Dear Fred,
Here is a news item you won't read on The Thinking Housewife's blog.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/male-ranger-says-female-students-did.html
Here is a news item you won't read on The Thinking Housewife's blog.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/male-ranger-says-female-students-did.html
Given "The Right's" passion for employing anecdotal "exceptions to rules" to "prove" New Rules, it is surprisingly that the natural "abnormalities" of life -- homosexuality; or strong women with no interest in parenting (many nuns among them); or the existence of numerous pacifist sects among anabaptist Christians -- are not celebrated with an honored place in The Natural Order.
The GOP And Obamacare: Governing By Anecdote
http://paxonbothhouses.
Once The Natural Order is defined as encompassing "exceptions" -- exceptions that were formerly considered "disorderly deviations" from The Natural Order -- much of the medieval moral edifice collapses, at least in the minds of Christian conservatives, among the most brittle, shatter-prone people on earth.
If human behavior is ever defined as intrinsically "exceptional" in any of its manifestations, then "aberrant" (aka "exceptional") behavior is no longer "willfully perverse" but subject to "deviant" rules embedded in creation.
N.B. "Deviant" derives from two Latin words meaning "away from the way." The Latin roots also appear in the Spanish verb "desviarse" meaning "to take a detour." The road less traveled... http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=deviant
This deviance/deviation is The Essential Fear that absolutist Christians confront. And not just fear but existential terror. If The Natural Order is not absolutely "orderly" (at least as conservative Christians conceive order) then what?!?
Pertinent to this discussion is the central scientific concept of "standard deviation from the norm," an epistemological category based on the commonplace "finding" that most deviation is not "diabolical" but "standard."
Laura's correspondent, Don Vincenzo, argues the decisive importance of a relatively new regulation that exempts military "candidates" from the erstwhile obligation to wear "army boots" while doing "training runs," a purported accommodation of women's relative inability in this regard. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2015/08/my-mother-was-an-army-ranger/#more-84543
Notably, the Army's two new female Rangers were given no slack.
Military.com informs us that "The training is physically grueling, with soldiers required to pass a fitness test that includes 49 push-ups within 2 minutes, 59 sit-ups, a 5 mile run within 40 minutes and six chin-ups. Additionally, would-be Rangers must be able to remove their gear in water and then swim 15 meters in their uniform and boots."
The conservative argument on behalf of "The Natural Order" is compelled to extrapolate "generalities" into "universalities" (at least implicitly) whereas The Universe itself incorporates many "exceptions to rules" as an intrinsic part of The Natural Order.
"John, The Apostle Jesus Loved Rests His Head On Yeshua's Breast At The Last Supper"
Gregory Bateson threw down the gauntlet: "Natural History is the antidote for piety." (Louis Bunuel's film classic, Viridiana, comes to mind. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/viridiana/)
Although The Bell Curve defines a remarkable range of statistical normality, any scientific perspective deriving from The Bell Curve necessarily includes "normal" outliers.
As part of its ongoing revelation, Science teaches us that exceptions are intrinsic to The Way.
This normality of "abnormality" resides at the heart of the matter.
Those who refuse to immerse themselves in the scientific findings tend to be heartless.
To maintain their heartlessness (while feeling "good about it") they deny science to avoid the findings themselves.
Conservatives cannot change because they cannot change.
If this seems tautological, so be it: American conservatives are caught in a tautological loop.
Any recognition that they are not absolutely right will demonstrate their a priori wrongness.
Demonstrably wrong, the only meaning that has ever informed their lives disappears.
Better to persist in pigheadedness than to lose one's foundational "meaning."
For once meaning goes -- or so they fear -- all "trustworthy" sense of identity goes with it and there is nothing more terrifying than the loss of identity.
In the end, many people (probably most) will fight-to-the-death over "values" because without values --- even if their values are ill-informed (perhaps especially when their values are ill-informed) --- there is no hope of meaning.
Absolutists are not absolutists because absolutism is right.
They are absolutists because their psycho-spiritual structure -- conditioned by absolutism -- requires it.
The scenario plays out like this...
Conservatives cannot change because they cannot change.
If this seems tautological, so be it: American conservatives are caught in a tautological loop.
Any recognition that they are not absolutely right will demonstrate their a priori wrongness.
Demonstrably wrong, the only meaning that has ever informed their lives disappears.
Better to persist in pigheadedness than to lose one's foundational "meaning."
For once meaning goes -- or so they fear -- all "trustworthy" sense of identity goes with it and there is nothing more terrifying than the loss of identity.
In the end, many people (probably most) will fight-to-the-death over "values" because without values --- even if their values are ill-informed (perhaps especially when their values are ill-informed) --- there is no hope of meaning.
Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal
Absolutists are not absolutists because absolutism is right.
They are absolutists because their psycho-spiritual structure -- conditioned by absolutism -- requires it.
The scenario plays out like this...
"I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant." "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist" "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" "Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.
Emo Philips
Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"
"The Danger Of Science Denial"
TED Talk by Michael Specter
http://paxonbothhouses.
The American Party: Know Nothing Nativism And Opposition To Catholic Immigration
http://paxonbothhouses.
Like the Pharisees, the Know Nothings are always with us.
Like the Pharisees, the Know Nothings are always with us.
A courageous woman named Vyckie Garrison blogs at "No Longer Quivering" where she documents her own (and others') escape and subsequent healing from "spiritual abuse." http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/
A courageous woman named Vyckie Garrison blogs at "No Longer Quivering" where she documents her own (and others') escape and subsequent healing from "spiritual abuse." http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/
Pax tecum
Alan
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