What? The bible has nothing on the ancient Greeks. The bible is a horribly written book with no plot development or character development. Certainly it rivals the fantastic claims of fiction and the polytheism it was competing with. But it sucks as a piece of literature.

All it does is go "I GOD DID THIS AND WANTS THIS, then after that a bunch of cobbled together crap linking one player to another till the end when the cosmic spoiled jackass smashes the X Box and runs away.

At least in Oedipus he realized his mistake and finally saw himself as flawed and agonized over it by plucking his own eyes out, not that I would, but he felt guilt, unlike the God character that MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD. Tell me with all the crap in that book that god did not have to do, or allow, which certainly the Oedipus Character did not have the same powers, as written, do you really think that God is, as written better written, or even more moral than Oedipus?

At least Oedipus owned up to his fuck ups. The bible ends with God fucking everyone over without feeling the slightest bit of guilt.

Oedipus recognized his Hubris, and felt guilt when he realized it. God does not.

 Re :: Stings, I know (remember the avatar). Rather you be what you really are.

   According to many many sources, there is a mysterious element of that same spirit. Witnessed in the School of the prophets, having to do with the future. Can you guess what that cryptic reference may be alluding to ?

To Whom It May Concern (Man oh Man does it concern)

Brethern (.. we are family). Dana greets you with a holy kiss. Maybe just a polite handshake.  Well! Let's not go nuts (Lol, cry, laugh, snort, *cry*).

 In the words of the late Canadian / American actor Phil Hartman (comedian): "Good Times! Good Times!''

    You've got to have faith

 Google Books (US) Quote .. :

 An old conflagration, smoking upland, had left rock outcrops as islands in a head-high sea of new fern. A cooling wind roved through it. It was as good a place as any to rest and refresh [the] men; its' other possibilities were plain only to her. 'Here,' he said . .
Whatever you are thinking, it is better not thought', he advised.
 'The children are small,' Kimball said. 'They have their mother.' 'She could be stronger too.'
'You may see them again,' Demon said.
'This rearguard isn't going to make heaven fast.'
 

'This *rearguard ISN'T GOING TO MAKE HEAVEN fast.' (,so you are thinking).

   __

Definition -- That's the soldier's positioned at the rear of a body of troops, especially those protecting an army when it is in retreat.

    Yeah, you're right of course.    I'm working on becoming a consistent atheist, and speaking as a consistent atheist do you realize how difficult it is to get together enough supporters to actually set up an effecient system to imprison and kill millions of people ?   It's expensive and time consuming !

 Http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2009/11/21/the-kids-in-the-dont-label-me-ads-are-not-evangelicals/

   From the FriendlyAtheist Blogger, in his own words  . . .

 The Kids in the “Don’t Label Me” Ads Are Not Evangelicals

These bus ads from the British Humanist Association have been getting a lot of media attention this week:

   The point of the campaign is to point out how absurd it is to thrust a label — any label — onto a child who doesn’t even understand what that label means. It would be foolish to call any kid a “Republican child” or a “Catholic child” or an “Agnostic child.”

That idea hits home any more when you read this ridiculous column by Ruth Gledhill in the Times

She quotes Brad Mason, a Christian pastor, whose kids happen to be the ones featured in the ads:

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He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

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*facepalm*

It is ironic, indeed.

Wait. There’s more:

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Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches, which Mr Mason and his family used to attend before they moved to Dorset, said: “I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.

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   Clearly, they couldn’t get past the kids’ images to read the words written on the ads.

These are not Christian children.

They are the children of Christian parents.

Get. It. Right. And stop labeling them''

 ====================================

   Below  Images  --- 0ff - site ::

No Subject  ::

   Talk / Talk  song ::  OFF-Site ::  Exclusively -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGFS5is4lD0  {https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGFS5is4lD0} or if broken link or takes too long :: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npOn-AB7-So {https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npOn-AB7-So} song by   Talk-Talk
 

  Saint Catherine (of Siena), quote(s):  And the little lost sheep who have no shepherd who cares about them or knows how to guide them, can easily go astray and are often snatched and devoured by the evil one.

(source : The Book Entitled :: the Dialog) 
 

  --  -- 

   One way or another way, that is the question ::

 Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves

>  I see the Moon .. the Moon sees me; Symbolic language of images  (Symbolic language of images)

 

 ** In-the Hebrew word of kehseh, its' meaning  is  fullness, is often  translated as a full moon in some OT passages. It's in our modern calendars that completely ignore the Biblical way of setting the first day of the month by the visual new moon, Israel to the visual sighting of the New Moons by observers in Israel . . even though the word “month” is derived from the word “moon” and should be oriented to the moon as it was intended by the Creator G-d of Hosts.

  Appreciable fanciful whimsy of a bloggists musing Much needed bit of whimsy from this bloggist entry

“A little child shall lead them” says the prophet Isaiah, in a metaphor for the peaceable reign of God.

For a week I have followed a child, a grandchild of mine, almost 8, here on a visit. I pondered as I was trying to keep pace with him about what peace would look like if a child were to lead us there:

• I assume it would be energetic! with the beginning of every day, the child would open with the question, “What are we going to do today?” and then run, tumble, jump or somersault into the activity with eagerness. Bruce Epperly, also a Patheos blogger, in his book, Tending the Holy, recounts his own spiritual practice of rising at dawn to ask, “What great things will happen in my life today?” 
• it would be intelligent! The child arrived at our house with a musing: “I think I have a theory about how the moon was made,” he said. And to that end he led the search for data and research–a visit to the planetarium, a conversation with an astronomer, a book fro the library, all became part of the thinking that he did about what made a moon. Would that those leader of Church and state be willing to use the same kind of intelligence and inquiry and tenaciousness to find the things that make for peace!
• Energy, intelligence, imagination and love…the things that make for peace! And a little child led me! I hope I have learned the paths of peace and can be the Child of God I am created to be.

 Patheos.com   Egyptian watch page, egyptian mythical resurgence  where I take it, ''there was some butting into lives'', until this was finally addressed, she says :''I begged to move to a different area'',

(yeah, I can relate to the bloggist's situation) . .  Could suggest others can 'go to the East' (pun)

  Funerary stelae reproduce the sacred structure of the tomb. The top of the stele is decorated with an image of the sky-goddess Nut, sometimes abbreviated to an arched border of blue-black, and there is a floor indicating the earth. Stelae often depict a winged solar disk, the sun which travels to and from the underworld each day, hopefully bringing the deceased along. This virtual temple also includes an offering table with various foods. The deceased, usually both pictured and named, offers the foods to various deities. In life the priests and priestesses offered food to deities and then consumed it themselves, and in death the deceased will also be sustained by the food offered to the deities.  The stele of Ankh-f-n-khonsu has an image image of Nut, the solar disk, a table of offerings, and an image of the god Re-Horakhty, Horus of the horizons. Investigate the innumerable, but the anyone bitten by a snake and he neutralizes the venom, could look to the male lion for assistance.  In Kemetic religion,  the two horizons map out to East and West, sunrise and sunset, river and desert, Death and life. The place where the sun set was also the entrance to the land of the dead according to Egyptian belief.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fo0IHL7dtU8 {http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fo0IHL7dtU8}

 ♪ When you're gone  The pieces of my heart are missing you  ♪ And in the air the fireflies. Our only light in paradise. We'll show the world they were wrong. And teach them all to sing along. Singing Amen, I, I'm alive . .

  Japanese proverb says  ::  The nail that sticks out gets hammered down

   Pentateuch Genesis narrative Ch. 37 --

  Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.  He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: ..and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had a dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?" His brothers were jealous of him, but his Father kept the matter in mind.

  **

  Potential for fertility 

re :: Malaria one of the hazards of the intrepid Missionaries

  http://www.patheos.com/blogs

Another Face to Faith Video Conference

   As part of World Malaria Day, my religion students learned about the tragedy of malaria in a Face to Faith video conference with malaria expert, Saleema Abdul Ghafur.  She is the director of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, an alliance of 49 African presidents and prime ministers. She works to raise money to defeat malaria. Infection with malaria parasites may result in a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from absent or very mild symptoms to severe disease,.

 Today, she told us that Africa loses almost $12 billion dollars each year because of lost productivity from malaria deaths. She says that women and children suffer most and that their deaths lead to widespread poverty. Asked what motivated her work to eradicate malaria, Ms. Ghafur noted that service is a big part of the Muslim faith.

 The conference included students from three other schools, one in England, another in Mexico, and one in Oklahoma. Saleema Abdul Ghafur skyped in from New York, our facilitator was in London, and the technical engineer who made sure we each had audio and video working, was in India. Quite a feat of technology. The biggest problem for my students wasn’t technology. It was their teacher who got confused by all the different time zones and thought the conference was supposed to start an hour earlier. The mistake meant that we had to leave the conference after only half an hour because of our bell schedule and my miscalculation.

 Nonetheless, my students were able to hear Ms. Ghafur speak and even ask her a few questions. Most importantly, they learned about a huge health problem in another part of the world and how that problem also creates widespread poverty, and lowers productivity in many African countries. And in Ms. Ghafur, they saw a great role model, someone who is making a difference and believes in service.

Malaria, Maoists, and other news from India

   I’ve once again found myself in rural India, Bodhgaya to be precise, teaching Buddhist Philosophy to American undergraduates. I was here in 2010, early in the days of my PhD, and coming here again as I near the end of this colossal project seems fitting.

 I remember when I first arrived in England for my MA all those years ago, marveling at how much history surrounded me: pubs dating to the 1600s, churches from the 14th century and before, castles, paths, and crossings all seeing centuries of humans passing by.  Now it is much the same in Bodhgaya, absorbing layers of history in the form of stories, some told by those who have been here for decades watching the village become a city; our abbot here at the Burmese Vihar arrived here in the 1960s when there were just 8 Buddhist monasteries (and/or temples). Now there are over 80. And just to think of the ebb and flow of life here going back to the days when the Buddha walked these dusty roads.

 My friend Gaurav, the Hindi teacher, and I took a walk on Friday, to the Gandhi statue near the Mahabodhi Temple. From there we examined the great new wall that was built there in response to the 2013 July bombings. But our objective was rather mundane, so rather than passing around the wall to see the temple, we trudged on through packed roads, fighting traffic jams of school-children, men on bicycles, motorbikes, shoppers, and the occasional car or bus. We ended up quite far south of the temple, too far to turn and walk around it to end up on the other side where Japanese and Thai monasteries sit. Instead we turned the other direction, to the river, now dry, as a quick and open path back. It was indeed open, aside from a couple territorial stray dogs, but this turned out to be more of a problem than a blessing. The sun at midday is especially oppressive this time of year, when it is mixed with monsoon-driven humidity. 90 degrees feels like 108. We made it back, but not without a sturdy reminder of unprepared I am for all of this – leaving me with a heat and dust-(and whatever else I inhaled out there)-infused cold.

 Three years in mild England have softened me, but luckily my previous time here has made me at least theoretically ready and I’ve made a point to rest and return to 100% before venturing too far out again.

 It’s good to be here. As much as I miss my friends in England (football, pub quiz, lunches at Cosmo, Thursday nights out, picnics, and other adventures) and my friends and family back in the US, I remember Bodhgaya becoming a ‘home’ to me last time and look forward to that again. This time around I have many more friends to see in India, if time allows, having already enjoyed a couple evenings out with Deepak and Maneo in Delhi. It’s a big country though; so I fear I might have to come back again some time down the road to see those I miss on this trip.

 Auto-rickshaw in insane streets of Delhi  (with myself, Deepak, and Maneo).

   That’s the news for me. There is also news in the area about malaria, which has been bad around here, and Maoists, who were also blowing things up last time I was here. We all should be fine regarding malaria: stocked up on anti-malaria pills, nets, and cremes, along with pretty good conditions regarding cleanliness and sanitation; all of which those suffering the worst of it do not have. And the Maoists rarely hurt anyone; but we still keep an eye on the news and avoid potential run-ins when we venture out in our travels. Our big worries are the heat and dust and a few achy stomachs still adjusting to Indian food.

 The Mahabodhi temple from my rooftop

 A screenshot from a video during a stormy evening in Bodhgaya

  Malaria symptoms -- Pain and numbness and tingling to-the extremities;  Fevers; Chills;  nasty Headaches; Sweats; Severe Fatigue; Nausea and vomiting.  The  malaria parasite is with you, causing anemia by the destruction of the infected red blood cells, which leads to symptoms like extreme tiredness, delirium, etc. etc. These are re-experienced over very long periods of times and our body DOESN'T develop immunity.  I ran into some people who were infected with this malaria parasite; and even years later, they will still suffer from bounts of the disease. Bet you never give much thought to such things.

   > Note ::  These were examples from the website at Patheos(C0M)