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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Kitchen renovation is like childbirth. Once it is over and you have the new arrival you completely forget about the misery of achieving it.

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Originally posted by Ariel:
the chitinous clatters of keyboards ...

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Wherever two or three homophobes are gathered, misogyny was there first.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Russ:
And the function of sexual desire is ?

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I think you are confusing 'what is the function of sexual desire' with 'what is the evolutionary explanation of the existence of sexual desire?' The second question may have the answer you want, but it's pertinence to the question at hand is limited.
There were no doubt dinosaurs who said 'the function of feathers is display and keeping warm; this flying business is unnatural'.

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Originally posted by Zappa:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well ... been away - back now ... seems I'm the only one interested in this topic!

What's happened to Sipech?

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Rapture

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Let's call it my reasonable hope for an interesting discussion

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Originally posted by Enoch:
As I've said on previous threads, we do not read,
"And the Word became paper and dwelt among us".

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Pfft - Microsoft's lack of online privacy is nothing compared to what happens in their physical stores.

The other day I went into one of their shops and, although I had tried to protect my anonymity by means of a black mask over my face, I was horrified to realise that the shop assistants could still watch all of my movements throughout the shop, down to the level of which aisle I walked down and what products I looked at. They refused point-blank to blindfold themselves and when I tried to brute-force them to clear their memory cache by means of a lump hammer, I was bundled into the back of a police van by some overzealous security hardware.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Originally posted by Chapelhead:
... I got many complimentary remarks from ladies of the village on the size of my entry. It's nice to know that it has already given pleasure to so many.

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He said he was talking about the village gardening competition, and we all believe him, don't we, children?

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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music

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Originally posted by Ariel:

Some of it’s interesting, some of it’s food for thought, some of it’s inspirational, some of it’s plain weird, some of it’s repetitive. These days, a good editor would have put all the "begats" in an appendix with a family tree, pruned Leviticus to a readable minimum, polished up Mark’s prose, queried the inclusion of the Song of Songs, issued Paul’s letters as a separate supplement, made a mental note not to work with certain prophets on any further books, especially the one who wrote Revelations, and compiled a list of queries for the authors that stretched from here to Jerusalem.

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Originally posted by Piglet:
Chapelhead on the British thread in AS:

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Originally posted by Chapelhead:
... I got many complimentary remarks from ladies of the village on the size of my entry. It's nice to know that it has already given pleasure to so many.

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He said he was talking about the village gardening competition, and we all believe him, don't we, children?

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I did read "Do you want to meet someone of the same faith as you" and thought "no way - one Grumpy, cynical dickhead is enough for any relationship"

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Originally posted by ldjjd:
Christi, citing support from "Harvard and Dartmouth"
(whatever the hell that means) claimed Social Security will be insolvent in "seven or eight years".

Such a claim is either an outrageous lie or a display of incredible ignorance, yet no one in the clown car corrected him.

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If they had started correcting each other the event would have lasted another four hours, so one must thank God that no one bothered.

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"Life is gawdawful in almost every respect; yet I will have hope in the Lord for as long as I live."

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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

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Originally posted by Adam.:

I just think that in this context (as I once heard about preaching), exegesis is like underwear: everyone wants you to have it, but no-one wants to see it.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well yes, we are all operating according to the principles of Paschal's Wager - there's no way we can 'prove' any of this - we pays our money and we makes our choice.

The best we can do is to follow our conscience and convictions and however hard and fast or how loosely we do so, try to ensure that we don't use them as a stick with which to beat anyone else ...

We see through a glass darkly, but we still see ...

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Doc Tor: [Your post] reveals such a super-abundance of hyperbole - nay, not since the Great Hyperbole Disaster of '02 where literally everybody everywhere died [...]

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I found this one funny. Doc Tor reacting to another poster:

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Doc Tor: [Your post] reveals such a super-abundance of hyperbole - nay, not since the Great Hyperbole Disaster of '02 where literally everybody everywhere died [...]

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Tubbs:
As far as I can tell, the "gay agenda" seems to be remarkably similar to the "hetrosexual agenda".

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They're both trying to undermine marriage, heterosexual people by getting divorced, and gay people by... um... getting married.

You might not understand how getting married undermines marriage but that just shows that our minds aren't devious enough to understand the gay agenda.

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If someone describes a prophetic scenario different from theirs as crap, is that scatological eschatology or eschatological scatology?

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
I was recently complaining about people pronouncing "eschatology / eschatological" with the emphasis on the "schat" syllable,

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Originally posted by JimT:
The Gospel According to Jim The Least

Two men were brought before Jesus by Keepers of the Law, who said, “These men are Jews who have lived among the Greeks and Romans. They are Roman citizens and under Roman guard. They say that they have been married by Roman authorities as man and wife are, and that since their union is chaste and permissible under Roman Law, it ought to be permissible under Jewish law. The Law says that they have committed abomination and shall surely be put to death. What do you say?”

Jesus said, “You have heard it said that men having sex with men is an ‘abomination’, but I say unto you, ‘It is mere perversion.’ You shall not kill them, for their perversion is incurable, and not in their power to control. You are to love them, forgive them, but never accept their sexual desire for one another as normal, nor permit them to organize politically lest they argue their case and win.”

“No!” cried the crowd. “It is abomination! Stone them!”

The Roman guards seized Jesus, the men, and the Chief Priests and brought them to trial before Simona Erina for rioting.

“This man Jesus says he is King of the Jews,” the guards told Erina. “These two men here now live as man and wife under Roman Law as Roman citizens. They have asked their Chief Priests to conform Jewish Law, which punishes their union with death, to Roman Law, which does not. Jesus said that they are not to be put to death, but shamed for life as ‘perverts.’ This incited a crowd to riot, so we have brought them here for you to judge what is to be done.”

Erina asked the men, “Your leaders have said that you are ‘perverts.’ If our doctors can cure you of your perversion will you submit to it, leave each other, marry and have children?”

“No,” said the men. "We would rather die as we were born than die apart under any circumstance.”

“Remarkable!” said Erina. “Greater love than this I have not seen in Israel.” She turned to Jesus. “Jesus,” she said, “why do you call these men ‘perverts’?”

“Because their natural sexual desire, a pleasurable impulse whose purpose is the perpetuation of the Children of God, has been stripped of its essential, substantive purpose, which is procreation, not pleasure.”

“Indeed,” Erina responded. “Fetch me Charlicus Darwinicus,” she commanded. A bearded man appeared and was asked if the “substantive” purpose of sexual desire was procreation. He was also asked for his view on “perversion” of natural urges.

“Well ‘substantively’ or essentially, the purpose of sexual desire in humans is to ensure overpopulation, not simple steady-state continuation. In women, it has to be strong enough to repeatedly risk death in order to produce a surplus of children to outstrip disease, natural disaster, starvation, and war. In men, it must be strong enough to divert them from self-interest to the care, feeding, and protection of mates and their surplus of progeny. Importantly, overpopulation resulting from sexual desire makes aggression and war inevitable, producing the strongest, cleverest, and best organized warriors. In a world of peace, freedom from disease, and limited resources, sexual desire can be considered a perversion; it no longer serves its original purpose, which is overpopulation.”

“Jesus?” Erina asked. Jesus gave no answer. “Very well. Fetch me Sigmoidicum Freudendum.”

Another bearded man appeared and was asked the same question as Darwinicus. “Funny you should ask this, just as I am finishing my theories on ‘sublimation.’ In essence it posits that the very foundation of civilization is the ‘perversion’ of sexual desire. My theory is that heroic achievements in all areas, from Music, to Art, to Science, to Politics, to Literature, are all based upon ‘perverting’ sexual desire from its original intention, which is to produce exponential increases in population, to producing other societal ‘goods.’ Without the excessive urge of sexual desire, nothing could produce the pyramids or the Temple of Jerusalem. At least so it seems to me.”

Erina turned to address Jesus. “I have heard of your preaching, and much of it is good. Have you not said that your Kingdom is not of this world? Have you not said that you recognize only two commandments as essential, namely to love the source of all goodness, leading to love of others? Do you still feel compelled to shame these men with the insult of ‘perversion’?”

Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “Surely this woman is a Child of God. Her name is no longer Simona, but Petrina, and on this Rockette I will build my Church.”

Jesus went out and solemnized the union of the men in secret, knowing that his time to risk all for the Kingdom had not yet come. He went about performing miracles, healing the sick, raising the dead, and leaving those who need no physician to heal themselves, as Mother Nature intended.

He that hath ears to hear, let them hear.

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
So, after a freaking four year absence, JimT strolls into Dead Horses and slaps his Thing down:

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Originally posted by Tortuf:

YMMV. I find I spend my time more constructively no longer worrying whether or not God is living up to my standards.

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David Cameron paid tribute to him in that article. I wish he and Osborne listened to him a bit more, for despite being a Thatcherite Tory he had ten times the empathy they show, possibly a consequence of attending Winchester (a genuine centre of excellence, if an expensive one) rather than Eton (where they teach beagling and some truly stupid games).

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
YMMD (esp. if you're driving a VW).

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Bloody hip-hop, techno and all that sails in it seems to have held sway with little change for about the last 30 years. It went Bum shitty bum shitty bum shitty bum in 1988 and it's still going Bum shitty bum shitty bum shitty bum now.

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Just :

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Or, have you Canadians decided that there's no point in pretending to be a different country and simply joined the US without telling anyone?
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Dear God, I think his sphincter clench just sucked up Montana...

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:


In your definition of marriage, if that penis doesn't go into that vagina, it can't be marriage, and nothing, nothing, nothing can ever make up for absence of Tab A and Slot B. In your definition of marriage, all that stuff about "till death do us part" and "in sickness and in health" and "forsaking all others" doesn't make the marriage, it's just frosting on the fuck cake. When married people celebrate their anniversary, they're commemorating the date of their first fuck.

Is that really the hill of the definition of marriage you want to die on? The Golgotha where you crucify gays and lesbians on your cross of genital marriage? (Thank you, William Jennings Bryan.)

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I think of it as a spiritual practice: you get to the bottom of the onramp and then have a bit of quiet time while you pray for an opening in the traffic. Then when you decide to make your move you have a more charismatic sort of experience, shouting "o God o God o God o God" as you gun it hoping desperately that your aging car will get up to speed before the traffic catches up to you. Finally, you practice holiness by gripping the steering wheel tightly as you focus on remaining on the not-so-straight and narrow.

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Originally posted by la vie en rouge:


And I’ve got to tell you this one, because it’s possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. Last week, Boss parked his scooter somewhere he shouldn’t have done and it got impounded by the police. He went to get it back, presumably at some considerable cost. A little later, I came round to his office to give him some papers and heard that he was on the phone, with a funny voice saying something about the Embassy. What’s that all about?...He was trying to pass himself off as an angry American. I reckon the person on the other end of the phone (at the Prefecture of Police) must have been killing themselves laughing. The accent was, ahem, unconvincing. Also he has a really, really French name. He couldn’t look more French if he was standing in a bucket of snails wearing a stripy jumper and whistling la Marseillaise. Apart from which, even if he had been a bit more convincing, what the hell was this supposed to achieve, apart from getting Americans a bad reputation? Why would Americans not have to pay parking fines? I don’t even.

I don’t know whether I’m going to end up in jail or in a lunatic asylum.

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Originally posted by Eliab:
I've got the testicles of an ape whose ancestors put it about.

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Originally posted by Stetson:
I think it's ridiculous how these days you can't have a nativity scene without some p.c. nutter having to toss in a bunch of middle-eastern people and a teenaged mother.

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Originally posted by Jane R:
NEQ:

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I had a great uncle who believed that driving straddling the white lines in the middle was the most fuel-efficient way to drive.

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...whereas I always thought it was a political statement.

Or, if it's the Bishop's car, a theological statement (all Anglicans believe they are middle-of-the-road).

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*moans orgasmically*

We had a truly fantastic fruit cake today - made for last Christmas - full of great lumps of candied fruit, black as the inside of Satan's posing pouch, and solid enough to build walls from. Moister than a new bride, and richly fed with brandy like the bride's father.

It was amazing! It also seems to have inspired my tongue to run away with itself, must be the brandy.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Ever had your leg humped by a gerbil? It's hilarious.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
And what resources are going to make the problem go away?

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There's only one answer that would be agreeable to Prebyterian and Episcopalian alike. They need a committee.

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Originally posted by Firenze:
Or you could alternate the old and new lightbulbs in a doubtless doomed effort to please everybody.

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If there is a common thread running through all these people and their acts it is self-deception. They have convinced themselves that their policies, methods or acts are good when it is plainly otherwise.

Problems get worse still when they are gifted communicators or able to employ others to write speeches for them, for then they become dangerously influential. After all, once you have deceived yourself, it's a doddle to deceive others. In their evil, they are 100% sincere.

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It occurs to me that, in some church circles, "outreach" has stopped meaning "reaching out" and now means "reeling in"...

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I understand he might have been important to some people, but, let us be honest, its not like he has the cultural significance of, say, Nigel Blackwell from Half Man Half Biscuit.

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