An unprincipled, selfish charlatan bilks gullible people out of their money for years to support his failing enterprise. One day a clever accountant, noticing the fraud in his financial documents, remarks that no one pays particular attention to financial failures, only to the successful ones. The grifter immediately sees an opportunity to score the mother of all scams by making sure his con is doomed to fail.
Enter one Donald J. Trump - a greedy, pompous charlatan with a penchant for unscrupulous and ultimately unsuccessful financial ventures, who has a serious cash flow problem. He learns that if he collects millions of dollars for a Presidential bid and loses, he can still keep the money and then fade back into relative obscurity.
His scheme backfired: the sure-fire failure succeeded, despite breaking every accepted rule of civilized political behavior. Now the spotlight shines brightly on him and his enablers and it remains to be seen if he will suffer the same fate as Bialystock and Bloom.
Monday, May 29, 2017
Monday, April 17, 2017
Does Christ Have to be the Son of God?
There are very intelligent people who consider themselves devout Christians but do not follow a literal reading of the Bible. Their faith comes out of choosing to believe that there is a power in the universe greater than ourselves, whatever that power might be and the story of Jesus provides a moral and ethical foundation for that belief and a spiritual guide on how life should be lived.
In a historical context, there had to be validity to accept the teachings of Jesus, especially to Jews who followed a strict, ancient set of rules. To teach ways of living that modified or contradicted those rules required the acceptance that he was not just a prophet but of God itself and not just by magical feats, such as healing the sick, walking on water, and turning water into wine, but by rising from death himself.
Of course, any of those events - including the virgin birth - can be explained away with very convincing arguments which leaves the question: do we need to deify Christ in order to follow his teachings? And if we can dismiss the supernatural aspects, is there purpose or value in the rituals of the Christian churches in which we participate, such as Baptism and communion?
I think there is, and I will tell you why and leave it to you to decide whether the analogy is valid.
A number of years ago I heard about a study of school districts that had taught elementary math using modern methods, stressing understanding of mathematical concepts, and others that used more traditional rote methods where the times tables and basic rules were drilled into the students rigorously. They found that the students who had been taught with the traditional way fared better when studying higher mathematics.
The point? Perhaps the rituals of repeated reminders of the events that formed the person whom we choose to follow is such a not a quaint waste of time.
In a historical context, there had to be validity to accept the teachings of Jesus, especially to Jews who followed a strict, ancient set of rules. To teach ways of living that modified or contradicted those rules required the acceptance that he was not just a prophet but of God itself and not just by magical feats, such as healing the sick, walking on water, and turning water into wine, but by rising from death himself.
Of course, any of those events - including the virgin birth - can be explained away with very convincing arguments which leaves the question: do we need to deify Christ in order to follow his teachings? And if we can dismiss the supernatural aspects, is there purpose or value in the rituals of the Christian churches in which we participate, such as Baptism and communion?
I think there is, and I will tell you why and leave it to you to decide whether the analogy is valid.
A number of years ago I heard about a study of school districts that had taught elementary math using modern methods, stressing understanding of mathematical concepts, and others that used more traditional rote methods where the times tables and basic rules were drilled into the students rigorously. They found that the students who had been taught with the traditional way fared better when studying higher mathematics.
The point? Perhaps the rituals of repeated reminders of the events that formed the person whom we choose to follow is such a not a quaint waste of time.
Randomness
Do we love God because we fear randomness in the world? If the universe is more orderly than chaotic does every event have a purpose? Fear of randomness informs our politics. Do we love computers because they are predictable and only logical?
How did we become so shallow and superficial?
How did we become so shallow and superficial?
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