Robert Lockett
Member since Apr 28, 2015
Recent Comments
Re: “Old Steeple Cancels Drag Event over Safety Concerns”
Barry, apart from a good bit of open dialog as to why you think it hateful, and why myself and others think it loving to warn the community, evoking thought about where we are as a culture, and whether or not to continue in silence as the goal posts are moved pretty radically, I am not prepared to judge you.
What I AM saying is that if it can be skown logically and evidentially that pastor Bramwell is in fact acting out of love for his community, then characterizing his speech as hate is bearing false witness. It is begging the question. Beyond that, there are nuances to consider. Is it done intentionally or in honest ignorance? In either case it is objectively immoral.
My intent is not to label others as mischaracterizing. I prefer to let them do the labeling. My intent is to encourage everyone to actually think about what is going on here.
St. Mark's is NOT the Westboro Baptist Church. We don't hold signs that say GOD HATES FAGS. That is the stereotype that is promoted by dismissing pastor Bramwell's signs as mere hate. It cuts off the needed dialog as effectively as the Westboro Baptists. Fight fire with fire. I am uninterested in fire in either case.
Unfortunately these political maneuvers have become the norm in attempting to coerce and pressure people to conform, rather than allowing persuasion to occur rightly through dialog. Is anyone interested in that any longer?
A woman who is a neighbor near the church came and expressed that she was religious, but disgusted by the messages on the sign. She was quite sincere so far as I could tell, and spoke with thhe pastor respectfully. She thought it was hateful and offensive, but when kindly asked to elaborate, she could not explain why the messages were actually hateful. I doubt you are in a better position Barry.
She boiled it down to shaming people. I interrupted them to ask her if she was now also shaming the pastor? She realized the difficulty, exasperated. But I'm glad she said her peace freely. If she is objectively correct, then it doesn't matter if we feel offended or attacked. Our position needs to change. But is she? That will require taking these things seriously and talking about what constitutes objective truth and the implications. I'm game!
Re: “Old Steeple Cancels Drag Event over Safety Concerns”
Hi Barry, been awhile. What is hateful about it?
Re: “The Sound of Bells”
Loved some of the bell sounds in Eureka when I was a kid. I can't even remember where they originated, not just St. Bernard's, but near there.
No doubt the bell sounds in this song are created electronically. Even so, I like them very much and think them appropriate for the genre of death and despair symbolized by the downward movement of baptism.
As a famous movie line captured, it is "only at the point of dying" that some truths can be grasped or known. Only at the end of our rope can we open certain doors. It's the only place we are totally honest. A few of the inmates know...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBDc6lL63…
Re: “Unwrapping the Past”
These kinds of discoveries are great for verifying that the messages in the bible have not been corrupted through the process being re-written or translated. The earlier the better.
The tech is rather cool too...
Re: “Science. It Works, etc.”
Without question, science works for 'some' things. The things it does NOT work for are the more interesting questions for those not satisfied with spending our years only 'masticating' the empirical. If you play with science too long you might go blind Barry.
Robert Jastrow was ALSO once worked for NASA (as if it matters). In fact, according to Wiki, "He was the first chairman of NASAs Lunar Exploration Committee, which established the scientific goals for the exploration of the moon during the Apollo lunar landings. At the same time he was also the Chief of the Theoretical Division at NASA (195861). He became the founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961, and served until his retirement from NASA in 1981."
He said some interesting things regarding science...
"There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause. This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized."
"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
Re: “Ötzi the Iceman”
Nothing quite as frightening as being totally determined by fate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G3bv_bp9W…
Re: “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to Hold Non-Judgement Day”
How is it non-judgmental to label or protest an opposing viewpoint? A judgment must be made. In fact, protesting is discrimination in action. You must even hold your opponent in the wrong. If it was merely a different point of view, it wouldn't be characterized as hate or bigotry. Have you lost your mind- your capacity for logical consistency?
Since the sisters invoked Christianty, Jesus said not to judge by human standards. In other words, do not judge subjectively based on shifting public opinion, ambition, or passions. He told us to stop looking at the surface of things and make a RIGHT judgment. In other words, an objective, considerate logical judgment.
That is what a Christian pastor SHOULD be doing. How is it that anyone is shocked? I contend they are not shocked. It is mock shock. It is pretend outrage. A dangerous game with truth and logic is being played and the result is blatant contradiction. Forget the behaviors in question, the entire intellectual premise and foundation is logicallyincoherent. God's kingdom is founded on Logos, not chaos. Please think about it.