You and Agustino are NEVER going to settle this business of transubstantiation.

For one thing, Agustino is calling it a "mystical" experience. It might be 1% - 3% clearer, maybe not, if he called it a "mystery" instead of a mystical event. People are thought to have "mystical experiences". Contemplatives work at achieving mystical experiences. A few people are struck by mystical experiences, usually to their dismay. Transubstantiation isn't something that one can achieve, work at, improve, or make happen. Through great effort, one can not improve one's understanding of a MYSTERY either. Mysteries are unfathomable and that's that.

The priest utters the incantation (the words of institution) and that's it from our end. HOW transubstantiation occurs is a mystery of the action of God [IF one believes that such a thing happens. Of course, if one doesn't believe that anything happens, then the whole thing is just so much hocus pocus].

No one has ever had a sensory experience that would tell them that the bread and wine had become, by a mysterious act of God, to be "the body and blood of Christ". I don't think there is any reason to think that the alleged author of the incantation, JC himself, was turning the bread and wine of the passover meal into his blood and flesh either.

If Jesus did say such a thing, my guess is that he was referencing a more ancient solemnity when the priest poured out the blood of an animal sacrifice before the people, to ritualistically 'seal' a covenant.

Jesus might not have spoken the incantation (Gasp! Heresy! Burn him slowly at the stake!) The incantation may have been devised by the early church, as might the last meal of Jesus with the disciples. I'll assume here that Jesus did say it, though. We'll never know for sure, either way.

There is nothing to argue for in a Mystery. It's there, we do not, can not, have not, and never will understand it.

Myself, I don't like the whole business of mysteries, incantations, mystical bodies, and so on and I don't believe in them. What one REALLY has to strive to believe in is that the Church DID NOT cook up theories which were, shall we say, implausible? and then called them a Mystery or a Mystic crystal revelation, or something, and then told the laity to just believe it or go to hell.

Yes, very true. The evangelical black churches rose to the occasion in the late 1950s and 1960s when the fight was for racial justice. They distinguished themselves with glory. However, outside of that fight, not so much.

For instance, gay black and bisexual black men are taking the brunt of the HIV epidemic, at this point. One of the barriers to doing education and intervention is the conservative black religious leadership/membership, which can't quite deal with queer black boys--or that some of their presumably straight men are also screwing each other.

There are a lot of conservative values in the poor black population -- just as there are a lot of conservative values among poor whites -- or the working class black/white population.

We say (i've said it many times) that working class people are shooting themselves in both feet by taking on conservative values--not like hard work and honesty, but the goodness of entrepreneurial prerogatives, the prerogatives of wealth, cannibalistic capitalism, et all. Well, they've been force-fed this crap from the get go in church, school, advertising, TV shows, movies, et al. They didn't just sort through the ideological options and decide to shoot themselves in the foot.

In the United States, European democratic socialism is viewed as one of the fire-breathing dragons of communism -- by the religious right and entrepreneurial types.
— Bitter Crank

O yeah, but I don't really understand why. — Agustino

It's not complicated: The United States has a long history of a very conservative politics based on protecting and promoting the prerogatives of private wealth, private enterprise, suppression of social dissent, anti-black, anti-poor, anti-labor (especially organized labor), anti-activist state power, and anti-intellectualism. It has run on separate tracks next to liberal politics, sometimes in power, sometimes not, but always there.

For instance, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the end of WWI, the US experienced a wave of right-wing terrorism directed at labor organizers and black activists. There were lynchings of a few white labor organizers, and black ones too. At the same time, the second version of the Ku Klux Klan arose, and waded into the mainstream of right-wing politics. White conservatives, especially from the south, vehemently opposed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs of social security, unemployment insurance, federal housing support, Works Progress Administration, and so on.

The right-wing of the Republican Party has kept on its agenda for 80 years getting rid of the New Deal programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obama Care. The penultimate major effort was a proposal under George Bush II to privatize Social Security, and the most recent one is gutting Obama Care.

So, Agustino, the Right Wing views with some horror the regulatory apparatus of the EU, the extensive social programs, the number of holidays and paid vacations, government funded universal health programs, and so on.

...and your emphasis on entrepreneurial effort as the way to better one's self (might be 100% true, but doesn't point leftward).
—
No one would take you for a hard line communist, or even a fuzzy, cushioned, soft-line communist.
— Bitter Crank

As I said, I'm definitely not a communist, nor approve of communism.

But is the left subsumed by communism? Why is communism the only "left" system? Dorothy Day was a distributist for example, an ideology that she found expressed most closely by communist organizations at that time. — Agustino

Socialists may embrace entrepreneurialism, communists traditionally are not so willing. Some of us socialists would happily take all your value producing property away from you. You can keep your apartment, pots and pans, and your car IF there is no public transit available.

The Left is a continuum just like all other politics. On the extreme left one has tight-grip communism, on the liberal left you have a somewhat loose-grip Laissez-faire liberal social democratic approach. "The Left" to the extent that it is a working, mutually understood term, subsumes communism, socialism, distributivism, and liberal-left politics, a la 1968.

We would need to flesh out what distributivism means. I don't think Day would have confused the CP-USA of the 1930s with Catholic distributivism. For one thing, after her brief involvement with the CP-USA, an abortion, a common-law relationship and her out-of-wedlock daughter, she reorganized her thinking. She became an ardent Roman Catholic, but one who liked social activist priests and liberal theologians, and an immersion in serving the very poor.

I enjoy watching people squabble as much as the next guy, but we should really try to keep a lid on it -- for the good of the forum. I would not make it one of the rules, the violation of which might get one banned, or even have the offending post deleted, but really in principle, I don't see why there should be accusations or insults here--unless you are capable of the truly artful insult.

The problem with accusations and insults is that the force the accuser or insulter intends to pack into an accusation or insult might feel much worse to the receiver. Or, as likely, it may be misinterpreted altogether, or may upset someone else who wasn't the intended target.

We really don't know much about each other, even those who open up about their personal lives, because we don't know how realistic or complete the disclosure is. Agustino says he leans very strongly left. That seems surprising to me, but I don't know what Agustino's life actually looks like. I only know what he writes here. What he writes doesn't feel like leftist thinking to me. But I don't have to make a federal case out of his self-description, because I won't have any evidence beyond what he has written. One can debate about what someone has written (it's there, in black and white) but one needn't accuse the author of anything worse than inconsistency, or maybe a lack of clarity.

A second principle would be that if you think somebody is accusing you of something (really, whether they are right or wrong) or is saying insulting things to you or about you, please remember that the real you is not under attack. Your representation here might be, but that's not where you live. For your own mental health, don't take things too seriously here. This is just a small forum; it's not the Federal Reserve, it's not the UN Security Council. There are no earth-shaking issues at stake here.

Why should anyone here care enough what anyone else's work ethic is here? Supposing someone's work ethic isn't up to high Protestant Work Ethic standards? Then what? What difference does it make HERE.

Work ethics in general are worth discussing, but not anyone's particular work ethic, unless they laid out their work ethic and their work experience and asked for comment. I gather Buxtebuddha didn't do that.

maybe this is what is happening here? Some people's minds are hungry, so they go prowling about the forum, like a hungry lion...

Here's a picture of Arthur Herman. He appears to be excessively happy. Call him up before the Senate Subcommittee on Suspicious Activities and find out what he's up to, or on.

Interesting post. There's a book I've been eyeing for some time called The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman, which treats of this general fixation of which you speak. You may find it relevant. — Thorongil

Haven't read it, sounds like a good book.

Civilizations rise and fall, for sure, but "Western Civilization" appears to be going strong, and many of its paradigms are dominant. Naturally there are people who wish western civilization would crumble, or think it has crumbled, or is on the verge of crumbling -- and those are mostly people who are born, suckled, and raised in Western Civ. Some of these people seem to be suffering from cultural self-loathing, or have concluded that Western Civ is all about the white man screwing over brown people, or white men screwing over women, or white people screwing over everything.

It's much easier to imagine Western Civ getting its comeuppance than it is to imagine African Civilization getting a comeuppance. After all, a Civ has to have accomplished a lot before it is really ripe for scathing criticism. Western Civ has accomplished a lot, whether some of its beneficiaries like it or not. Fuck'em, I say. To paraphrase Chairman Mao, building a great civilization is not a tea party. Had the Europeans immediately recognized the rights of Aboriginal people in the Western Hemisphere and had turned around and gone back to Spain, Portugal, and England, then the Indians would still be hunting buffalo, cutting hearts out of sacrificial victims in what isn't Mexico City, and Italy would not have developed pizza or the Marlboro Man have never galloped into the sunset. Tragic.

We aren't the only Civ, of course, and Eastern Civilization -- in one form or another -- appears to be doing well too. And no one should think that Eastern Civ was much much nicer than West Civ as it collected together the resources to build with. Civilizations on the make usually operate on the principle of "take it easy, but take it."

Achieving the pinnacle of power just isn't a nice process. One might wish that iron, coal, lumber, and amber waves of grain could be had by consensus building negotiation, but that isn't the way the world works.

wikipedia says that Herman is a proponent of the great men theory of history — Wosret

Odd how many books he wrote like "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" or "How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" and "Freedom's Forge: How American Business produced Victory in WWII" where it was collective efforts, not single individuals that made the difference. But... he also wrote several great-man books too. Like one on Churchill and Ghandi, or Wilson and Lenin, and MacArthur.

The Great Man shaping history theory is, I think, the result of many biographers' efforts rather than the efforts of great men. Of course, we can't re-run history with different characters to see how somebody else would have managed the same situation. Suppose Stephen Douglas had won the election of 1860, instead of Abraham Lincoln. What would have happened next? Don't know, won't know, can't know.

A lot of people were involved in putting the Civil War on--not just Lincoln and a few generals. The North won the war because of the efforts of millions. The South lost the war despite the efforts of millions (or they seemed to lose it; sometimes one wonders...)

I think you are right about historical staying power. Lincoln is a great man, proved by his historical sales receipts. He's still selling well. One doesn't maintain brisk sales in bookstores for 157 years for no reason at all.

et al

This poor root is getting pulled up to see how well it's doing too often for it to be do as well as it might. There must be posts for the mods to be busy checking for spelling, punctuation, grammar... something.

.

Pff - you'll never see them make Agustino a mod, are you kidding me? >:O — Agustino

Making you a mod might be their perfect revenge?

One of the things the management of this outfit probably keeps in mind -- they should anyway -- is traffic count. You may (you can; you shall! you must; you will) annoy the mods, but you also generate considerable traffic which is important. And, more to the point, you are not dishing up idle chatter. Some posters are much better at this than others, and traffic generators are an essential piece of success here, and in most other sites.

A forum such as this needs diversity, and you and Thorongil (among others) help keep the door open to conservative views. Without diversity what one would find here is an echo chamber.

Does a bird know that it's beautiful? A Weird Argument For Theism

This is a poetic question more than a philosophical one, but it brings up a valid philosophical line of enquiry: Is there a macrocosmic hierarchy in which beings "look down on" beings lower on the hierarchical scale and observe qualities of those beings which are invisible to those lower beings themselves?

And secondly, could there be a higher form of being that observes and apprehends a beautiful quality in us which we are incapable of seeing? — Noble Dust

Beginning with birds is a weird way to argue for theism, but I guess the analogy works well enough:

We are to birds as God is to us

I don't know what birds see in each other. It could be that what the bird sees is the same thing that we see--that is, the female cardinal clearly sees a red male cardinal. Some birds do, anyway. Crows are apparently able to recognize human faces and classify them as belonging to friend or foe. If they can tell us apart--as different as we are from them--then they must be able to see each other as individuals.

When I put a new male finch in the cage with the female, the male made a bee-line for the female and mounted her -- the time from the box to mating was about 1 second. Point being, the male instantly recognized the female, and visa versa, apparently.

Our identification of beauty in birds doesn't inform them of their beauty. It's a bridge too far. So, perhaps "we are to birds as God is to us" still holds, but oppositely since

God may be as distant from us as we are to birds

So, God's vision of us may do for us what we do for birds, which may be something, or nothing.

Darwin thought beauty was a critical piece of natural selection, along with fitness. Birds prefer--choose--beauty in their mates, he thought. A male cardinal does not need to know that he is beautiful, but his selective mate does. She (apparently) is the one who decides who gets to share her nest.

Knowing one is beautiful would seem to be a special accomplishment. Many people like the face they see in the mirror; its kind of disadvantageous to not like it. But to assess one's appearance as "handsome", or "beautiful" and identify the degree of loveliness requires an accurate assessment of one's appearance from the POV of others.

What we more likely know is how well our face does in the market place. That we can see -- how people respond to us, what they say to us, who shuns us, who gravitates to us, all that. And of course, all that isn't based on beauty alone.

There is a New England shape note song--or maybe the Southern Harmony tradition which speaks of the longing to see God, or if not God directly, the throne, a sight that would be infinitely pleasurable. And even more, to be in the embrace of God.

Father, I long, I faint to see
the place of thine abode.
I'd leave these earthly courts and flee
up to thy seat my God

Here I behold thy distant face,
and tis a pleasing sight
but to abide in thine embrace
is infinite delight.

I'd part with all the joys of sense,
to gaze upon thy throne.
Pleasure springs fresh forever thence
Unspeakable, unknown...

Are we all happy again, now? Yes? Adorable!

"Apologist for rape" is the sort of ideological slander that should not be allowed. Such statements should be deleted. Now that she is a mod, she can just delete the offending post and retract her accusation.

I would expect my views on uncontrolled migration of Arabs and Africans into Europe or uncontrolled migration of Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans into the US to be characterized as an "apology for genocide" and "racism" and be threatened with banning. Migration should be controlled. Look at what uncontrolled migration of Europeans into North America did to the American Indians, or uncontrolled migration of the English into Australia did for Aboriginals.

Who made TimeLine a mod and why? — Thorongil

I don't think it's very mysterious. Timeline is an intelligent sophisticated person. She asks to be a mod. She's female. You've probably noticed that some of the male mods are concerned about the balance of estrogen and testosterone in the Body Philosophic. They might like it to be 50/50. In fact, nothing runs on 50% T and 50% E, except Title IX regulation of college athletics. It's mostly one or the other.

Time will tell whether she is a good moderator or a bad moderator. It's sort of like appointing a supreme court justice. Sometimes appointments backfire, and the justice doesn't rule the way the appointing president hoped. The difference is, this appointment isn't for life and bitching about decisions can be incessant as well as up close and personal.

I don't know why anybody would want this unpaid, thankless, and slush-mucking job. I'm glad somebody does.

My main complaint about TimeLine is that I feel she could do a better job proofreading her posts, and that she is a fan of pasta salad. Pasta Saladorians should be suppressed.

IF we are speaking in the broader context of culture, it would seem like somethings that are lost, are really and truly lost. Some things that are lost, however, have donated to the culture parts of themselves.

Take the Antikythera mechanism as an example. The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek analogue computer and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes. Measuring 340-millimetre (13 in) × 180-millimetre (7.1 in) × 90-millimetre (3.5 in) the mechanism employed 37 intermeshing bronze wheels; the largest--5.5 inches, had 223 teeth. It was lost in a shipwreck The function or purpose of the thoroughly encrusted object was not immediately obvious. By carefully clearing away some bits of corrosion, using advanced imaging techniques, and reconstruction, several pieces of lost information were found.

1. Greek craftsmen were able to cut precisely fine toothed gear wheels.
2. The various diameters of the wheels was precise.
3. the manually powered wheels could predict future eclipses, positions of stars, and so forth.
4. A lot of knowledge about astronomy was baked into the Antikythera mechanism.

The lost object did not deprive the Greeks of anything more than the object itself. Everything that went into the mechanism--knowledge and technique--remained in Greek culture--for a period of time, at least. By sinking to the bottom of the sea, the object was, however, lost to those immediate successors who might have benefitted from having it. Eventually the Technique was lost, and wouldn't be redeveloped for another 1500 years with clock mechanisms. The knowledge about the movement of the moon, sun, planets, and so forth was dissolved into succeeding cultures, and became quite degraded as the cultures themselves degraded.

How information and technique is lost is a more interesting story than a boat sinking and taking with it lots of interesting stuff.

The Antikythera mechanism

I'm no fan of Donald Trump -- wasn't from the get go. I don't think any of his policy or program actions have been positive. His public persona is that of a rich rube. But...

Trumps public performance is worse than all 20th-21st century presidents since Warren Harding. It isn't vastly worse, only because other presidents haven't always performed superbly either. Narcissism is probably a prerequisite to anyone who aspires to high national office. We know that behind close doors, Richard Nixon wasn't cooly rational. Kennedy was an active philanderer. (I don't hold it against him, just that he wasn't a model of probity. Johnson behaved like a professional ;;politician: effective in managing congress, unsuccessful in managing the Vietnam War. I never thought Reagan was a great communicator, and I don't think he was a 'big picture' thinker, so to speak. The reputation of Clinton's presidency may very well deteriorate over time. He also had sexual improprieties, but succeeded in passing some neoliberal programs (like ending welfare as we know it) that did the poor no great good.

I loathed George Bush II. His war on terrorism is a lingering blight on this country and the Middle East. Obama seemed pretty upright. No huge scandals, no big frauds, no hands in the wrong place, and so on and so forth. And then there's Trump.

Trump's policy objectives don't require him to be especially statesmanlike. To the extent that he is something of an isolationist, why bother being nice to other countries' leaders? If you don't really care what most Americans think, (he got elected), there is no need to now project patrician sophistication. He can afford to project, "I'm a rube, you're a rube, but I'm a lot richer than you are."

I'd like to see Trump impeached and convicted out of office. I just don't see him contradicting himself.

In ancient Greece, the birthplace of philosophy, a small penis was seen as better than a large penis. — Michael

The professor said the ancient Greeks thought that a big penis was comic--Wikipedia says 'grotesque'. Of course, this insight is based on damned little recorded gossip by the ancient Greeks which would reveal what they really thought. They did seem to prefer small dicks on sculptures. On the other hand, the Greeks employed phallus sculpture as part of the cult of Hermes in his function as a fertility god. (As opposed to Hermes Psychopomps). The phallus sculptures were sometimes quite large.

There is a reference to a shortage of dildos in Lysistrata -- the war seems to have interrupted the supply. Aristophanes didn't say how large the dildos were. There is also a joke about erections visible through clothing--the sex strike by the women had left the men very horny. Presumably their actual dicks were big enough to be noticeable under a robe. "It's not the heat, it's the tumidity" is the modern version of the joke.

A good thread, but I'm a little surprised there aren't more posts already if I'm honest. — believenothing

What do you mean, not more posts -- there are 39 pages of posts? Or are you thinking of text posts about what people are listening to?

Everyone's diagnosis of Trump is that he is a narcissist -- a diagnosis with which I concur. He's pretty much a narcissistic liar/thief/knave/scoundrel rolled up in one, However, even narcissistic LTKSs may have good reasons to misrepresent the situation. By always maintaining that "it's going to be great" (whatever that might be), or "We're going to do an outstanding job of" (whatever that might be), or "I have no fears of the investigation" (of whatever investigation might be going on) an air of confidence and 'full steam ahead', all is well... is maintained. People like that better than "the end is near", even if it evidently is near. The effects are short term, of course, because some issue is always ready to raise its ugly head. Other administrations have done the same thing. Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, et al.

My guess is that in closed door, off the record meetings, the President and his lawyers/advisors are probably frank and honest about the progress of the war, the defense against the investigators, the pursuit of the terrorists, or what have you. But, if the war is not going well, or if the investigators appear to be ready to screw one to the wall, and maybe will impanel a grand jury which will hand down indictments, what else can the Prez do by put up a positive front?

After all, it might work out OK. It didn't for Johnson (huge demonstrations, civil disobedience), it didn't for Nixon (he was screwed to the wall, indicted, convicted, impeached, disgraced...) but it did work out OK for Clinton (he was investigated, impeached, disgraced -- and somehow managed to successfully finish a second term without too much difficulty. George Bush II screwed up royally, wrecked Iraq, fucked over the American economy, was feckless in ever so many ways, but still wasn't disgraced. Obama's every error (nothing too minor to criticize) was brought to light, but he managed to complete two terms without being tarred and feathered (they tried).

There is some evidence that Trump has a thin, but Teflon coated skin to which shit doesn't stick. Kennedy, Clinton, and Bush II all seemed to have that special slipperiness. People loved accusing Nixon. The good men Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama just couldn't avoid stuff sticking to them. If there was a bad smell 10 miles away, it would stick to those two. They fortunately had no personal scandals (hardly so much as a really bad faux pas) or they would both have been run out of town on a rail.

Soft drink makers — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are quality products. Yes, they have sugar in them, but where in the advertising or on the cans does it say that one should drink as much of the stuff as one can get one's hands on. Beer, wine, and rye whiskey are fine products too. The brewing and distilling industry has never said that one should get drunk in one's youth and then stay that way for the next 70 years, Bacon is a fine product. That doesn't mean that one should wrap a piece of rich fudge in raw bacon and then deep fat fry it. Such concoctions are heart attacks on a stick.

A chef remonstrated with Julia Child about the amount of butter, sugar, and other fine ingredients she was putting into a dessert. She said, "Well, you're not supposed to eat the whole thing -- each person is supposed to get just one small slice."

You can only help people so far.

Churchill — Cuthbert

In another good quote, Churchill said "Americans will do the right thing after they have tried everything else". [1]

[1] According to Quote Investigator, the gist of the quote (in more elegant form) was spoken by Abba Eban in 1967. Some of the versions say "Nations will do the right thing..." Churchill wasn't credited with the quote until 1980. Churchill scholars say they can't find such a quote in his writings. So, he probably didn't say it, but it doesn't matter. Churchill gives a quote more cachet than Eban uttering it, even if Eban is more elegant.

... so I didn't ask about the details, and they weren't ever explained to me — Wayfarer

That's because there are no details.

I would have to reread the Gospels again (and try to do so in a "de novo" frame of mind), but it doesn't seem to me that the resurrection of bodies was upper-most in Jesus' preaching. It doesn't seem to me that life ever-lasting was either. Which makes sense, because (again recollecting) it doesn't seem to me that the Jewish tradition on which Jesus stood was all that concerned with those issues either.

My own belief is that one could fully satisfy the demands of the last judgement (as described in Matthew 25:31-46) without expecting to exist after death, and without expecting one's body to be raised from the dead. Of course, if one was to be present at the last judgement, one would have to still be alive, sort of, but... well... be that as it may... mumble, mumble, now on to the next item in the syllabus.

The Sex Panic has arrived. We have a prominent cause célèbre here in Minnesota.

Garrison Keillor, the Prairie Home Companion himself, has been publicly repudiated by Minnesota Public Radio and the Washington Post. Keillor worked for MPR for several decades, bringing in a tremendous amount of fame and revenue for the organization. The "inappropriate sexual behavior" as described by MPR was inadvertently touching the bare skin on the back of a female performer on the show (backstage) who had been telling him of various unhappy events in her life. He intended to merely pat her on the back. She flinched, he apologized personally and in writing, she accepted the apology, and said "don't think about it". Keillor said he had considered her a friend until she showed up at MPR with a lawyer, 10 years after the "event".

Apparently, just guessing, she was wearing a short vest-type blouse over a low backed dress. Where he expected to encounter cloth, he touched bare skin -- on her back--not rear end, not breast, not thigh.

So, ONE ten year old complaint about a non-event resulted in MPR severing all connections with Keillor. (He had retired from performing a year or so ago -- he's 75.) No more re-runs of the PHC, no more carrying the excellent Writer's Almanac, a daily 5 minute piece on literature. They're even dropping the name of the Prairie Home Companion for the show which somebody else now hosts.

The Washington Post, for whom Keillor is an occasional columnist, also fired Keillor. Keillor had written a column last week defending Al Franken, one of Minnesota's Senators.

I think women can tell the difference among an accidental touch, flirtation or a pass, a sexual advance that persists past initial rejection, an assault, and rape. I have to assume that when women come forward with the sort of complaint lodged against Keillor (and some others) that they are doing so dishonestly, or are delusional about what happened.

Bah! Humbug!

Oh come on! Rotting in the ground and becoming skunk cabbage isn't reincarnation -- its recycling.

Reincarnation would seem to be precluded by the Christian belief in the resurrection of the specific body which once was a man, as stated in the creeds, "I believe in the resurrection of the body". Within Christian theology, we are born once, live, and die -- and will be raised from the dead at some future time. Let's not get into how a dead body recycled a hundred times over is going to be raised from the dead -- that would be God's problem, not ours.

Supposing that Christianity countenances reincarnation is like saying Buddhism countenances the single resurrection of the body. As far as I know, it doesn't.

Religions arise in various cultures to answer ultimate questions, but that doesn't mean that they end up overlapping all over the place. A Jew, a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian, and a Christian each have a unique take on life and death, and whatever--if anything--happens after death.

Some not-very-well-informed Christians would like to import reincarnation, I think -- beats me why they would want to do that. Personally, I think once is enough.

And that doesn't make it immoral or wrong. That just means our culture's view on sexuality is very much twisted by christianity's sick view on sexuality. — BlueBanana

Christianity has plenty to answer for, no doubt. But let's be fair: religion isn't the only player in determining the shape of our contradictions. Social practices, economics, politics, jurisprudence, and so on all apply torque. Over the last two millennia Christianity has changed, changed again, and changed once more, as have the societies which preceded the present ones. One thing that is a constant, is that sex always finds a way. Everything from the most boring heterosexually normative sex within the bonds of marriage to exotic polymorphous perversity have all happened over, and over, and over, during every generation to have lived within the Christian sphere of influence (and outside that sphere).

Whether the landscape is thrilling or depressing probably has something to do with the immediate task at hand. If one has to move people and their burdens on foot over a mountain range, it is probably less thrilling than if one is on vacation in Banff (the Canadian Rockies). Crossing the Great Plains by foot and wagon train was and was not thrilling. Unending flatness, tall prairie plants (not just grass), wind and sun made it a mixed experience. Grandeur on the one hand, endlessness on the other.

Storms present something similar. Experiencing an Atlantic gale on the coast, in a warm building, would be a rather different experience than being in a boat (if one survived it). A tornado is an amazing experience if one isn't in it's immediate path. A blizzard is awe inspiring if one isn't stuck somewhere and slowly freezing to death.

I'm not saying that people fail. Customers, workers, managers and shareholders all get what they want, and the whole enterprise is considered a success. The whole economy is considered a success. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, I don't have reams of data at my finger tips, either. But... Logic tells us, does it not, that if customers, workers, managers, and shareholders are all getting what they want, then the system has to be working. Customers want affordable and decent-quality goods; workers want reasonable labor loads and adequate pay managers want production to go smoothly and profitably; and shareholders want dividends and their assets to hold value.

If everyone in the economy is fucking up, fucking each other over, fucking off, and constantly lying, cheating, and stealing then no one is going to be satisfied: not the consumer, not the worker, not the manager, not the stockholder.

Most people are getting what they want. The economic system is big enough and complicated enough to allow for a certain low level of continuous failure. 35,000 people die in traffic accidents, true. But out of 320 million americans covering hundreds of billions miles a year on the roads, that is a low failure rate. Sure, there is waste, fraud, and abuse in every organization--whether it be the Cancer Society, Apple Computer, Exxon, or the Arkansas legislature. But, if the level of waste, fraud, and abuse is low and tolerable, we can live with it.

It takes an extremely efficient and vicious police state to eliminate all waste and fraud. I'd rather have some waste, fraud. and abuse and NO police state. As the recently disgraced Garrison Keillor said at the National Press Club a while back:

We should be careful, though, not to make the world so fine and good that you and I can't enjoy living in it. A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all is a world in which there will not be any flirtation. A world without thieves at all will not have entrepreneurs. (Laughter.) A government in which there are no friendly connections or favors between politicians and powerful people would be the first in the history of mankind. (Laughter.) And a world without fiction, my friends, would be unbearable for all of us. — Garrison Keilor

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO I'll have to give your reply more thought. — Bitter Crank

12 days later, I'm still thinking about it.

There are too many owl vomit pellets around here.

Kind of ethnocentric of me. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

What's ethnocentric about it?

people do not seek work that they are good at. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

We may not live in a strict meritocracy, but most employers/managers have a reasonably good idea of what excellent performance looks like. People who like what they are doing are more likely to perform at high levels. After all, most of have a limited repertoire of what we can do well.

People seek careers in professions with very high salaries, high status/prestige, and/or above average power--never mind how good they would be at the work. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

They do, but I do not think there is any reason to suppose that millions of people breeze into their high-prestige, high power, highly paid jobs without being expected to deliver the goods--doing what they were hired to do, and doing it quite well, at least, and on time.

The workforce is not entirely rational when it comes to gets hired to do what -- everyone has witnessed examples of people getting jobs without being qualified (because they gave good head maybe). I have gotten a couple of jobs that I wasn't really qualify for, but I didn't give anyone head to get them. What happened? I washed out of the jobs. There is such a thing as knowing how to do something, on the one hand, and not knowing shit from shinola on the other hand. Other people actually can tell if you know what you are doing.

Along the lines of irrationality... there are jobs in industry, government, and NGOs that are so nebulous nobody can tell what the employee is supposed to be doing -- including the employee. It doesn't matter who gets these jobs, because they are pretty much empty from the start. But most jobs are NOT like that. Most jobs involve concrete activities that are purposeful, measurable, and observable. If you fuck up on the job, it will show.

I suppose everyone has had negative experiences in workplaces where there were people who didn't know how to do their jobs, despite their training. Like I said, I was in a job like that three times. The first one was a temp job in a call center. Couldn't figure out how the database system worked. booted in one month. The second one was as a departmental principle secretary at a University. Way, way too many details for me to learn and manage in the very distracting office setting. Gone in 14 months, voluntarily. The third instance was in a job I was initially qualified and able to do, and did do. But after 2 years, we had to seek contracts with very different requirements. I was supposed to be doing something called "risk reduction case management". Even though I had written the grant, the guidelines were extremely nebulous, and wasn't trained to do the kind of case management that the agent thought I should be doing (but which didn't have much to do with the objectives of the grant). Conclusion: Fired 7 months into the contract.

Now, in the other jobs that I held (some 38 years worth) I was generally able to function quite successfully, do the job I was hired to do, and did it well. But... there were these three that were totally out in left field for me. Other people have been in the same situation: Just not able to do the job for which they were hired.

The failures are the exceptions. Most people who are hired are identified as capable of doing the job, and do perform adequately.

Success and failures occur at all levels of employment, from menials on up to top executives; the successes far outnumber the failures. You (or I) may absolutely loathe the society we live in, but the fact is, as loathsome as it is, it functions successfully to keep being loathsome. It doesn't fall apart.

Tyranni infelici casu fortasse.

Occidit omnes tyrannis!

Sig Heil, Heil, mein Führer, and all that. As for you mein kleiner Führer... Wir haben Wege you might not like so much. For one, no Saint Nicholas swag for you this year. Der Widerstand formt sich im Keller.

Oh, great wise brilliant and authoritative leader, you failed to provide a check box to signal that we irrelevant, worthless, and pale worms had read, understood, and committed our abject selves to your most authoritative wise and brilliant leadership. Correct this deficiency immediately.

Be sure to add a "fuck you very much" box.

Meanwhile, back at the sweatshop where the moderators and administrators toil in ignominious degradation, unappreciated and unrewarded, people are decompensating and going off the deep end.

THIS

OR THIS

I've spent 70 years in the more or less flat midwest. A dramatic feature is the 500 foot deep Mississippi gorge, or maybe a large limestone rock quarry. A nice grass covered hill. This is hardwood territory and in the fall the trees turn bright colors, and in the winter the first heavy snow brings another transformation.

Chicago, Boston, New York, San Francisco... are all pretty impressive. It isn't just the size; it's the intense energetic vitality and urbanity of these places. Seeing the ocean for the first time is pretty grand too. I was 45 before I saw real mountains (the Rockies, Banff), the Grand Canyon, and the SW American desert.

Soaring rough (because they are geologically new) mountains, the red rock of the SW states around the Grand Canyon, Devils Tower, Yellowstone, It puts the prairies in perpetual shadow.

I would almost go as far as geographic determinism. Port cities seem to have a cultural fertility advantage over inland flyover towns like Minneapolis, Kansas City, or Omaha. Inland towns are not wastelands (Madison, Wisconsin used to be a midwestern outpost of Boston and New York), but port cities are usually not as insular, parochial, or as socially conservative stolid as inland cities. Chicago is something of an exception, having been the national railroad hub and port of entry for the midlands.

Are people that live in the Rockies different than people who live east of the mountains, on the plains? Don't know. I suspect there are some differences, owing to the geography of those places.