JenellYB

Thanks, Raven! Gotta share this one on my own FB page..... Jenell

Yes, unfortunately, "gluten-free" has become a diet fad thing, see it being recccomendned all over the place for any and everybody, as if gluten is somehow 'bad for' all humans to eat....I think you should stress that your own need IS based on actual celiac disease rather than fad and fashion. Jenell

Suffering TCPC withdrawal symptoms.... :/ Lots of hours getting back into the flow working again, been getting more hours than I'd hoped for just getting back into it, plus helping my daughter make full use of my laid-off son-in-law to get some repairs around both their place and mine here caught up before he finds another job or the company he's been working for gets a new contract... Jenell

I see a basic flaw in these idea of there being "choice" in matters of heaven or hell, accepting or rejecting god, in that before there can be "choice" there must be informed options frown which or between whuch to choose. And I simply do not see that humans are universally and inevitable informed of such options as "choosing" to accept or reject god, or an ultimate destiny of eternity in heaven or hell. This was a critical flaw evident even to my own young mind as a little child, and it baffled me even then hwo the grown-ups seemed unable to see it. And it seemed there was such incinsistency in what they did beleive and teach...I was taught to sing 'Jesus love all the little children of the world,', but then, that many, even most of those children were doomed to hell because they'd not accept Christ, most for never even having heard about Christ, or Christian ideas about heaven and hell and salvation doctrines. How could god condemn to hell people that never even heard of any of that? Even then such claims by preachers and such that at some point in every persons life, they had the chance to "choose Jesus", are obviously absurd to me! That all makes this salvation thing all about being 'lucky enough' (yeah, God's will crap) to run into someone that will tell them about Jesus and Christian salvation, and 'wise enough' (gullible enough?) to accept it as truth in any of the really outraegous forms it may be presented to them. I could never see god placing such a burden of a 'choice' on everyone without even letting all of them in on what choice there was or even that there was a choice! Jenell

I've read about, seen some documentaries on, Lourdes and a few other sites with such reputation. And, the rigorous process through which the Catholic Church might consider or decalre any such healings as 'miracles.' I do respect the Catholic Church greatly for that, in comparison with how careless and downright untrustworthy claims of miraculous healings are touted and accepted in fundamentalist and charismatic churches and 'ministries.' I can't say i know what is/isn't true or 'real' in these matters. but what I've seen does leave me with some intriguing questions. Given the huge number of people that travel to such a place as Lourdes, and the relative few confirmed cases of 'miraculous' healings' I have to wonder how those rates/odds would compare to occurences anywhere in general, that may be due to spontaneous remissions, mis-diagnosis, actual 'cure' by 'accidental effective treatment' etc. I do know all those things are more common than most people realize, even in 'traditional' health care and even without health care at all. I have personally know of one or more of each of those kinds of unexpected, or inexplicable, 'recoveries' myself. There was quite a stir in the medical community and society at large when recent release of results of several long term studies involving breat cancer and mammograms in women revealed much higher rates of confirmed breast cancer in women getting annual mammograms than among those having them done only every 5 years. The first thought, that the annual mammograms might actually be causing the increased breast cancer rates was effectively ruled out pretty quickly, but what was eventually accepted as the most likely explanation, that was supported by further investigation and research, was that early stage breast cancer tumors spontaneously remit far more frequently than had been realized. Further invesitgation revealed that many cases of early stage breast cancer diagnosis in which for various reasons the women were NOT treated at all, yet were later found free of the cancer, which has long been attributed to initial mis-diagnosis, now seem to involve a mich higher rate of spontaneous remission than had been considered. Other cancers have been found to have much higher rates of spontaneous remissions, especially in early stages. However, this does not really change how early stage cancers should be treated upon discovery and diagnosis, becasue at least for now, there is no way to know which would remit spontaneously and which are going to advance in development. As for mis-diagnosis in general, even with our modern and oft supposed high quality health care, misdiagnosis and missed-diagnosis rates are possible so high as to scare the wits out of any of us that may trust this system! My late ex-husband was treated for recurring illnesses and even hosptialized multiple times with multiple doctors in one of the most respected medical centers in this country, even the world, for over 2 years, until ultimately he sufferred irreversible pulmonary failure and spent his last 2 yrs...a total of being sick 4 yrs---before he passed away. The doctor overseeing the nursing home where he spent his last 2 yrs, on a ventilator, looked his medical records over, and without ever even having seen or examined him yet, asked why he had not been tested for Adult Lymphatic Leukemia...according to him, his was a "text-book" case in every way. The test was done, and at last, too late, my ex-husband was diagnosed with ALL, This is a disease that while incurable, if begin on relatively inexpensive drug therapy in early stages, with which most patients actuallty go on to live put a normal life span. I could cite details of any number of cases of mis or missed diagnosis I've known of personally. As for "accidental cures", I know a man that had multiple surgeries every couple years, for over 25 yrs, to removed recurring benign brain tumors. He underwent bi-annal scans and other tests to monitor the regrowth toward determining when surgery to remove their masses was indicated again. Completely unrelated to that condition, he developed severe pneumonia, treatment for which involved a good deal of powerful antibiotics and other drugs via IV plus oral follow-up. When he went for his routine scans to check on regrown of his brain tumors several months later, there was no sign of them at all, even the regrowth observed prior to the pneumonia incident was gone! That was 12 yrs ago now, and STILL there has been no re-growth of the tumors! Miracle? I don't think so, neither do doctors....none would venture to guess what connected to his pneumonia and treatment affected it, but agree it most likely something did. The last of my questions have to do with why there should be any particular location, or religious shrines, such as Lourdes or others famed for this, connected to miraculous healings. and why of so many that visit such places, such a relative few experience miraculous healings. Jenell Among the Lourdes' cases, are also multiple cases of MS, a condition also noted for spontaneous remission AND difficulty in accurate diagnosis, and frequent mis-diagnosis.

Norm, all I can attest to is what I've experienced. When that therapist worked on me, i knew nothing of energy work, or that she was 'using' anything like that. So it was neither belief nor placebo effect. Later, when I've encountered it again, I can feel it, experience it, through the touch of some people, and that even without any knowledge of that person or that they are an 'opened' energy channel, or worker. I sometimes detect it in just the most casualtouch, a common social handshake, someone casually touching my arm or some such. It is a very distinct feeling, somewhat mildly electrical, sometimes warm. even hot, but it is quite distinct if one has ever experienced it. There are occasional people so strongly open, that transmit so strongly, you can feelit just in theirn presence, even without at touch...such ones as in some communities might be said to be "annointed." But it also cannot be forced upon someone unwilling, with defenses up, against either the energy itself, or the person through which it may be transmitted. When I say I do not 'use' it often for that many are afraid of it, i mean that I CANNOT do so. And many in religious circles are quick to 'condemn' any such 'energy' or 'power' as might be coming through someone NOT fitting their limited and usually heirarchical criteria, part of their religious sect, speaking their particualr religious jargon, speaking in tongues, approved by their pastor, whatever. Reiki and Therapeutic touch are now commonly avaiable to patients at some major medical centers (patients at MD Anderson Cancer center have complimentary access to such therapy) and offerred in training courses for nurses and others that deal hand-on with patients. Theraputic touch has shown to have remarkable positive effect when administered to critically ill and preemie infants. No placebo effect could be at work with infants. Raven, btw, your mention of being able to "feel" something when your friend in a distant location prayed for you, is consistent with advanced energy work..."distance healing" is an advanced level skill taught where energy work is taken seriously, and without doubt, someone that has spontaneiously of their own, developed these gifts, many well be able to do so even if they know nothing of formal energy training, or that it is what they are doing. These energies are very much of love, the one working with, conveying, transmitting, must and can only do so by moving mentally, psychologically, and emotionally into a very deeply submitted loving state of consciousness. Jenell

Your observation may actually support and be consistent with the point I am suggestiing. Less aggressively controlling traditions, in this sense I have raised for consideration, have been in decline for a good while now, perhaps even since the age of reason and modernity got under way, as it has become of decreasing relevance or importance to each new generation whether they had the blessing of and acceptance of a church/church community or not. In the more, perhaps the words is, "genteel" traditions of the mainstream churches, when such simple controls over behaviors and allegiances to the church as 'granting' or 'with holding' right to participate in Communion, threats of excommunication, etc, progressively failed to successfully "hold" people under church control, the path forward into the future began to naturally split in generally two "directions." One, those content to sit where they were, so to speak, shake their heads perhaps at those leaving, to carry on as they always had in their old traditions. In some of those, efforts at response were less about "cracking down" to try to restore control through stonger demands and threats of godly puishment, and more about trying to reach people through offerring love and care as incentive, often hoping to attract and hold through a more positive social community, ie the continued mainstream, and those that reacted toward increased efforts to grab back control, ie toward the fundamentalist bent. The mainstream tendency toward more "genteel" responses, trying to offer a more positive social experience as part of member's lives, has had a poor go of it, I think, for reasons largely related to changes in how people live and interact...our increasingly moblie society, even nomadic and isolated in the sense people more to far flung areas to work and live rather than remianing within inteconnected communties, and dramatic increase in so amny sorts of entertainment and engagement in interesting pursuits of all sorts have provided "competition" to anything people one got from invlovement in a church community. Jenell

I've begun to think what we are witnessing in the rise of outspoken and intrusive fundamentalist religion in our society might involve similarities and parallels to a common and readily recognized psychological phenomenon relating to abusive, controlling individuals in their relationships to others. A person with an abusive, controlling personality developes patterns, skills, coping devices, through which abusive tactics are used to intimidate, demoralize and manipulate their victims to maintiin their control over them. When the abusive, conntrolling person percieves a victim is starting to break those bonds of control, threatening the abuser's power to continue to hold them under control, the abuser/controlling person classically begins to escalate their demands and attempt to intimidate and maintian their position of control. There is abundance evidence that a victim is in the greatest danger of serious harm or even death when they try to break away, leave the abuser. Consider all the similarities of fundamentalist, oppressive religion to classic abusive/controlling personalities in individuals, the emotional and psychological tactics used to bring and hold others under their control, submitted to their abuse. Irrational, fundamentalist, authoritarian religion and religious intitutions have been losing power over larger and larger percentages of the population for a good while now, and I think that has hit the crisis point in the intitutions and culture of religion. The abuse is going on rampage trying to re-establish control through escalation of the same abusive old tactics that had worked in the past. But changes in society, including advances in science and other knowledge of reality, have evolved into a society in which that is less and less effective. Jenell

I'd say no, not any particular overall director or guide, other than my inner one, but, yes, I've definitely had and have many teachers, and even mentors that serve to help me along my journey in particular ways at particular times, especially through some rather rough spots along the way. I truly believe the saying, when/as the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. A friend or other person I can let down and really talk to about such matters? No. This forum is the closest I have, or think I've ever had, to that. Jenell

I agree there are certain basic, core level universals and constants....that is both why a quite different response to one situation is called for than for another, and why what is called for in one cannot be simply applied to another. The difference of context, what's going on, all involved in a given situation, mean meeting those same basic core elements are going to be met differently in different situations. What is the loving thing or the just thing in one matter can be quite different in another. Placed into social/cultural contexts, how any particular one thing fits in with every other element of that cuture or social environment makes signficiant differences in how those underlying principles are best met. Consider such a matter as death penalty, for those determined too dangerous to allow to continue to live in the community. The safety and well-being of all others must be protected, out of love for all others. But cultural and developmental differences present different options for accomplishing that...a relatively primitive society lacking really secure reliable facilities for making sure that person is kept secured from the rest of society presents very different realities than such as our modern environment with secure prison facilities. What could, say, Eskimos or Chukchis or Pacific Islanders really do with a dangeorus homicidal person that threatened everyone's safety, but put him to death? That's at the extreme end of example, but thats the idea. Cultures/societies that allowed no acceptable or honorable and safe place within them for women alone with children, and no man responsible for her and them, had to have in place much different cultural and social practices and constraints on behaviors and actions that resulted in many single mothers within that society. While those measures may seem oppressive and 'wrong' to us today, we are not in that realizing what a vast difference there is here and now from then in the realities faced by single women with children. Even those in that plight through no "wrong" or "sin" of their own, were victims of rape, sexual abuse, or abandonment by husbands/fathers, and without family that might take them in, faced options such as slavery, forced prostitution, or living as homeless beggars at the mercy of the cruelty of any that chose to abuse them. In the biblical story of the Israelites and the promised land, the stage had been set earlier in the story by God having promised that land to Abraham and his descendants 'forever', so their entry after the Exodus was, in the bibical story, a "return" to a homeland....something that could not by any stretch of even religious imagination be applicable and compable to European Christians entering foreign lands and committing genocide on the native inhabitants! I could never see how those european christians possilby came up with that idea! Jenell

I think a really big problem some people have when it comes to this "God's will" thing, using the bible as their 'reference" or "guidance" point, is a common LOOKING FOR validation of something they already want to believe, think something is how it 'should' be, and their own 'feelings' about something, as well as what seems to me quite a silly idea that pretty much God supposedly 'said' to somebody/anybody else in some other situation applies just as well to what God say to, wills for, oneself, in an entirely different situation. Actually, that played a big part in even whole groups of christians very often over history, such as Europeans coming to and colonizing this country assuming to themselves the role and position, even identity, of the Israelites leaving Egypt to enter the "Promised Land', native inhabitants of the Americas to be viewed as and dealt with in the same manner as those occupying the land of Canaan. Jenell

....pursuing her "Mrs." degree.....lol, I noticed a good many years ago how many preachers had met their wives as students at the same Bible colleges, and as you say, of denominations that did not and mostly still do not ordain women. Nor do I think that even might be coincidental or accidental....also notable is how many of them are themselves daughters of preachers, and how many preacher are themselves sons and grandsons of preachers....kind of a "family business" kind of thing, it seems. Jenell

Good thoughts Bill, most of which I'm right with you on. Not to get searching right now, but I now there is plenty of evidence to be found in both the Old and New Testaments to the effect that God does NOT hold children accountable for the sins of their parents and ancestors, yet that os the very core basis for this idea we are all born into sin and accountability for the sin of Adam and Eve. As for your having that woman come to you with that, lol, oh, yes, how well I know, if my own and expereinces of other women I've known and had around me are any indication, that kind of thing is far more common than most might even imagine! The worst of that, at least for us women, may well be that when a man comes at us with that idea, that God has told him we are "the one" God "wills" them to have, it can very easily and does all too often turn into what would have to be called a 'stalking' experience, usually endinng quite unpleasantly, and my own and experiences of other women I've known, even leading to our having to leave an environment, a church community, even move our residence! The classic sterotype of the 'wrath of a woman scorned' is NOTHING compared to that of a man scorned by a woman he has decided, has told, and told others, is the one "God" wills for him! When he HAS told others in that church community this, imagine his 'embarrassment' and publically wounded pride when obviously he must have somehow misunderstood what God was saying to him! A most common reactionary 'defense' such a man may fall back on is that old 'woman decieved poor man' (yeah, Adam's excuse!) whereby he fabricates some scenario in which the woman intentionally 'misled' him, blinded him with her charms and feigned interest, blah blah blah, even when quite clearly the woman never expressed any indication of interest in or even notice of him... the woman kind find herself in an incredibly awkward and uncomfortable situation when the man HAS already told others about this, not only as an idea, but his claiming to know the woman IS mustually interested, when she doesn't even have a clue! i knew a woman that had a really freaky experience, while attending a small community church, had noticed a man there, a widower, that was a deacon as well as an ordained preacher that occasionally filled in for the full time preacher, seemed to be showing 'interest' she didn't welcome or want to encourage. The way he sometimes looked at her, touched her in seemingly casual ways, and often sought her out once she was seated, to come sit beside her, was really making her uncomfortable, and she had even begun such obvious avoidances as either getting up and moving when he came and sat beside her, or waiting until everyone was already seated and a service or class already begun before coming in slightly late, so as to choose a seat far grom him. She was embarrased to say anything to anyone else there about it, because everyone seemed to really like the guy, and she was herself afraiid she might be over reacting. But then when other members started acting in ways, like smiling and winking with "knowing looks", and whispering to her, she didn't have to keep trying to keep it secret, others already knew she and he had become, the wink-wink, we know about the romance going on, she had to stand up and speak out, hey, like whoa, wait a minute, this thing has gotten out of hand! There's NOTHING going on between us! At which point, his having been 'feeding' others hints and even false stories about her and him having mutual interest resulted in it looking like to them she had been leading him on and was now just callously dumping him! Yep, she had no real choice but to leave that church! He even then told her she was going to hell for having defied the will of God which was to marry him!!!! Jenell Ps, I do want to make clear I do NOT see this kind of thing as having anything really to do with the religion or religious beliefs of anyone per se.....I honestly see it as just a different version of a 'manipulattive tactic' some men (an perhaps women, too) USE toward trying to put a person they 'want' but which they suspect (or know!) would be likely to refuse their "proposal" of engagement/marriage...that of both having people around them "primed" to think such a relationship IS developing, and then "popping the question" in a very public way, often with a lot of elaborate and even expensive trouble taken in 'setting the stage'. like the romantic lighted billboard at the homecoming team game, the airplane flying by with banner....lol....ie. putting her on the spot in the most awkward of ways!

Most people are ignorant, unless they've had personal expeirence, of the medical uses for drugs commonly used for birth control or how commonly they are used for those other medical purposes. In my own "peri-menopause" decade, Depo-Provera injections (popular at the time for brith control use) provided me an alternative other than the choice between over a decade of constant severe discomfort punctuated by as much as 2 weeks our of every month of excruciating and totally debilitating agony, or a complete surgical ovio-hysterectomy. That was more than a matter of convenience..already at that time, and now further established, is that women that can get through menopause with ovaries and uterus intact are at a signficant health advatnage against many of the common diseases and illnesses post menopausal women are prone to, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

I've been somewhat hesitant to say much about "energy work" here, such things as working with Reiki, Pranic energy, Chi Quong, or Chakras, kundalini, etc....many of the things are tossed about lightly among New Agers, not many really know much seriously about them. But I've experienced such "energies" both as recipient,and giver, and feel postivly about their involving something 'real'. And, having also had occasion experience such as laying on of hands in some types of churches leaning toward the pentcostal, some there have such 'gift' or 'ability' but of course there is is called the power of the Holy Spirit. Actually, the dramatic period of psychological upheaval, 'spirtiual emergency crisis', I experienced some years ago, was, i have no doubt now, connected to my 'exposure' to such energies without my having ever even heard of them before then, or knowing at the beginning something like that was even involved. After many years of increasing very painful and debilitating low balc and sicatica problems that had only grown worse despite efforts by doctors and chiropractors, by one of those what I can only call "synchonistic coincidences", I encountered a woman in context of an oridary daily business matter, that somehow "picked up on" that i was in great pain, and asked me about it. I told her, and she said she could help me.It was just be the most casual "chance" circumstances that I had even encountered her! She told me she was a massage therapist, and offerred to bring her portable table to my home for twice weekly sessions at a very affordable cost. And immediately, she was doing more for me than anyone or anything ever had, and i HAD tried massage therapy before that. I would feel strange 'sensations', warmth, sometimes something like electical currents, in my body as she worked, but again, just thought it was some 'skill' affecting nerves or something. At the time, I attributed it to just "skill"...again, I knew NOTHING of healing energies. I also had NO idea "who" she was, in that she was actually a very prestigious therapist that regularly treated an elite clientel of famous athletes, at very expensive rates! And that she was driving over 100 miles round trip from her home and office on the far side of Houston just to come treat me!!! It wasn't for over 6 mos, after I'd made dramatic improvement, that she even told me of her office in Houston, told me she felt we had gotten my crisis stage broken, but reccomended I keep seeing her weekly a while, still at that low cost, at her office instead. I was stunned when I went to her office in an expensive clinic complex in an exclusive area of Houston, and saw her walls lines with personally autographed photos of so many famous local and regional sports athletes, national celebrity athletes, with their thanks to her for her helping them!!! Her usual rates were hundreds of dollars per session, she was charging me $25 for an hour!! Why? She said, something just yold her when she saw me, she was supposed to help me, and she knew I didn't have much money! Within 2 yrs, i was entirely well, and haven't had serious problems with the low back, or the sciatica at all, since then. It was during that time my 'strang things' started happening, and after I'd stopped seeing her regularly I did encounter those working with healing energies on a devoted level, and upon experiencing again "odd sensations", warmth, eletictrical like, etc, realized they were much like what I'd felt from her work...more remarakable, I developed some 'ability' for it, some others were amazed at what they would feel through my touch when I'd feel those energies flowing, i seemed to be able to help ease pain for some. But it also frightened many, most those around me are very tradtional. I went back to her, that therapist, asked her outright if she had been working with any such energies, that she knew of, and she then informed me she is a Reiki Master! Her working on me may have actually 'opened' my own latent potential ability to convey energies, even if on a minimal level. I did some training in the art with a group dedicated to such work, but sadly dont make much use of it, simply because too many around me, that I'm in contact with, are frightened of it, and me, for it. So I rarely mention it. Magical healings? No. therapeutic, yes. Jenell

To this, I have to respond, well maybe, maybe not. By that, I mean that while science can only deal in measures and detection, that doesn't neccesarily make something without a material or physical aspect inaccessable to science. Actually, many things discovered and eventually accepted through science have been, at least at the start, things for which there were no means of direct measure or detection. Measure and detection can be indirect as well as direct, and be consistent with scientific principles. Indirect measure and detection often involves observation of what may be effects of something that is itself, not subject to direct observation or measure. To use a biblical metaphor, consider Jesus' comparison of the evidence of the presence and workings of the Spirit to the passing of the wind through the leaves of the trees. Any form of direct observation of the wind, molocules that make up air, and the actions among those molecules that create what we detect as wind, were far in the future at that time. That those thing were not yet subject to direct observation did not mean there was no such thing as 'wind' before ways of direct observation and measure were discovered. Wind was detected and measured indirectly, through observation and measure of effects. Further development of this idea in scripture of indirect observation and measure of "Spirit" include metaphors and analogies using "fruit" in the sense of evidence of presence and nature of "Spirit." Now, we may argue the point of just what this "thing" is that is called "Spirit" in those kinds of metaphors and analogies, what the actual nature of this underlying principle, or "thing" is that is involved in these "effects" attributed to it, without discrediting that there is "something" at work in bringing about those effects, that might actually be detected, observed, measured. Study and discovery in fields of social sciences is based on indirect observation through detection and measure of "effects" of immaterial things. Another sense in which we commonly accept as 'real' something that cannot itself be directly observed or measured, that have no "material" qualities or substance, are such things as make science even possible...consider, what is a "number?" What does, say, "3" look like? What are the material qualties of "3"? And how and why does "3" interacting with another "3" always get consistent results such as "1" or "6" or "9" or "27" ? Jenell

Fatherman wrote: was willing to be the true lamb of passover so that our sacrifices for atonement would no long be necessary. 1. but why/how was it (sacrifice) neccessary for "atonement" to begin with? God is the one that set this whole scheme up, why would He set it up that way, and since He's all powerful, why would He have to demand anything? 2. ...so that our sacrifices for atonement would no longer be neccesary....so Jesus, a man, dying, was just about saving a lot of sheep and goats and cattle from being sacrificed? We still kill and eat them anyway, so what was saved? 3. the lamb of passover wasn't a sacrifice for atonement, it was the declaration of being one Hebrew people differentiated from the non-Hebrews in egypt, so as to be spared the angel of death when the first-born of Egypt were killed. The practice of sacrifice of atonement wasn't dictated to the Israelites until after leaving Egypt, and was a once yearly sacrifice made by the high priest in the temple, had nothing to do with the passover lamb. (passover...the angel of death passed over those whose door posts in egypt were marked with its blood).

I do not like the 'third party' idea at all...with 3 candidates, the two perceived by voters as most similar to one another are going to end up splitting the vote that would have gone to one or the other had they been the only choice for those voters. If that total vote count split between the two of them exceeds that of the 3rd candidate, that 3 candiate wins even if not garnering a majority of votes. Example, 2008...if voters' choices had been Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, and John McCain, the votes for both Clinton and Obama added together, would have beat out John McCain, his total of votes being much smaller that for both the other candidates put together, but greater than that for either Clinton or Obama . Jenell

Sounds good. I've heard of it before, but not much I can remember about it. Putting it on my reading list. Jenell

Sounds a lot like the "trying to bargain with God" stage people sometimes go through in facing something difficult,...such as, "God, if you will just (let my sick baby live or let me get that promotion or whatever) I'll (go to church and tithe every Sunday or cut off my left pinky or whatever) " Still not getting how one's death, a killing, satisfies another's debt or responsiblity or punishment, though. Jenell

Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on the basic idea. Jenell

Back to topic.. The idea of blood sacrifice of not only animals, but humans, as well, to somehow appease or please the gods was certainly not unique or orginal in the ancient world. There is historical and archaological evidence of it in many cultures around the world. It seems to me at the crux of it, whether as it appeared in the Judeo/Christian traditions or anywhere, any time else, is something in killing, and usually specifically by bleeding, being somehow 'signficant' in the scheme of things, 'cosmic order' or whatever it would be called. It seems also not unusual for the sacrifirce victim to be of special 'value' to the one making the sacrifice, particularly as in those mentions of human sacrifice in the O.T. One was the man's own virgin daughter, in return for God granting him a requested favor, the other, of having to decide if one's firstborn son was worth sacrificing a colt instead. And that is what I can't, but am curious to, understand. What in human thought is going on in that? Jenell

No questions, Guapo. I was raised Baptist. Heard all that stuff before. Never made since before, doesn't now. Jenell

I don't stand anywhere among the positions you list for the questions you ask...in fact, they aren't even questions I'd ask or wonder about for myself or others. So all that you touch upon is irrelevant. I respect that he has done as well as he has trying to keep his own religious views and positions out of his politics. He hasn't used religion as just another card to be played politically, many others disgust me with their doing so. I voted for Hillary in the 2008 primary, Obama in the election, and plan to vote for Obama in 2012. Doesn't mean he is any 'ideal' for me in any way, but the potential alternatives give me nightmares, as did that in 2008. Jenell

I am just now brought into something of a quandry concerning what to do, say, if anything, as several days ago, someone proudly and excitedly showed me a handfull of little books of children's bible stories they just picked up for their 10, 8, and 5 yr olds, in hopes they will "help them" in some ways they are experiencing some attitude and behavioral problems. It took only the briefest glance through the books to recognize the classic fundamentalist tactic of introducing children to the basic elements of prosperity doctine as a tool for manipulating kids into the behaviors adults desire of them through God's rewards and punishments as the consequence for good and bad behavior, including making sure the kid is made to feel guilty and ashamed of even natural and healthy negative emotions and thoughts about difficulties in life. The basic stuff like, now, be good and do as we say you should, behave yourself and be obedient and do what you are told to, and God promises to always give you good things....misbehave, and God will make bad things happen to you. And, perhaps the most insiduous and damaging of all, since God knows even your thoughts, to even think 'bad things' will bring you trouble, even if you thought the grown-ups didn't see what you did and that you are getting away with it. All demonstrated, of course, through those simplistic versions of biblical events told in a 'moral of the story' fashion, of how God saved a few good, obedient people while mass murdering everyone else, how God empowered people he liked to murder a lot of other people God didn't like so well and who got in the way of God's favored people getting the good things they needed and wanted.... This parent showing me these books isn't a real religious or 'churchly' person, thought I feel is a person of real faith. But she is also not a very educated person, not strongly literate, not a strong critical thinker, and I feel she really doesn't realize just what she's placing into her children hands to read, to take into their minds and hearts. So what do i say, if anything? Already, unfortunately, I've gained something of a repuation as a godless b%$#% to many of my more traditionally religious family and other contacts, for me "attacks" on the beliefs about God they take for granted without critical examination and critical thought. When its kids we personally care about, just what do we do when something like this happens? Anything? Or just leave it alone? Actually, I'm presently thinking of doing some looking into what may be children's bible stories written from a more 'progressive' perspective, giving them to this parent, these kids, without much comment except that, here, I know you are wanting things like this for the kids, and just happended to run across these for you? Jenell