980s) the health risks of unprotected promiscuity were highlighted, and true enough, there were avoidable risks. But the upshot was, "settle down with one partner", which is the heterosexual solution.

A major piece of public health effort was aimed at eliminated the locations where gay men met. Under cover of disease prevention, the key infrastructure of the gay male sexual community was lost.

Grindr has had a less liberatory benefit than one might think. By individualizing / privatizing the search for a suitable sexual partner, social settings like gay bars have been seriously diminished.

Marriage, children, and mortgages are a time-tested way of pacifying men. Once married, once having a mortgage, and maybe children, one takes on commitments that mean one had better comply, be compliant, else one may be fired, making the marriage/mortgage burden all that much heavier.

Every little thing comes down to money. Companies scramble to present a PC image so as to avoid losing their share of the market. That's why I, a healthcare worker, have been trained to be sensitive to trans issues.

Sniff all you want. There's nothing you can do about it. — frank

Before retirement from social work, I occasionally provided services to trans persons. I treated them with respect and sensitivity, as expected, as trained. I've known a number of transsexual persons since... about 1974. I accepted them as part of the gay community (which early on was the only community they could belong to) just as I did fems, butches, fats, thins, drug users, hairy, hairless, straights, bisexuals, and so on. I've listened to trans people describe their situation, how it manifested itself in their lives, and have heard about and observed the difficulties they've had,

So I get it. And, sniff: no, there is nothing I can do about it. I checked my last long range plan, and fixing trans people isn't on my TO DO list. Just so you know.

Medical and social service workers should of course respect their clients. That doesn't mean believing everything they say, or accepting as truth everything they believe in. I don't believe everything that I have believed in the past, and some ancient truths now seem pretty crappy. So, I maybe buy half of what many trans people say about transsexualism / transgenderism.

Hey, I don't believe everything that gay people say about being gay, either. Or, straight people, or young people, or old people, or anybody else. In fact, I don't even agree with everything I'VE said about being gay.

I think that's your take on what's happening. — frank

Well, yes, not surprisingly. My "take" is that the overwhelming majority of H. sapiens are born as male or female. True, a small percentage are born with sexual anomalies. True, many are born with personality or mental traits that are conventionally associated with the opposite sex. True, some are born with or develop sexual object arousal that are unusual (fetishists). Most people are born and identify as straight, some are born and identify as gay.

In fact, moray eels can change sex, people cannot. People can masquerade and pass as members of the opposite sex, as long as they are in costume. Moray eels cannot.

Everybody else says "trans", to indicate how they self identify and how they want to be addressed.

In America anyway, this is pretty mainstream, if still a little awkward sometimes. — frank

Fine, trans can call it whatever they want.

Self-advocacy groups sometimes over-reach. In my opinion, the gay rights movement over-reached on marriage and family. "Marriage" with the prospect of children is essentially a heterosexual expectation. That doesn't mean that gay people should thus lead marginalized, lonely existences. Two men, two women can have meaningful and fulfilling relationships (or not--break-ups occur either way).

Yes, I understand that two men, two women, or singles can raise a child. The question for 'gay liberation' is more a matter of what gay people have given up to gain acceptance and the 'normality' of heterosexual-type family life.

In my opinion, trans people (that better?) have over-reached as well.

It's literally scientifically impossible to change sex. Sewing a sausage dick on isn't going to change that. Such a thing is delusional and we should treat it as such. — emancipate

The BBC World Service has a story about a woman who was taking testosterone and had had her breasts removed who decided (as a "man") that "he" had always wanted to have children. She still had ovaries, a uterus, and the other parts. So "he" stopped taking testosterone and eventually resumed menses. "He" was artificially inseminated and bore a child. The BBC host for this story was very excited that "a man could bear a child."

Extreme bullshit, of course. The "man" in this case was a woman pretending to be a man, and taking male hormones to get a beard and slightly different musculature. What she was doing was elaborate transvestitism.

Men take estrogen, develop breasts, lose their male sex drive, and so on, and dress like women. Parts can be chopped off. In the case of women wanting to look like men, parts can be chopped off, hormones taken, and sausages sewed on. They remain the men or women that they were born as, just more chopped up.

Transsexualism and transvestitism is an elaborate sexual masquerade--and certainly not the only sexual and non-sexual masquerade which humans perform. But let's stay honest: A man wearing a dress (even if an artificial vagina has been created) is still a masquerading man. A woman wearing a beard and a suit (even if an artificial penis has been created) is still a masquerading woman.

I don't have any objection to people masquerading, as long as they--and society--are clear and honest about what they are doing.

"encouraging people into culture and books could get them away from all forms of religion" — javi2541997

Although many religious people can give damning evidence about the failures of their religion (I can), it may not be a good idea to get all 'the religious' away from their religion. For many, religion is the key to their making sense of the world, and how they orient themselves in the world. They would need something pretty good to replace the function of religion. There ARE such replacements, but they may not be be assimilated easily or readily, and not all the replacements are especially good.

You may be familiar with Christian fundamentalism. If not, it's a movement that takes the Bible literally -- creation took place on 7 days, for instance. (That's the first thing in the Bible they take literally -- there are another 1000 things that are also taken literally and as fact.).

Christian fundamentalism was a reaction to the scholarship and culture of the 19th century that produced textual criticism of the Bible, and undermined the previous framework of understanding about how the Bible was written, edited, and developed. Science also caused the reaction -- particularly Darwin's books about evolution--they were a bombshell that a lot of people still haven't gotten over.

Christian fundamentalism, like Islamic fundamentalism, is reactionary -- a reaction to the very culture that might lure them away. (You are correct here: secular culture is pretty attractive to many religious people and they are lured away. Like me, for instance.)

javi2541997 — javi2541997

Glad your back!

Religion, ritual, beliefs; poetry, novels, prose; film, drama; music; plastic arts; painting; dance; opera: ALL of this is human culture. The media (plural of medium) which people use to find meaning will vary from time to time, but they are in play all the time. Not all for everyone, of course, but something for everyone. [Then there is science, math, and technology--another cultural activity of a different sort than religion and literature, but with great power.]

So, will the novel or opera or film finish off religion? Of course not. No more than religion has finished off any form of literature or music. Every component of culture is changed from year to year, reinvented, reinvested, refurbished, replaced, et cetera.

IF we are still here a thousand years from now, we will still engage in multiple forms of culture, including belief systems (religion) and cultural expression (the arts). We will still have science, math, and technology. (If we don't, go to the final chapter, "Totally Screwed" for further information.)

Here is a piece of commercial art that I think could be defaced. It was put up in the Dayton's building, the former site of the Dayton's Department Store in downtown Minneapolis. Dayton's sold its department store operation to Macy's, and changed it's name to Target, which had long since become the largest part of the Dayton's company.

Macy's also gave up on this downtown site. A developer converted the large 12 floors to high end office space and small shop retail. So far, the retail part has not gotten off the ground (thanks to Covid-19).

I doubt this commercial graphic was spontaneously created by artists, because it does not seem spontaneous to me. Were someone to spray paint two straight lines on the surface, it would look like a defacement. I don't think the 'piece' is beautiful or attractive. Rather, it looks "commercial" which is anything but spontaneously.

I came across a couple of other commercial pieces very much like this one yesterday, but for different locations, under different management. My guess is that they were created in the same shop.

Perhaps realizing what doesn't kill me simply didn't try hard enough — Mayor of Simpleton

What doesn't kill us the first time practices and works out at the death camp, then returns to try again.

Hey, glad you're still kicking and kicking competitively at that! Carry on.

On the one hand, blessings on you for caring for your mother. On the other hand, your OP makes more sense now. You have been burdened from an age when most of us are on our own.

No, life and death do not make sense. My partner died of cancer at 66 after living a very health life. My father smoked (didn't drink), had heart disease and COPD and lived to be 102, lucid until the end. My mother was worn out when she was my age (now), and died a decade later, and wasn't lucid until the end.

As a gay man, accustomed to being poor with relatively low material expectations, no children, no car, no house payment, no debt, I was pretty free to live the way I wanted to, and did, sort of (less happily than I had hoped, but still...). I wasn't living close to home when my parents needed help, and I had 4 sisters who did live nearby. By no means did they split up the care evenly -- one sister carried a heavier burden than the other 3, and received no thanks for it.

Seeing your latest post... yeah, I don't get how osteoarthritis works out to be any sort of advantage either. I find it a major pain in the knee bone connected to the hip bone, connected to the back bone, connected to the neck bone, connected to the shoulder bone, and so on.

your bitter pessimism — Gnomon

Wait wait. On the topic of evolution I'm not at all bitter or pessimistic. After all, our esteemed selves, the paragon of animals and the crowns of creation, are the result of evolution. You know, we are pretty smart. It just when we start playing God, as we often do--one way or another--we land in deep shit pretty quick.

God, being all omniscient about everything, knew in advance how plan A, Plan B, Plan C, on down to Plan ZZZ, would turn out. So, whatever he chose to do, he knew how it would turn out through to the end of time. We, on the other hand, can't start frying an egg with certain knowledge of how it will turn out. Genetic engineering with the attention span and predictive capacity that results in burnt fried eggs? God help us all.

I was in joke-mode, so don't take what I said as an argument.

However: I do not think evolution is upward-bound. Evolution takes place whenever two animals or plants mate. The life around us is the consequences of trillions and trillions of matings. Meiosis and mitosis ad infinitum.

The results "appear progressive", maybe even "designed" in some way, because what we see is a system that works. The system that worked before blue-green algae poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen was much different than the one that worked for blue-green algae, and there were successive systems that worked up until the next major extinction event came along, and then they didn't work anymore. Evolution didn't "start over" or "try again" it just kept on going, working with whatever was left over at the time.

Lots of matings don't work either. Something goes wrong in the post fertilization development and you end up with a dead or unproductive offspring, end of the line. Love is blind and so is random mating. Evolution isn't a process that occurs over millions of years. It occurs in vanishingly brief moments of biological union. True, there are limits imposed. A frog and a grasshopper can not mate. Neither can a carrot and a pineapple. Carrots have to stick to its own kind, as do pineapples, frogs, and grasshoppers.

I understand how 'teleology' can be read onto evolution, history, spirituality, and so on. It isn't evil or harmful, but it does seem (to me) to be a mistaken notion. It places us, and other species, on a metaphorical conveyor belt to the stars. WE can progress, but by dint of very hard work during our own lifetimes, and the successive life times of others. That seems to me to be the only progress we can make.

Even if a teleological process existed (in evolution) we are not going to live to see it, or document it. "we" are the result of one mating, then we live for decades. We mate and another batch of decades goes by. Evolution is slow. Hundreds of generations will have passed before any differences develop. We will be the ancient pre-history of the generation that notices an improvement, if they notice at all.

Maybe we can genetically engineer our way as a fast track to the future? What could possibly go wrong with that?

Philosophers, through the ages have mostly agreed that our world appears to be designed, and tried to guess the intentions of the designer. Their conjectures may prove wrong in the details, but agree on the general direction : upward. — Gnomon

IF our world was designed, then it wasn't designed very well. Consider all of the screwy things that can happen to healthy bodies. Rabbits, for instance, are forced to re-chew some of their pelletized feces to extract their required nutrition. Coprophagy is cosmically undignified. How would you feel about the designated designer if you had to pick through your feces every day to find the ones that needed further mastication?

Volcanos are a good thing--when they happened a long time ago. What did the Pompeiians do to deserve being flash-fried? Nothing. Tonga? Ditto.

Upward? Upward? Surely you must be joking, Mr. Gnomon. Our species reached it's most pleasant plateau about 150,000 years ago, back when we hunted stags and gathered berries on the Elysian Fields. It's been downhill ever since, and getting steeper by the day.

The cosmos APPEARED to be designed because it was already 13 billion years old when we cosmic arrivistes started out with tails, swinging from branch to branch.

I just hate the idea of cardiovascular and cancer risks increasing exponentially with age. — TiredThinker

Yes, that would be bad -- but the risks do not rise exponentially. They rise linearly; eventually they reach 100% and nobody gets out of here alive. If you are healthy at 65 (don't have serious heart disease, cancer, or circulatory illness) don't drink heavily, don't smoke, etc. the chances of living to 85 are quite good--not guaranteed by any stretch, but... good. If you have major health problems at 65, then you probably don't have to worry about living to 85

Living an at least reasonably healthy life style maintains good health and longevity better than an unhealthy life style. Again, no guarantees.

What were you doing in your late 20s and early thirties that lead to burn out (whatever that is) at 32, how old are you now, and how are you doing now?

Lots of people have periods of "sturm and drang" which can make life worse than it usually is. Many of my 75 years were NOT particularly good, but life went on anyway and then it got better.

Death at 50? No, no. I didn't really get going until 25, and the years between 40 and 50 were pretty good, in terms of youthful vigor and health. Looking back, the early 40s were peak years for energy and enthusiasm. The last 10 years, 65 to 75, have also been good, emotionally and intellectually. True, aged bodies do tend to start failing in the 60s and 70s, but it's not an "all-at-once" collapse. And a 75 year old educated brain, free of Alzheimers and other dementias, emotionally stable and curious, is a better brain than I ever had in the past. (I could REALLY have used this brain early on. Alas. No chance of that.

I'm ashamed to admit I thought, for a very brief but delightful moment, you were referring to "Doris Day." — Ciceronianus

Dorothy enters the shabby dining room of the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality in a full-skirted pastel dress with cuffed short sleeves singing Que Sera Sera.

That's because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and then translated into Latin. Didn't Jesus speak Aramaic? He might have known Koine Greek, but probably not. The oldest version of the OT is in Greek too (a more formal dialect).

I'm not an atheist — Noble Dust

I need a term that means less than "atheist" and more than "not a believer". "Agnostic" isn't it. "Atheism" is too loaded. "Agnostic" is too wishy-washy. "Not a believer" could mean 'not yet', 'not now', or 'not interested'. I am interested, and I was a believer, but I am not now. I have not achieved closure, which is a frequent annoyance. I don't like "spiritual", which sounds lame. (It's lame the way some people use the term, announcing that "we are not into church, we are spiritual". "Spiritual", unlike 'atheism' which is too loaded, isn't loaded enough.

"Church people" are all over the place, one finds. (Surveys have found this too.). Some active church members are devout creedal believers. Some active church members don't check all of the boxes as they say the creed. Some check only a few--maybe "God the Father". Some, a few, don't check any of the boxes--and are still active church members--just not creedal believers. Decreeded? Creedless Believers?

God. Android spouses -- as if keeping the batteries in the mouse, bicycle lights, iPod, iPad, iPhone, smoke alarm, vibrating dildo, pacemaker, the car, and everything else wasn't trouble enough!

Great post.

In the long run (2000 years) and in the short run (last 15 minutes) tradition is both brick and mortar, and the Bible, the writings of the saints, of reformers, hymns, liturgy and so on are more bricks in the edifice of Christianity. God is a piece of that tradition, older than Jesus.

There are days when beyond question I am not a believer. Other days my atheism wavers. I was too deeply immersed in Protestant Christendom (one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church) to be anything but an ambivalent, wavering atheist.

Still, I am not a pissed-off-church-hating-atheist. From certain angles, religion is just plain weird and freakish. From another angle, it is a balm; maybe glorious. Another angle shows us its holy real estate function. It's a club--mostly they are easy to get into, though personally, I'd avoid joining hard boiled Baptists in so much as a wiener roast.

What you say here is absolutely true. It is also true that various entities and 'forces' put poor blacks where they ended up as much as that was possible, and structured housing and other policies on the "No Exit" principle.

So, a lot of white people ended up at the bottom too, as per your description, When groups that could be identified (like Asians, Mexicans, effeminate swishy gays, blacks, etc.) they also were subjected to policy limitations, plus the processes you describe.

I don't have fond memories of the Jesus Freaks of the 1960s and 1970s. — Ciceronianus

I don't either; I don't have fond memories of current Jesus Freaks either, though "freak" has fallen into disuse.

Jesus, I say as a profound heresy, has always been a construction of "the Church" wherever, whenever and whoever the church was at the moment to satisfy whatever need. "My Jesus" has become more and more obscure, verging on non-existence. The "Jesus" I like is similar to Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Workers. Day herself was a devout Catholic.

As saints and near saints go, Dorothy Day was likely much more tolerable than Mother Teresa. I'm very glad I didn't have to spend any time with Her Albanian Saintliness. Day didn't want to be referred for sainthood because, she said, "I don't to be dismissed that easily."

Somebody named Joshua existed (Joshua = Jesus). "Some one person" was the germ plasm of the Jesus the Church planted and grew. Who how when where why... big mystery.

"You mean symbolically." — T Clark

One of my favorite southern Catholic writers is Flannery O'Connor, “Someone once told the Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor that it is more open-minded to think that the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is a great, wonderful, powerful symbol. Her response was, “If it's only a symbol, to hell with it.”

Not well known fact: Lutherans also believe that the bread and wine is literally the body and blood of Christ, during the acts of the Eurcharist. At the end of the Eucharistic service, the bread and wine remaining are no longer flesh and blood.

Catholics believe that the body and blood remains body and blood, so... the priest consumes the remainder of the wine, and the remaining bread is kept in a monstrance, to be venerated. (Monstrance derives from Latin monstrare to show.)

The quasi-conspiracy theory I'm going to lay on you is that gangs are part of a situation that was intentionally fostered: they built projects for black people to live in, allowed those communities to be inundated by drugs (there's more credibility to that than I would have thought : the FBI looked into it.). And refusing to do gun control not only reduces the population of black men, but makes sure a lot of them end up behind bars. For real, black men have the highest mortality rate in the US demographically. — frank

It is a quasi-conspiracy.

Yes, they did build projects for black people to live in, and the initial experience of the residents was good. There was a flaw, however: too many families, too many children. Little children don't join gangs. When they get to be teen-agers, they do. The housing projects didn't spawn gangs, but they were infiltrated by nearby gangs who sold drugs, fought turf battles, and gradually turned the projects into a social disaster for the residents.

Was this inevitable?

No, but preventing this unfortunate outcome (which some cities, like New York, managed to prevent) required good advance planning and proactive policing and maintenance. Cities like Chicago failed.

The gangs proceeded the housing.

Gun manufacture is, of course, a perfectly legitimate capitalist activity. Gang members might buy some guns brand-new at gun shops, but are much more likely to acquire guns from a shadowy secondary market. Gang members are usually not gun nuts; quite often they use cheap hand guns, not the items that gun nuts desire. (I'm extrapolating here, sort of guessing.).

Adolescent male gang members behave like your typical adolescent male whose emotional control is not well developed. They are a touchy lot, kind of tetchy at times. Upset them and a spray of bullts is the result. Then too, gangs have a habit of more cooly settling scores with guns. But, as bad luck would have it, they aren't marksmen so there is quite often collateral damage.

The conspiracy isn't public housing, drugs, or guns. The "conspiracy" -- if you can call it that -- is 155 years worth of post-slavery economic, political, and social suppression of blacks. The substructure and superstructure of racial suppression has been reduced, but it hasn't been torn down the way the old housing projects have been. Groups subjected to ongoing suppression and marginalization tend not to do well. Some individuals escape, do OK, maybe flourish and excel, but a most don't.

All that is not critical race theory, that's just conventional history. If the Brooklyn Bridge was a conspiracy, most Brooklynites and New Yorkers played no part in it, even if they benefitted from its construction. Same thing with racial suppression. Most whites were not part of the conspiracy, even if they were OK with the results.

Very apt observations. There are "random shootings" but more often than not, the shooter and the target know each other. Gangs have taken territory seriously for a long time. Whether it's just the status of claiming 3 blocks as "theirs".

1957 Broadway Lyrics West Side Story. 1957 was nothing special in the history of gangs, of course. The 5 Points gangs in 19th century New York were bad news. Then there are the clans of Scotland, who were bloodthirsty gangs, designer plaids notwithstanding. Then the IRA, Sinn Féin, Royal Ulster Constabulary, the whole slug of Windsors, the KKK, KGB, CIA, etc.etc . etc.

RIFF
When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

When you're a Jet,
If the spit hits the fan,
You got brothers around,
You're a family man.

You're never alone,
You're never disconnected.
You're home with your own—
When company's expected,
You're well protected!

The Jets and Sharks didn't seem to be engaged in anything illegal, just brotherhood and turf-holding. And that produced reason enough to fight with knives and chains. Guns hadn't become de rigueur yet.

Haven't seen that cartoon in decades. It was very influential in my development of sarcasm. Thanks for posting it.

If the CIA wants to create public opinion then it ought to be active on TikTok and TPF. — magritte

Who says they are not? We could have a contest guessing which TPF participants are CIA agents. I'll start with @Streetlightx. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

As it stands now, I fail to see your reason for denying this is racist. — Pinprick

You are not being racist. You are being obtuse.

Obtuse:
"annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand."
"he wondered if the doctor was being deliberately obtuse"
Similar:
stupid
dull
slow-witted
slow
dull-witted
unintelligent
witless
(and more)

The synonyms are too harsh to be applied to you on this particular instance, but they are tempting.

Your blunt, literalist interpretation of the word 'racist' makes it impossible for you to see any effort to ameliorate past racial discrimination as anything but more racism.

How do you plead?

Apathy is the product of alienation rather than the product of financial security. — sime

And what it creates is apathy. — ssu

@Sime, you and ssu are in agreement.

The problem with the welfare state is that the money doled out is clearly not enough to pay for food and rent — god must be atheist

Absolutely. I am no longer up-to-date on Minnesota benefits, but 'welfare' for single adults with no children is less than $300 a month. Being on welfare entitles one to Medicaid, which is worth quite a lot--IF one is sick or injured, which is not a good thing. A single disabled adult with a poor work history (or young) is entitled to around $700 a month, plus Medicaid. IF one is well organized, and one applied for public housing years in advance, one has a good chance of getting into public housing. They charge 33% of whatever income one has.

If you are not well organized and at least somewhat confused, you are screwed, unless you happen to fall into some category for which there is a program with an opening. Even if you are program-qualified, there might not be an opening and you are still screwed.

If you are organized, not too confused, and lucky, you are not home free. All programs have hurdles and loopholes that must be observed. Every 6 months, Welfare requires that you confirm your employment status and other information. If you forget to send the form in, you are dropped and must reapply. Hassles. If you are mentally unstable and violate some rule (like not ranting and raving or acting out in your housing) you might be expelled. If you lash out at the wrong person, (and various other scenarios) you are out and screwed again.

Periodicaly, Disability reviews its clients. If you are unfortunate, not well organized, confused, etc. you can be disqualified. Screwed.

Unemployment Insurance is no help for the long-term unemployed. Why does one see individuals begging in public, in all kinds of weather - heat and cold both? My guess is that they are emotionally/mentally unable to work in a 'normal, social' setting. Begging involves little interaction; no supervision; no rules and regulations; no co-workers. It isn't an easy way to earn money. I've had some crappy jobs that paid poorly, and they were still better than standing outside all day asking for handouts.