'Satan's strategy' (part 1)

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:33 pm By Fred Clark

"The pretensions of the self therefore can be maintained only by willful deception, for which Tertullian had the very accurate description of 'willing ignorance.' This deception does not require a conscious act of dishonesty in each individual instance. The deception of sin is rather a general state of confusion from which individual acts of deception arise. Yet the deception never becomes so completely a part of the self that it could be regarded as a condition of ignorance. … "The... Read more

Weak

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:32 pm By Fred Clark

If you've ever spent any time as part of a religious community or congregation, then you can appreciate the wisdom of Paul's advice in Romans 14. All of us have issues, hang-ups, hobby horses and bug bears, and for some people these can be particularly intense. Growing up among the fundies, I learned that there were many things our family enjoyed that some of our friends at church or Christian school regarded as sinful. Rock music, movies, gin rummy (even... Read more

Those pearls won't clutch themselves

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:31 pm By Fred Clark

B: You realize what you've done, don't you? A: Drawn a link between the spreading of malicious falsehoods and the practice commonly referred to as "lying"? B: Well, yes, that. That's not allowed. A: "Allowed?" B: Right. You can say, "Sarah Palin's statement is false," because, you know, it is. And you can say, "Sarah Palin's statement is malicious," because, again, it's generally regarded as a mean thing to say about other people that they want to set up a... Read more

An argument

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:29 pm By Fred Clark

A: Sarah Palin is lying about health care reform. B: Whoa, hold on there. That’s quite the accusation. You want to use the L-word, you’re going to have to prove it. A: That’s not difficult. Here is the outrageous and demonstrably untrue lie in question, from her Facebook page: The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his... Read more

TF: Bruce's Sermon, part 4

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:23 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 69-73 Buck sat in the pew behind Rayford and Chloe Steele and glanced at his watch. More than an hour had flown by since he had last checked. His stomach told him he was hungry, or at least that he could eat. His mind told him he could sit there all day, listening to Bruce Barnes explain from the Bible what was happening today and what would happen tomorrow. For you kids out there, a "watch" was... Read more

About-Actions

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:22 pm By Fred Clark

For what are we without hope in our heartsThat someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters "About a Girl," Cibo Matto"About a Girl," Nirvana"About Love," The Choir"About to Walk," Throw Me the Statue"Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," Johnny Mercer"Accidentally Kelly Street," Frente"Accidents Will Happen," Elvis Costello & The Attractions"Achin' to Be," The Replacements"Acknowledgement," John Coltrane"Acrobat," U2"Across 110th Street," Bobby Womack"Across the Border," Bruce Springsteen"Across the Great Divide," Nanci Griffith & Emmylou Harris"Across the Sea," Weezer"Across the Universe," Fiona Apple"Across the Universe," The... Read more

Still not rock bottom

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 4:21 pm By Fred Clark

The smug-junkies are lining up for the latest designer drug to hit the streets, a hot-shot of fentanyl-laced oblivion that is viewed, in the perverse logic of the addict, as the really good stuff. The Pursuit of Offendedness is never pretty, but don't avert your gaze from the horrors of what you're about to see. Look on with pity at the degradations of stupidity and dishonesty and the realization that these poor addicts in the throes of their disease are... Read more

TF: Bruce's sermon, part 3

Last updated on: July 31, 2009 at 4:06 pm By Fred Clark

Tribulation Force, pp. 65-67 We left off with Bruce Barnes explaining that the four horsemen of the apocalypse must be taken literally. We've already seen how, for Bruce as for Tim LaHaye, this word "literally" is not meant literally. For them it means something more like "my way." It's opposite would be "mere symbolism," which means for them, roughly, "any meaning other than the meaning imposed on a passage by reading it my way." Neither Bruce nor LaHaye would admit... Read more

Zzzzzzzz

Last updated on: July 31, 2009 at 5:17 am By Fred Clark

I'm Noah, and you're the rain "Zero," Smashing Pumpkins"Zero from Outer Space," Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers"Zero Zero," Texas"Ziggy Stardust," David Bowie"Zombie," The Cranberries"Zoo Station," U2"The Zookeeper's Boy," Mew"Zoom Daddy," Swirling Eddies Some repeats here, but a few more songs since the last time we did the letter Z a few years back. I believe U2 video linked above, from the Detroit stop on the Zoo TV tour, was from the night they ordered pizza for the audience. We didn't... Read more

It must be Job's fault

Last updated on: July 30, 2009 at 5:16 pm By Fred Clark

Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda Marcotte: Victim blamers are often also telling a story about how they personally will never be raped, or in this case, arrested unfairly for doing something totally legal. To blame Gates for being stupid is to say, "I would never get arrested for breaking into my house, because I have the sort of self-preservation instincts that this man is clearly missing." People enjoy the illusion of having more mastery of the world than they do, because... Read more