cake

Roy, A friend once said to me "suppose everybody on Earth were given a chance to go to the most perfect heaven all at once -- if they all agreed to go. You know that that there would be some people who would say no, just so they could deny it to everybody else." I agreed with my friend: people are not always wise or kind. But I think you are. You can also see the flowers blooming, the trees in full, leafy splendour. You can see a deer crossing the road, or maybe you have a cat curled up on a chair in your place. You can look up at night and see stars. You can hear the wind when it blows. Whatever it is, you can see the divine in the ordinary, and that's a very special thing. Best regards, ~ Cake.

Wow. Good find.

That's like trying to pick which is more disgusting: cockroaches or bedbugs.

Been awhile since I visited... It's interesting to see all of the different ideas on the nature of the original question in this thread. It could be a really novel idea, trying to move beyond the hot-button question of whether homosexuality is right or wrong. What if, instead, we critically think about what it IS, rather than what it is supposed to be. What it is supposed to be usually involves some dreary quote from some human cactus with perpetual indigestion. Unhappy people say unhappy things. Then there is the question of whether it's natural -- which sounds like a valid expression of a biological urge but often really means morally acceptable. I don't pretend to understand this tendency in human beings to declare what is and isn't natural, usually without reference to the natural world around them for clues. As far as abominations go, try watching a Pauly Shore movie... though, I'd recommend a dose of Gravol first. geisha779, I really liked your post discussing politicalization. I thought about it for a bit, and I think that many political movements begin the same way. A group of people organise around an idea or identity, sharing a common trait or common desire, a sense of persecution, political or social exclusion, or discrimination at the hands of a larger group within which they exist. Just as quickly as one group forms and begins to exercise its voice calling for rights, still other groups consisting of people of contrary opinion will form, some committed to maintaining their priveleged position, some out of vague fears, some out of unvarnished hate. I see a parallel in the women's sufferage movement: the polical resistance THAT movement met was just as vehement and ridiculous as the one faced by gay folks in many places these days. The same ludicrous arguments used to oppose giving women the vote (it's unnatural; it will destroy traditional roles; our civilisation will crumble) sound eerily similar to the ones being used today to argue the legitimacy of homosexuality, or, more recently still, the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. The Christian right is a political movement.... not a Christian movement.... it pushes an agenda and takes no prisoners. That's a pretty astute statement. soul searcher wrote a really interesting post too: I think many individuals, cutting across all political persuasions and cultural groups, are revolted by and/or afraid of homosexuality. It's uncomfortable to have to explain to your kids why those two men are walking hand-in-hand, or why little Johnny in my class has 'two daddies.' That's sharp. It seems that most of the discomfort is on the parent's side, not the kids'. I think kids are pretty easygoing. Of course, they react to the emotions and behaviour of their primary role models. If I were to blame parents for anything, it would be for teaching homophobia, sexism, or racism... To be fair, I don't always think that people give a lot of thought to what they say, and they'd be horrified if you were to accuse them of being, say, homophobic... but there they are with their kid, and they get all uptight and mutter with disgust if they see two men holding hands. Or they say "I don't understand why those people can't just be happy. Why do they want to get married too?" And that might say a heck of a lot more than they may think it does, but it doesn't actually encourage understanding or critical thought. Disapproval, discomfort, judgement, et cetera, but not consideration, not discussion. I'm glad to see more discussion here than reactionism. It's refreshing. Strangely, that reminds me of the words of some crazy hippie type guy who said something about doing unto others...

What comes around, keeps going? "An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh." Will Rogers (1879-1935)

ありがとう!

P-Mosh: I see your point, but I'd like to say that I was trying to raise some questions with that example... In fact, etymologically, football appears originate in Middle English (1350s to 1400s sometime - I'd have to do some further digging to find out more), and it appears in various forms in other languages as cognates: in Spanish as "fútbol" or as "Fußball" in German... and it's not entirely clear when it was adopted by them. English itself is swimming with cognates, words borrowed or adopted from other languages or branched and evolved that have, as cognates, continued to evolve over time. Also, the US isn't the only English speaking country to refer to American style football as merely "football"... I know what you're saying, but this was actually the heart of what I was trying to convey... I used the cognates football and fútbol as recognisable words that sound alike but which carry the possibility for misunderstanding precisely because of that similarity. Location and audience determine the context. I began thinking of another example, and I hope you'll bear with me: it's a concept that doesn't translate quite as easily. In Japanese, the commonly used word for soccer is サッカー (sakka) as opposed to the more official フットボール (futtoboru)... again, cognates, and in this case, they're closer in meaning to their (American) English counterparts, but you'll notice the Japanese that I used here: the character set is Katakana, often (though not exclusively) used to render "gairaigo" (the closest translation would be "loaned words") phonetically. Gairaigo is a concept describing a foreignness - the necessity for which isn't always apparent to many English speakers (no matter what dialect) since we have no particular cultural need, or mechanism, to use such a signifier to mark foreign terms as being of-foreign-origin (with the increasingly rare exception of itallicising "foreign" expressions, for example "Argument for sheer pleasure was his raison d'être"). My point is that I can translate "gairaigo" as "loaned words", but it won't necessarily explain the culturally implicit need for marking such words as gairaigo to somebody for whom that is not a cultural necessity. I can hear the yawns now... Well, a fun example might be trying to translate the relatively common Québécois "colline de binne" (chalice of beans) as an epithet. You might ask "How is that an epithet? What makes it a 'bad word'?" This was my point about translation. This concept doesn't translate neatly (though it always cracks me up, it's so deliciously irreverant, pardon the pun). To get it, you have to think what might constitute an obscenity (so to speak) to a Catholic. Saying "damn it" would be a sort of near hit in English, but not really. It's not obscene in any conventional sense (to an English speaker) but to a Québécois French person, it rather is. Even within dialects of the same language, there are problem words and concepts: ask a native British English speaker how much more obscene "bloody" sounds to them than it does to a North American English speaker.

This is such a well crafted argument that I felt the need to restate my original reply. No, I don't believe in biblical inerrancy. I fully agree with oenophile's point about belief. Belief only requires a concept to be accepted as viable to a greater or lesser degree in some person's mind in order to exist. This acceptance is fundamentally an emotional decision. Facts are much more demanding. I began to question this semiotically and semantically, questioning the intrinsic inerrancy of the text in question. Here are my thoughts: Texts are comprised of words. Words are essentially symbols used, in their verbal and literal forms, to transmit information. They don't mean anything in and of themselves necessarily. Rather, they represent the concepts for which they are used to stand in for. Take the word for a Peach, for example. "Peach" is not a Peach, but say "Peach", and most people will understand what you mean... unless, of course, they've never touched or eaten one and "peach" only exists to them as a visual representation (as, say, a drawing or a photograph). Semantic nit-picking? Perhaps not when you next take into account the question of translation. This is the expression of concepts for the purpose of transmitting information, and this can become problematic. For example, if you speak more than one language, you may know that concepts expressed in one language may not necessarily be obvious in another. Take the word "football" in English, and it's cognate "futbol" in Spanish, and you have the potential for misunderstanding: both words sound alike when spoken, but the sports being represented are quite different. My point is that there is are wider cultural, geographic, and even temporal contexts to be considered when examining texts, not just the other words immediately surrounding the ones in question. Consider that this text contains a collection of writings that range in age from something like 1500 to 4000 years. It contains chronicles that represent relatively wide geographic areas, it likely represents the writings of more than one ethnic group, and it most certainly represents more than one language group over all that time. It has been the subject of multiple translations in ever more distant geographic locations into languages that are increasingly dissimilar from those of earlier manuscripts which themselves were translations of now-dead tongues... And it has been the subject of multiple editorial efforts that were undoubtably informed by geopolitical pressures of the day, to say nothing of economic considerations of the times in which they were undertaken... I think an any argument for inerrancy becomes increasingly problematic as one considers more of these questions. Of course, to paraphrase oenophile who so aptly argued the point, belief requires no proof, and (I add) it doesn't necessarily welcome questions. I, on the other hand, find oenophile's last question there a very inviting one indeed. I'm really curious to see if anybody else is interested in pursuing it.

What a ghastly name for a thread! jk I'm perfectly fine with this getting moved out to its own thread. I honestly didn't mean to plow into other thread that way, but the point so many folks there were trying to make was about the impact of personal stories and how awful it can be to have that just dismissed as trying to advance some agenda or something... I started writing one thing and it sort of evolved into my sharing this, and... anyway, I really appreciate the support that everybody's shown. I was scared to share it, because I think I've only really ever told two other people about this, and... I found myself shaking afterwards. And I was amazed to see, when folks started saying that they'd seen this too, wow... I got chills. It's vindicating to speak and to be heard. Something empowering about it. Maybe that's what makes empathy so incredible: it's an act that is, by it's nature, a loving one, by no means empty-headed or blind of course, but trying for a moment to reach across and stand in another person's skin, to think and feel like they do for a moment, just long enough... I'm quite overwhelmed. Thank you.

Oh yes. The wooden spoon. Nothing says lovin' like a good smackdown with kitchen hardware.

Actually, he was visiting at our home. I'd disobeyed him on some whim of his; he announced that I needed to be punished. My parents permitted it.And thanks for the support. Sharing this does scare me, but I don't want to make this all about me -- but I wanted to offer a perspective of what it can be like to offer a personal history and have it questioned. I'm not saying that it's bad to question stuff, because questioning is the essence of good critical thinking... But I think that it is a good idea to consider how, when and why... I mean, if I were of a mind to, I could poke holes in a story like this, but for what purpose? To prove what point and to whom? Sometimes people are helpless, or enthralled, or terrified, and they can't stop what's happening, and maybe it happens often enough and they live a life of misery because of things like this happening and they're told to keep quiet about it, for whatever reason... but later they find out that there have been others like them. It's not hard to imagine that people like that, freaked out and in pain because somebody in a position of authority (perceived or otherwise) hurt them or took advantage of them, would feel that it's a risk to share a story like this. It's not an academic or legal point with them, and they're not necessarily arguing for a wider condemnation of parties involved (though they may be, too; I dunno). My point is that it can be an affirming and healing gesture to say "thus and such happened to me". It's not about an agenda, per se, if that makes sense. I'm just saying, no special threads or forums for folks with stories like this, but don't assume that they're about bashing some dead guy who can't speak for himself. It could just be somebody trying to deal with some heavy stuff in the best way that they know how or can handle to at the time.

I don't know if this particular thread is right for this, but it seems to me that some folks come here to air some of the things that happened to them, to share them with other people who may understand the context, or the events themselves... to make something of the madness that was their time in TWI. They've found a forum where they might be able to open up, and sometimes they get sympathetic voices, they get some validation. Funny thing about secrets: they tend to stay secret until they're exposed. Evidence indeed. I don't buy this "big leagues" nonsense either. Share your pain at your peril? The difference between somebody sharing their history, a personal and highly intimate thing, and making some nya-nya accusation is quite profound. Attacking the veracity of a highly-charged, and risky personal anecdote, questioning the accuracy of somebody's personal statement, goes beyond contemptible. I'm relatively sure that if you had some filth's hands all over you and god knows what else, the last thing you'd want to hear is "that hasn't been proven". You'd be thinking "it was damn well proven on my body", and you'd feel just as abused as before, just as erased, just as damaged, and you'd probably not want to share anymore, feeling even more alienated. Lovely. "Welcome!" I'll share story with you: I was flogged, not spanked, flogged, by a man that I'd never met before in my life, a complete stranger. My parents let this man of god take me to a closed room in our home and flog me for disobeying him. I was a 10 year old kid. He flailed on me with his belt in my parent's bedroom until I sobbed promises of obedience. I cannot tell you how alone I knew myself to be that day. Everybody in the world that I had any reason to trust had abandoned me to pain and torment, and when I emerged, they told me that I'd deserved it, that it was god's will and... I was made to THANK HIM for correcting me. Yes. So. You all know TWI doctrine well enough to know that blame-the-victim rhetoric by heart, no? Suffice it to say, this wasn't the only time something like this happened, and it was by no means the most damaging. I don't happen to give a flying hill of beans if anybody here believes me or wants evidence. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody here, just so you know: I'm just saying generally. As for evidence, my idiot parents were too enthralled in their ridiculous fantasy world and mental enslavement to stop and say "oh, hey, maybe it's not good that our kid's back is criss-crossed with broken weals" and take pictures and have this human garbage up for child abuse. No, it was far more important to impress on this psychotic that they were god-fearing and obedient. So, no pictures. No evidence except my testimony, such as it is. You think any of the other concerned parties are gonna talk? Yah-huh. My time in TWI was savage and brutal, marked with episodes of abuse, physical and mental, and I know that I was not alone. I don't think that there ought to be a special forum for people with stories like these, and it would be nice if folks didn't come along with "ooh, but where's the evidence, I won't believe until it's proven" but they will. I won't be silenced though. That loathesome pile of maggots wins if I ever shut up and take it like I did back then.

I'll clarify my reply here. Biblical inerrancy is the thought that the bible in its original form is free of error and contradiction and is totally accurate. My opinion of this is, categorically, "please". Since there are no original manuscripts anywhere, it's very easy to say anything anyone likes, really: playing an eternal game of Schroedinger's Cat, only there's no way to open the box and verify the state of the cat.

Raf, Good for you, and good luck. I tried over and over for years, tossing my cigs, freaking and going to get new ones... I finally realised what it was that was preventing me from quitting: it was giving myself no options and pushing myself into a corner. So, I decided to keep my cigarettes around, telling myself that I could smoke absolutely any time I wanted to. The only catch was that I had to wait for 5 minutes if I got a craving. I've been waiting for 4.5 years now... I still miss cigs sometimes, of course. I'll always be addicted to them, but I'm no longer dependent on them. I'll get hit with cravings still, but they're more philosophical feeling now... like a dreamy sort of sure-would-be-nice, instead of a horrible Bruce-Banner-transforming-into-the-Hulk kind of MUST-SMOKE-NOW-RAWRRR kind of thing. Whatever works for you is the thing to do. Trial and error. But you can do it.

Polls are tricky things. I chose the "other" option because there was not an option for what I was thinking -- this isn't to knock the poll: I think that there are really too many permutations unless you confine the choices to a strictly binary "Yes or No", which wouldn't represent most folks' thinking.