Why are these guys always Republicans?

[Marcus]

their community take the Bible "literally" (which is such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books)

I think you are really splitting hairs here Marcus, you know exactly what I meant.

Or is it suddenly the Lutherans/Presbyterians/Reformed tradition do not take the Bible to be the Word of God?

I'm confused, Nap, I do not know exactly what you meant. First you say taking the Bible "literally" is "such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books," and then you accuse me of taking the Bible literally? What am I to infer from that?

But to try again, yes, I do believe the Bible to be God's word transmitted to us through the vehicle of human authors and translators, but God often uses metaphor and analogy to get His point across.

[Skin Job]

It's lebensraum.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

their community take the Bible "literally" (which is such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books)

I think you are really splitting hairs here Marcus, you know exactly what I meant.

Or is it suddenly the Lutherans/Presbyterians/Reformed tradition do not take the Bible to be the Word of God?

I'm confused, Nap, I do not know exactly what you meant. First you say taking the Bible "literally" is "such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books," and then you accuse me of taking the Bible literally? What am I to infer from that?

But to try again, yes, I do believe the Bible to be God's word transmitted to us through the vehicle of human authors and translators, but God often uses metaphor and analogy to get His point across.

I know it goes against your dna to ever directly agree with me here...

but to quote azari: "come on, Marcus, come on"

There are various levels of hermeneutics that go with the Bible from the allegorical to the literal et al; but Typhoon's original contention was that he can determine who takes the Bible literally by living up to every proscription, jot and tittle in the text....that is reductionist; and ignores that most communities that use the texts of the Bible would contend that they do follow Scripture and take it "literally."

I don't know how to make it much simpler than: the scripture is read by a community, the community isn't read through scripture.

Now I am certain there are some people who self-identify as Christians who believe God wrote all the books in cursive and expects to follow every letter written down...but there is nothing that makes such acommunity (and its believers) "more true to the text" than a Methodist, an Anglican or someone in one of those Chinese house churches....

[Apollonius]

It's lebensraum.

It's actually Lebensraum.


But I thought he was trying to be clever: Liebestraum = lovers' dream

[Marcus]

J6_1Pw1xm9U

I couldn't agree more with what you've said below . . very nicely put.

. . Typhoon's original contention was that he can determine who takes the Bible literally by living up to every proscription, jot and tittle in the text....that is reductionist; and ignores that most communities that use the texts of the Bible would contend that they do follow Scripture and take it "literally."

I don't know how to make it much simpler than: the scripture is read by a community, the community isn't read through scripture. . .

[Farcus]

It's lebensraum.

It's actually Lebensraum.


But I thought he was trying to be clever: Liebestraum = lovers' dream

No such luck, as honor would have it said. I was on a roll.

Apologies to all affected.

[Typhoon]

. . .

"When I hear that there is a Japanese culture, the first question that comes to my mind is, "What's the cult?" Chuckle..?

Well, I lived in the US Midwest for ~ 7 years. Have you even spent time in Japan?

The point being that you know what a "biblical literalist" is because you lived in a midwestern city (Chicago, right?) for seven years?

I see you edited your post: so you dated a born again Christian girl too and they forbade dancing and drinking...some sort of Baptist....

and yet that doesn't really say anything other than, "I dated a Baptist girl."

Because that woman's community would probably say they take the Bible literally; but a Catholic would interject and say they take the Bible literally; then an Eastern Orthodox would say that they are taking it literally...

and we are back at square one.

Well, I'll don my Captain Obvious cape and note that I was replying to an irrelevant and rather broad brush stereotyping of Japanese culture.

[There is a Japan thread, fyi].

Anyways, continuing to don my cape, I would think that a biblical literalist is someone who believe that the bible is a literally true record of historical events.
This does not seem to be too difficult, no?

That different sects often [violently] disagree on what is the correct literal interpretation only indicates that there is no objective literal truth in ancient religious texts
be it the bible or other.

Be it Catholics vs Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Seventh Day Adventists vs Christian Scientists, the disagreements are over differences in dogma.

[Farcus]

their community take the Bible "literally" (which is such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books)

I think you are really splitting hairs here Marcus, you know exactly what I meant.

Or is it suddenly the Lutherans/Presbyterians/Reformed tradition do not take the Bible to be the Word of God?

I'm confused, Nap, I do not know exactly what you meant. First you say taking the Bible "literally" is "such a reductionist way of looking at a set of books," and then you accuse me of taking the Bible literally? What am I to infer from that?

But to try again, yes, I do believe the Bible to be God's word transmitted to us through the vehicle of human authors and translators, but God often uses metaphor and analogy to get His point across.

I know it goes against your dna to ever directly agree with me here...

but to quote azari: "come on, Marcus, come on"

There are various levels of hermeneutics that go with the Bible from the allegorical to the literal et al;

And no way to check any of them.

but Typhoon's original contention was that he can determine who takes the Bible literally by living up to every proscription, jot and tittle in the text....that is reductionist;

No it's not. That is what is commonly meant by, "Literal". You seek relief from the proscriptions of God in semantics.
Which of God's proscriptions can be disregarded? Which were "Corruptions" and the sad but inevitable translation drift? Who can say? Who keeps the DNS "A" record? "Why does a diesel love her oil like a sailor love his grog?" The answers are strikingly similar: "No one knows, Swab."

and ignores that most communities that use the texts of the Bible would contend that they do follow Scripture and take it "literally."

Isn't it great that there's so much a community can disregard or reinterpret of God's Word!? And since there's no way in theory or practice or possibility to check the effectiveness of a particular hermaneutic of interpretation, they're all equally valid and live as rooms in Our Father's House.

I don't know how to make it much simpler than: the scripture is read by a community, the community isn't read through scripture.

Ehhh....I think there's still a little deconstruction to do to make that coherent. In particular your wibble of the verb to read.

Now I am certain there are some people who self-identify as Christians who believe God wrote all the books in cursive and expects to follow every letter written down...but there is nothing that makes such acommunity (and its believers) "more true to the text" than a Methodist, an Anglican or someone in one of those Chinese house churches....

A long time ago, I came to the conclusion that because Christianity wasn't true, there was no necessary definition of Christian. That this applies to 'groups of Christians' with equal usefulness is further testament to the durability of that conclusion.

[Farcus]

Who the hell did Menken think produced the food he so ungratefully used to keep his sorry ass alive?

He didn't mind the food, but he did mind the ideas and the desire to spread them.

C'mon now . . what Mid-Western/country hicks "ideas" exactly? Why were they bad ideas? What so-called "desire" to spread them? Sounds like snobbish horse-puckey to me. Think for a minute: if working the land and producing food engenders a mindset so unilateral that it can be used to condescendingly smear all farmers and ranchers, what might that say about what it takes to be a farmer or rancher? What might it say could be the effects of farming and ranching on the human psyche? Poor Menken . . he hasn't a clue, and I mean that most literally. He's like a little snotty kid who climbs up on his daddy's dinner table in order to slap him in the face.

Liking tomatoes doesn't make it OK for a farmer to genuflect his daughter. You can take every Midwest frarmer in the Midwest and replace them with Communist Satanists, the corn and hogs would still end up in the microwave burrito because the knowledge is not held in a genuflecting value system.

Yeah, Menken was a clever guy . . lots of cute quips and all that, but given the poor bastard's mind-set, he'd have starved to death if he had to provide his own food.

HL Menken was fairly well-to-do. Oh...you mean like provide his own food with a Bowie knife or something? Now that's the standard.

[Ibrahim]

Thanks , you illustrate well the absurdity of stating that anyone would truly want to turn back the clock 100 years. Maybe I was being too subtle.

Very few people want to give up on modern medicine. What I think the so-called conservatives want is to be relevant again, both personally and their values. And these values tend to harken back to "ye olde times" and a different world.

It's an old game in the USA. Mencken wrote about it nearly 100 years ago and he couldn't possibly have been the first. In his not very tactful way, he saw the countryside dwellers as "the Middle West pumping its revolting silo juices into the East and West alike," stupid people looking to impose their ideas upon "their betters".

I would argue that conservative nostalgia for a golden age is actually utopianism, in that they want to build their version of a perfect society that never existed. However, as utopianism was often a (legitimate) critique of socialism it is necessary for conservatives to differentiate themselves from radical leftists by projecting their utopia into the past rather than predicting that it will be created in the future.

But suffice to say whatever era you want to look back at with nostalgia, there is always huge pile of details and counterexamples to bum you out. For marginalized groups its almost impossible to get excited about any point in history.

[YMix]

C'mon now . . what Mid-Western/country hicks "ideas" exactly? Why were they bad ideas? What so-called "desire" to spread them? Sounds like snobbish horse-puckey to me. Think for a minute: if working the land and producing food engenders a mindset so unilateral that it can be used to condescendingly smear all farmers and ranchers, what might that say about what it takes to be a farmer or rancher? What might it say could be the effects of farming and ranching on the human psyche? Poor Menken . . he hasn't a clue, and I mean that most literally. He's like a little snotty kid who climbs up on his daddy's dinner table in order to slap him in the face.

Yeah, Menken was a clever guy . . lots of cute quips and all that, but given the poor bastard's mind-set, he'd have starved to death if he had to provide his own food.

The funny part is that you and Mencken are very close on many issues (responsibility, debt, hard work). But he hated religion and what he called "world-improvers". The ideas coming out of the Mid-West or promoted by Mid-Westerners are things such as spiritualism, Christian Science, revivals, Chautauqua meetings, chiropractic medicine, osteopathy, Bible literalism, progressivism, Prohibition etc. He was rather inflexible in his view of what intelligent and civilized people should think and do.

As for starving to death, I don't know about that. He was a fair construction worker and gardener. He took care of his own backyard garden. During the Prohibition era, he brewed his own beer. The issue of "city people would starve without us hicks" was raised by William Jennings Bryan and Mencken made an attempt to refute it at some point by noting that the hicks called for drought aid or flood aid or food tariffs to keep prices high. He disliked the idea of taxing other people for one's misfortune just as much as you do. One of Mencken's favorite stories from his childhood was how his father rebuilt his business without borrowing after the family's cigar factory burned to the ground, including the entire stock of tobacco leaf.

[YMix]

I would argue that conservative nostalgia for a golden age is actually utopianism, in that they want to build their version of a perfect society that never existed. However, as utopianism was often a (legitimate) critique of socialism it is necessary for conservatives to differentiate themselves from radical leftists by projecting their utopia into the past rather than predicting that it will be created in the future.

But suffice to say whatever era you want to look back at with nostalgia, there is always huge pile of details and counterexamples to bum you out. For marginalized groups its almost impossible to get excited about any point in history.

Indeed. It could come down to how you face the terror of the future and all the uncertainty it brings. Do you believe in progress and in "things will always get better" or do you turn to the past and the sky god which guarantees that, no matter how bad the future turns out to be, you will end up in a good place, safe from harm and doubt.

[Parodite]

I would argue that conservative nostalgia for a golden age is actually utopianism, in that they want to build their version of a perfect society that never existed. However, as utopianism was often a (legitimate) critique of socialism it is necessary for conservatives to differentiate themselves from radical leftists by projecting their utopia into the past rather than predicting that it will be created in the future.

But suffice to say whatever era you want to look back at with nostalgia, there is always huge pile of details and counterexamples to bum you out. For marginalized groups its almost impossible to get excited about any point in history.

Indeed. It could come down to how you face the terror of the future and all the uncertainty it brings. Do you believe in progress and in "things will always get better" or do you turn to the past and the sky god which guarantees that, no matter how bad the future turns out to be, you will end up in a good place, safe from harm and doubt.

Isn't this true for everybody. Socialism can be viewed both as a nostalgic dream of the safe mother womb and projected into the future as an utopia. Can't think how it can be different for anybody. Nastalgic, good experiences are projected into the future as someting that needs to be prolonged, preserved. Even the most extreme radical functions by this principle.

[Marcus]

The funny part is that you and Mencken are very close on many issues (responsibility, debt, hard work). But he hated religion and what he called "world-improvers". The ideas coming out of the Mid-West or promoted by Mid-Westerners are things such as spiritualism, Christian Science, revivals, Chautauqua meetings, chiropractic medicine, osteopathy, Bible literalism, progressivism, Prohibition etc. He was rather inflexible in his view of what intelligent and civilized people should think and do.

As for starving to death, I don't know about that. He was a fair construction worker and gardener. He took care of his own backyard garden. During the Prohibition era, he brewed his own beer. The issue of "city people would starve without us hicks" was raised by William Jennings Bryan and Mencken made an attempt to refute it at some point by noting that the hicks called for drought aid or flood aid or food tariffs to keep prices high. He disliked the idea of taxing other people for one's misfortune just as much as you do. One of Mencken's favorite stories from his childhood was how his father rebuilt his business without borrowing after the family's cigar factory burned to the ground, including the entire stock of tobacco leaf.

I agree, YMix, Menken was a smart guy in many respects, but even the brightest can say stupid things from time to time. If, as you say, Menken hated "religion," then to be honest we must grant that Menken hated other people's religion when it differed from his, hated other people's ideas when they conflicted with his.

The country mouse/city mouse distinction transcends Menken's prejudices . . even Ibn Khaldun discusses it in his Prolegomenon, and Menken is stupid to not understand the necessity of disparate views and lifestyles to the health of the social psyche.

As for gardening, there's a helluva big difference in tending a backyard row of tomatoes and tending 40 acres of tomatoes to market. My gripe here is not with Menken but with the idea that the countryside is, in some way, a source of evil or stagnation. I once heard someone opine that the strength of Europe is her closeness to the land, and I believe it . . food is the primary link between humanity and the rest of creation. The problem with city life and with Menken's opinion is their disconnect in that regard.

[YMix]

Isn't this true for everybody. Socialism can be viewed both as a nostalgic dream of the safe mother womb and projected into the future as an utopia. Can't think how it can be different for anybody. Nastalgic, good experiences are projected into the future as someting that needs to be prolonged, preserved. Even the most extreme radical functions by this principle.

[Farcus]

The funny part is that you and Mencken are very close on many issues (responsibility, debt, hard work). But he hated religion and what he called "world-improvers". The ideas coming out of the Mid-West or promoted by Mid-Westerners are things such as spiritualism, Christian Science, revivals, Chautauqua meetings, chiropractic medicine, osteopathy, Bible literalism, progressivism, Prohibition etc. He was rather inflexible in his view of what intelligent and civilized people should think and do.

As for starving to death, I don't know about that. He was a fair construction worker and gardener. He took care of his own backyard garden. During the Prohibition era, he brewed his own beer. The issue of "city people would starve without us hicks" was raised by William Jennings Bryan and Mencken made an attempt to refute it at some point by noting that the hicks called for drought aid or flood aid or food tariffs to keep prices high. He disliked the idea of taxing other people for one's misfortune just as much as you do. One of Mencken's favorite stories from his childhood was how his father rebuilt his business without borrowing after the family's cigar factory burned to the ground, including the entire stock of tobacco leaf.

I agree, YMix, Menken was a smart guy in many respects, but even the brightest can say stupid things from time to time. If, as you say, Menken hated "religion," then to be honest we must grant that Menken hated other people's religion when it differed from his, hated other people's ideas when they conflicted with his.

The country mouse/city mouse distinction transcends Menken's prejudices . . even Ibn Khaldun discusses it in his Prolegomenon, and Menken is stupid to not understand the necessity of disparate views and lifestyles to the health of the social psyche.

As for gardening, there's a helluva big difference in tending a backyard row of tomatoes and tending 40 acres of tomatoes to market. My gripe here is not with Menken but with the idea that the countryside is, in some way, a source of evil or stagnation. I once heard someone opine that the strength of Europe is her closeness to the land, and I believe it . . food is the primary link between humanity and the rest of creation. The problem with city life and with Menken's opinion is their disconnect in that regard.

Farmers aren't conscripts. They get paid. If that's not enough, if they want to quit because some people aren't appreciative enough, that's fine too.

[Marcus]

Take away offsetters like predators, and an animal polulation wil increase until it exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, then crash, then increase, then crash... It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world.

An animal population without predators is very rare. Not the natural order of things. . .

Animal populations in the wild are subject not only to predation and food supply but also to space/territory requirements and cycles the causes of which we are ignorant. Snowshoe hares will increase over a period of years and then suddenly and dramatically decrease entirely independent of predator population or food supply. Too, disease will often decimate an animal population before it expands to the carrying capacity of its environment.

In this case as in most others, simple minds like simple answers. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[Ibrahim]

The human species is an exception and the historical growth in the human population and it's current deceleration disproves your claim.

Now you're the Malthusian. He said that human populations would be held in check by famine, pestilence, war, and God.
He was wrong about that. We may encounter the limits of carrying capacity before.

The human population is growing geometrically, like an animal population with fewer and fewer predators. Which is exactly what we are.

You're both right. Contraception has caused human population growth to break away from the traditional causes of population growth and decline, but it is also an extremely brief experiment in human history, let alone biological history as a whole. We don't know if this is something that will last.

[Ibrahim]

I would argue that conservative nostalgia for a golden age is actually utopianism, in that they want to build their version of a perfect society that never existed. However, as utopianism was often a (legitimate) critique of socialism it is necessary for conservatives to differentiate themselves from radical leftists by projecting their utopia into the past rather than predicting that it will be created in the future.

But suffice to say whatever era you want to look back at with nostalgia, there is always huge pile of details and counterexamples to bum you out. For marginalized groups its almost impossible to get excited about any point in history.

Indeed. It could come down to how you face the terror of the future and all the uncertainty it brings. Do you believe in progress and in "things will always get better" or do you turn to the past and the sky god which guarantees that, no matter how bad the future turns out to be, you will end up in a good place, safe from harm and doubt.

What is interesting among American conservatives is that I hear more and more of them "giving up" on the future and talking about apocalyptic scenarios. Though I think of this as less of a political stance than a power fantasy. Today you are another drone in an office chair, but after the great collapse you will be Mad Max thanks to your basement full of guns.

Fantasies aside, this has real political consequences as it makes some people give up on the political process by petulantly asserting that either their policies are adopted or the world declines into chaos. Though people with these views tend to group under the libertarian banner, meaning you have utopian conservatives and dystopian conservatives. Safe in a fantasy world (as you point out) or living a heroic life of action in a very different kind of fantasy world.

[Marcus]

Here you go, YMix, Menken's prejudices explained:

. . Indeed it can be observed that there are few religious people in towns and cities, inasmuch as people there are for the most part obdurate and careless, which is connected with the use of much meat, seasonings, and fine wheat. The existence of pious men and ascetics is, therefore, restricted to the desert, whose inhabitants eat frugally. . .

—Ibn Khaldun, Prolegomenon, circa 1400

[YMix]

Here you go, YMix, Menken's prejudices explained:

. . Indeed it can be observed that there are few religious people in towns and cities, inasmuch as people there are for the most part obdurate and careless, which is connected with the use of much meat, seasonings, and fine wheat. The existence of pious men and ascetics is, therefore, restricted to the desert, whose inhabitants eat frugally. . .

—Ibn Khaldun, Prolegomenon, circa 1400

He doesn't take into account education. But other than that, it's as good an explanation as any other.

[Mr. Perfect]

The claim that eugenicists are always leftist is false.

Of course this could be applied to what ibs is saying, but you did not challenge him and challenged me instead.

Why is that do you think.

[Farcus]

The claim that eugenicists are always leftist is false.

Of course this could be applied to what ibs is saying, but you did not challenge him and challenged me instead.

Why is that do you think.

One would have to accept your first proposition before answering the second. This may well explain the lack of response.

[monster_gardener]

Here you go, YMix, Menken's prejudices explained:

. . Indeed it can be observed that there are few religious people in towns and cities, inasmuch as people there are for the most part obdurate and careless, which is connected with the use of much meat, seasonings, and fine wheat. The existence of pious men and ascetics is, therefore, restricted to the desert, whose inhabitants eat frugally. . .

—Ibn Khaldun, Prolegomenon, circa 1400

Thank You Very Much for your post, Marcus.

But wasn't Christianity initially urban........... so much so that IIRC the term "pagan" comes from "pagus" meaning villager and thus refers to a rustic believer in the "Old Religions".......

Likewise "heathen"......... someone from the heath........... in the country.........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan

[Marcus]

Here you go, YMix, Menken's prejudices explained:

. . Indeed it can be observed that there are few religious people in towns and cities, inasmuch as people there are for the most part obdurate and careless, which is connected with the use of much meat, seasonings, and fine wheat. The existence of pious men and ascetics is, therefore, restricted to the desert, whose inhabitants eat frugally. . .

—Ibn Khaldun, Prolegomenon, circa 1400

Thank You Very Much for your post, Marcus.

But wasn't Christianity initially urban........... so much so that IIRC the term "pagan" comes from "pagus" meaning villager and thus refers to a rustic believer in the "Old Religions".......

Likewise "heathen"......... someone from the heath........... in the country.........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan

Dunno, mg, I didn't say it, Khaldun did. My own opinion is that "urban" today hardly equates with what passed for "urban" 2000 years ago. Those folks, due to the limits of daily transport of food supplies, would have been subject to rural influence to a degree not possible in an urban environment today. Don't forget, city-mouse Menken was pissing on country mice in the Midwest, the folks who were responsible for much of what he ate.

I think the Menken quote represents a fundamental disconnect between modern, urban life and rural life, a disconnect to our detriment. Some while back I read a book about a guy who fished the 45th parallel around the world. While visiting a friend and family in Paris, the author related how the husband would, on weekends, take his family out to rural lakes where they would picnic and set crawdad traps. After returning home, the family would clean and cook the crawdads. The husband remarked, "It keeps me sane." Too bad Menken couldn't have met Wendell Berry.

crawdads.jpg (130.74 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

Print by Swedish artist, Carl Larrson . . catching crawdads . .