Neanderpundit

Mr Porretto posts about the golden compass, here. That discussion is spreading around the blogosphere among Christians. In discussions with Pascal we have concerned ourself wiht the Amalekites- or rather he has, for he is orders of magnitude more knowledgeable than I on the subject. He even goes so far, in comments at “The American Culture”, that he considers himself an agnostic because, as he puts it, “no religion is safe harbor” from the amalekites (archetypal enemy of the Jews- and by definition, the Christians that succeed the Jews) I have, as one might expect, a few words to say on the subject.

One of the biggest problems I have with every organized religion, is specifically that. Once a religion has become organized, it requires organization. And religion is not a safe harbor from politics or pecadillos- in fact, it’s very nature engenders the very sins it professes to disdain. And a GREAT deal of this is due to modern-day Amalekites- people to whom personal power and prestige are more important than their interest in connecting their followers and brethren to the Creator.

So here’s the thing.

Pascal has it unquestionably right. No religion is a safe harbor. And never will be. but you don’t have to reject religion to avoid the Amalekites, so to speak.

Faith in the Creator is intensely personal, and that’s the way itis supposed to be. Now, I’m not advocating you stop going to mass, or temple, or whatever- in fact, if you don’t now, you ought to start. No, what I want you to do, is praise the creator in your chosen way, whatever it might be, and realize that everything written about the creator, said about him, done in his name, was done by men. Fallible, flawed men. Men who might not get it. Men who may have missed the point utterly. Men. And the guy who is in front of the congregation, asking you for dough to buy him a new Escalade? A man. Or a woman, maybe. Don’t follow man. Follow God. In whatever way you find him- keeping in mind that the Creator, in all his forms except the sadistic invention known as Islam- is not interested in having you visit unnecesary harm on your fellow beings.

No, I’m not a preacher, and I don’t play one on TV. And I’ve met an awful lot of my fellows, and I think they all understand this: My relationship with the Creator is intensely personal, and should stay that way. Your local temple or church or chapel happens to be an excellent way to connect to your community, and you should be involved(Editor’s note: Emphasised so those with poor reading comprehension will gather the purpose)- but you should also realize that the machinations of the leaders there -unless they are directed specifically at helping others-are purely selfish and economically/politically motivated. Enjoy the message. Live the Word. Beware the messenger.

Pascal made mention of this in a post back below, and it’s a kind of an interesting idea.

You’re in the middle lane. You want to be in the left lane. You turn on your left turn signal. The guy in that lane, where you have room to be, accelerates to prevent your entry.

Now, with Pascal’s plan, you turn on your turn signal, and the guy behind you in the adjacent lane gets an egg in the face- IF he accelerates rather than letting you in. If he backs off, he’s fine. If he maintains station, he’s fine. If he accelerates, blammo.

Now, Pascal is a nice guy. Too nice for his own good, in fact. I used to think paintballs were the answer. These days, I think the only balls I want to send towards rude drivers are minie.

Seems the exploder has exploded.

Nice.

The new exhaust did nada to improve the operation.

In fact, the bastard runs the same, if not worse- and there’s a nasty tendency for the right rear exhaust manifold to glow bright red.

So it’s rentals for a while, while I gather my armies of darkness
resources. Plan is to get the BIL’s van titled and use it while getting the pieces in place for the truck. I spect it will need a new top end, and that brings on a whole category of while I’m at it, so I might very well find myself doing a lower end as well.

Good lord.