Thought I would share what I found concerning at least part of the objections with Dan Brown and what Dan has shown he believes in his writings:


In His arms.

I respect your rational, Mortarman. Thanks for clarifying that!

YES! YES!

MM:

This is why you and I speak the same language!!!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> It is why I can call you my sister!

In His arms.

Do you think Dante's Inferno holds true to the nature of how the damned have their bodies split in two and are left with their entrails hanging out?

Do you think because JK Rawling wrote a series of books this indicates she is a believer in witchcraft / sorcery?

Do you think Stephen King reveals a core belief in telekinesis because he wrote Carrie?

Do you believe Steven Spielberg has been visited by extra terrestrials, or that he ~thinks~ he has?

When Ron Howard goes to the beach, does he keep an eye open for mermaids?

There must be some fictional books written that may very well draw from one's beliefs more than their imagination .... but how do YOU know when that is the case?

Did you know that Lewis Carroll wrote sections of Through The Looking Glass based on his migraine auras? In fact, there is an unusual aura called 'The Alice In Wonderland' phenomenon !!!

The human imagination is a wonderous thing.

Pep

Hi NBII. I think maybe you're confusing being compassionate and being "nice."

Compassion, in my view, has very little to do with "nice." Mortarman and I had a good discussion about it on his thread a few weeks ago. The best example was one that MM gave. MM was having a lot of trouble, when he was a boy, learning that stealing isn't okay. Eventually he got caught lifting some candy from a store, and then the trouble began. If I remember correctly, MM went back to the store with his father, where he was taken into custody by a policeman of MM's father's acquaintance. He was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car, taken to a holding cell at the police station, and allowed to sit there for what felt like an eternity to a small boy and was really about 15 minutes.

After that, he got a stern talking-to about the likely consequences of further thefts.

MM suffered all the way through that experience. There was fear, terror, a sense of abandonment probably, and a whole lot of tears.

I personally think that's an excellent example of compassion that is not at all nice.

I think, too, that taking action to protect your son is an act of compassion. It's not about being nice and cooperative and working within the system -at all-. It's about making a clear, rational evaluation of what is truly best for everyone in a situation, and then taking non-harmful action to make that happen. If a child is not being treated appropriately in a school setting, that is, most assuredly, harmful for everyone involved. Not just the child, but everyone. When there is harm like that, I believe that the most appropriate response is to end the harm. Get the kid out of the situation and into one that does work. If there are longer-standing issues with the school system, then it might also be compassionate to help them improve their system. But not while further harm continues.

When you originally posted about it, NBII, you made the distinction between fighting and compassion. By that, I assumed you meant deciding to drive toward your goal without
regard for the potential harm that might come to others. It sounds to me like I'm basically accurate, and it also sounds to me that perhaps you're creating a dichotomy that isn't necessarily there. It almost sounds like you're talking about action versus inaction, and about making the choice to be cooperative in a situation where there is ongoing harm.

I do not consider those to be compassionate, ethical choices. They're very common choices, and you pegged them very well when you mentioned being a doormat.

Being a doormat, whether it's in a marriage or when you're trying to get good support for a child, allows harm to continue. When I say that I don't fight, I absolutely do NOT mean that I allow harm to continue.

Here's another example of what I mean.

More than a year ago, my ex decided that she wanted to have a naming ceremony for our daughter. This is a fairly common Jewish ceremony where a girl-child is brought before the congregation of her synagogue and introduced. She is formally named, not only to the congregation, but also to God. Normally, the name is structured as "Jane, daughter of Judy and Bob."

My ex decided that she was going to omit my name from it altogether. The excuse I was given was that the words would "only be in Hebrew, so no one would know." I thought that was particularly odd, since if you're Jewish, you speak Hebrew when you're talking to God. If God knows, surely there is SOMEONE who knows.

My first reaction was desperation and horror. Did I have to put up with this? And then fight. "NO. This is not right. This is not okay with me. NO."

And then I took two hours and sometime in that two-hour timeframe, I finally made it through a profound transformation that I had needed to make ever since my ex started the insanity with my daughter.

I became grounded.

It came in the form of lines from a children's book, one that was my daughter's favorite at the time. She made me read it to her at least twice each day back then.

I am your parent; you are my child. I am your quiet place; you are my wild. I am your calm face; you are my giggle. I am your wait; you are my wiggle....I am your favorite book; you are my new lines. I am your night-light; you are my starshine. I am your lullaby; you are my peekaboo. I am your good-night kiss; you are my I love you.


(from You Are My I Love You, by MaryAnn K Cusimano)


Loving, compassionate, and clear. I am my DD's parent. There is no question about it anymore. Completely grounded and firmly KNOWING that, then I was finally free to act in a way that protected me and my daughter -- and my ex -- from my ex's harmful choice.

At 1am, I wrote to our parenting coordinator. I wrote to my attorney. I wrote to both rabbis who are associated with the synagogue in question. I wrote to a member of the rabbinical committee at the synagogue. And I wrote to the congregational mailing list.

The next morning, I was on the phone to my attorney. Ten minutes later, she was on the phone to my ex's attorney. I called one of the rabbis. I called the member of the committee. And I was clear. This is not going to happen this way. It is absolutely and without question harmful to me and my daughter, it violates the spirit and the letter of our parenting agreement, and we will take the necessary action to prevent this harm.

My ex was absolutely horrified and humiliated that I broadcast her choice so far and wide. By the end of the day, we had a solution that was workable, though not entirely satisfying. (My daughter was named as herself alone, daughter of neither me nor my ex.)

And the next day, we had a lovely ceremony. My family came in force and held their heads high. My ex's family was also there, and not one of them could meet our eyes. They knew they'd done something foolish.

And that night, I got a call from my ex. How about if DD just stays overnight with you and spends some time with you and your family? You see, I had asked for a little extra time with DD, since my family had flown in for the event and they wanted to see her. My ex had originally refused. And I suspect that someone, probably her attorney and maybe her parents as well, had sat her down and explained to her in no uncertain terms that what she was trying to do had significant consequences and was NOT all right.

Just like with MM when he was a little boy, I suspect that the experience created a great deal of suffering for my ex. And overall, it had the best possible outcome that I could want. That event changed my relationship with my ex -- significantly for the better. It also strengthened my own sense of being a parent, and created more solidity for the structure of our daughter's life.

You might look at it and say that I "fought" for what I believed to be right. The difference is that I was not acting from afflictive emotion. No hurt, no fear, no "I'm not good enough," no feeling of being powerless.

I knew that the outcome might not be what I wanted. I also knew that I would explore every alternative that I could find in the short time that I had to make sure that the ceremony happened, and happened in a way that was beneficial to everyone.

Okay, that was a long example. I hope it helps.


Here again, I would go back to what I wrote to Mortarman. Allowing abuse to continue is NOT compassionate. It is harmful to both the victim and the abuser. If I am a victim of abuse, then my compassionate response is this: "I am removing myself from this harmful situation so that I can protect both of us from your actions. I love you enough that I will not allow you to continue to harm yourself by the things you are doing to me." And then I take clear, firm, grounded action to protect myself from the abuse.

The best reference I know of for compassionate responses to abuse is (and most of the material I use when I'm talking about it comes from ) You Don't Have to Take It Anymore by Steven Stosny.

Every Bible I have ever read, every bible I own, has been the product of man and not God. Have you ever played telephone where you hear something from the person to your left and repeat it to your right? As a phrases passes from one end of the chain to the other, the meaning changes completely.

If God himself wrote the Bible, it's still one big game of telephone between the creator and you. It's passed through a lot of people to get to the Revised Standard Version that I use. The question of whether or not God wrote the Bible becomes academic, because no one can point to the Bible that God himself wrote.

As to the presence of a selection process regarding the composition of the current Bible, I can only refer you to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha. There are quite a few also-rans when it comes to potential books of the Bible and given that the selection process did not always produce the same results, we can at best conclude that God does not bother to tell the non-chosen they are wrong.

Can you provide a Scriptural reference for this, MM? Thanks!

I LOVED Dante's Inferno - even though I "had 2" read it for a course in folklore and mythology (parts of the Bible, 2).

And then there's C. S. Lewis' trilogy, "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength".

Do you think that Hrossa really exist? Or that Venus is a waterworld with it's own Adam and Eve ready 2 be tempted out of their garden paradise?

-ol' 2long

Well, no, ac2ally. I'm pretty sure I've never read it more than once! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Read parts of it many times, though.

-ol' 2long

Yeah wiki can be trusted. BTW the link is dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Oh it's all the slaughter that gets to me. Especially the slaughter of innocent animals. The slaughter prescribed by Moses is particularly obnoxious.

But hey! That's part of it. And probably part of that world.

I can get through the long geneologies, because the names are so whacko and fun to pronounce. Plus you make some odd connections -- like the three generations to cover 450 years in Matthew 1. I think there are some other errors, but it wasn't important enough to check out. All probably passed on verbally till someone had the thought to write it all down.

I agree, though it's clear that many (most?) people have a difficult time making the distinction.


but...


I think that God IS his/her/its laws.


I would think that, rather, he/she/it INCLUDES all that, plus the spiri2al stuff that we all really strive for as thinking/feeling human beings. The physical laws are "easy" - they just are. How we feel about our place in all of it is another thing al2gether.


Sure enough. But if he/she/it were 2 deem 2 flood a planet by doubling or tripling it's water budget for 40 days, why bother 2 erase the evidence of that? Really, why set aside all the physical laws that would quickly produce deep-sea sediments, strand lines, and sea cliffs at high elevations all over the world?

2 me, it's far more likely that the Noah flood is a myth, possibly extrapolated from a real (but certainly not global) flood, intended 2 convey a great truth, which it does famously.


But as I alluded above, we have plenty of evidence - the lack of recent marine deposits and erosional/depositional forms at high elevations - that such a flood did NOT occur. And yes, we are left with the Biblical account. But it's how, and WHY we interpret that, that's important.


The Baths were very localized structures. The landforms that would have been produced by a global flood would have been... ...well, global! They'd be in our faces everywhere we 2rn - but they're not.

-ol' 2long

I think I'm the first one who mentioned an opinion that the Bible is mythology. Though I said that was different from fiction, I didn't expand on it and I suspect that many people view mythology as, basically, fiction that people used to believe was true a long time ago.

There are many examples of times when mythology has turned out to have a solid basis in reality. The maze and the Minotaur, for example, were though to be mythological until archaeologists discovered the maze on an island in the Mediterranean.

Similarly, I think there's fairly good evidence for a huge flood in the ancient Middle East, one that was larger than just the run of the mill river flooding that happened along the Tigris and Euphrates. Global? Not exactly. And did it include Israel? Not clear. But I bet it covered pretty much all of what the people there thought was of the world, in the area that it happened.

So it becomes mythology over the course of eight or ten thousand years. It's mythology that appears not only in the Old Testament, but in various other ancient accounts of that area.

But, as something that I read said, I sincerely doubt that there were no rainbows before that. To use the rainbow as a symbol of God's love and promise is wonderful. I just have doubts that there weren't any rainbows before that time. God's pretty good about keeping the natural laws constant, near as I can tell.

Well, it doesn't really say there was no rainbow before that, does it Just J?

It says that the rainbow will mark a covenant, etc. -- but it doesn't say it's the first one.

For example, when I gave a wedding ring to my husband, I meant it to be a symbol of my love -- but it wasn't the first such ring given anywhere.

2long: I love that Lewis trilogy, too! We seem to have similar tastes in literature.

This is a fascinating read, and I feel very fortunate to be reading it.

MM,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me, it helps me to understand where you are coming from, and when you respond with respect and kindness my eyes do not shut and my hands do not leap to cover my ears.

AM,

Yes, the brutality.

Thanks for the link pointer, somehow the . got into the link. Here's the better one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha

I find wikipedia pretty informative. Checked out the Spaghetti link. I've got to say those folks have some pretty serious satire going on but I don't think wikipedia is misrepresenting what they think. For example, I think that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus

Is a pretty good historic account of Jesus and was informative to me about different beliefs surrounding him

But all that's off point. Bottom line, the whole thing is not so simple as: "God wrote the bible through person X and here's the master copy." My Bible has had man's hand in it because there were lots of different inspired authors and none of the originals wrote in English.

Have y'all ever heard of the Washington Scablands?

It was the result of a breach in an ice dam from a glacier.

http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/scabland.html

Weaver, let me try to tackle a theological point. I think you (or whoever posted, no longer sure it was you) about why God would exclude everybody else from this narrow path, and what a narrow-minded God that would be, etc., are tackling this from a modern human-rights kind of perspective.

If I were God, and something had gone terribly wrong with the world (i.e., the Fall), and I had a unique remedy of fixing it by coming down myself, enduring the worst that mankind could offer, dying as some sort of sacrifice, and punching some sort of hole in time and space -- and then saying, "Come on everyone! Climb this bridge! You can get free of all this if you climb this bridge! Just do as I say!"

Wouldn't it be kind of wrong-headed to turn and say, "What about all these other bridges? Why do you think this is the only bridge that works? What about all the other people who never heard of your bridge?" If you were drowning in the ocean after the Titanic, and someone throws you a lifesaver, would you refuse it saying, "That's not fair. What about all these other people who are drowning?" Wouldn't you figure your chances were better of helping once you were not drowning yourself?

I'm sure my metaphor can be picked apart (assume an infinite liferaft, with many extra spaces), but from a theological basis, the questions all become different if looked at this way. And whether the Zorastrians, etc., are going to heaven is simply not my problem. We have to trust a higher power to work out the details.

From this point of view, it's a miracle it was done at all. Once, somewhere. So the question of "why didn't God choose China, where there are more people?" becomes not only irrelevant, but a tad ungrateful.

Again, I'm not saying anyone has to accept this perspective -- and certainly opinions differ on what jumping on the liferaft means (do I have to join Mortarman's church? Or is it okay to stay in my local snake cult?) But theologically, I think that's what the standard, traditional P.O.V. is.

I like your metaphor, A.M. I just see that there is more than one life preserver design. I'm really glad they get tossed to us, though. Otherwise the swimming is pretty hard. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />