So, Peterr, odd time of day to find you here. Can’t wait to read your post!

It would be more odd to see me here on a Sunday morning.

*g*

I’ll take a stab at looking for the answer in “The Purpose Drivel Knife” by John McThirdterm

Is that a rhetorical question, Peterr?

It’s Sunday morning somewhere right now.

Guess that’s right!

You know, your question brings to mind a recent accusation made against Obama: that he may be the antiChrist. Kinda makes you wonder which of the two candidates is closer to that biblical figure.

Wondering what you thought about the questions from last night. Please note, I did not say I was wondering about the answers, or even the questioner or his intentions. Just the questions.

Uh Peterr?

I don’t think I’d be holding my breath waiting for an answer. Especially since your question cannot be answered by someone like McCain without him breaking a few of the Commandments along the way.

I second your question, Rev. Peter, as a Christian and as someone on nmy way to seminary, if that’s still His will. Thank you very much for asking.

With gratitude,
Heather

A theological question, Dr B.

The answer to a rhetorical question is, by definition, obvious. This is about as far from a rhetorical question as one can get, as I can’t begin to conceive of what McCain’s answer might be.

And I’ve got a rather fertile imagination.

Sen McCain, the foundation fable of your “faith” biography is the “cross in the dirt” at Hanoi Hilton. Was that borrowed from “Gulag Archipelago” or are you the victim of another in a long series of coincidences?

Dear anti-American non-patriot Peterr,

Thank you for your question.

I already told everybody that life begins at conception…that includes tr*ll*ps, brown people, and g**ks…so what more do you want from me…Jesus was probably tortured in the name of national security anyway, and besides I already also said that faith means…it means that I’m saved if I say those 16 words by…I don’t remember…Jake, John, George…something like that…or was it Jake 16…whatever..

John McCheater

Perfect, Peterr.

I didn’t see much of the forum last night. I was working on some things for Sunday morning, and came in at the middle of Obama’s section and left before McCain finished.

My sense of the questions, from what I saw, is that they were a mixed bag. Some struck me as well-crafted, and designed to get past some of the sound-bites/stump speeches. Others, sadly, seemed to elicit the stump speeches. At some point, I need to watch the whole thing. Judging from the liveblogging last night (that I read this afternoon), it could be quite interesting, professionally speaking.

But when the front page of so many papers today carried the photo of Warren standing between McCain and Obama, that tells me that the real “winner” last night was Rick Warren. This did not surprise me in the least.

Peterr, I think it’s safe to say ole Johnny hasn’t read up on the teachings of Jesus. He says he goes to church but I would imagine he’s lying about it. Anyways, Jesus’ suffering isn’t something ole Johnny ever wants to think about. He spends his days making sure the 8 homes he owns with his mistress/wife are in good working order while he berates and belittles those making $5 million or less because they’re so poor. See?

Nice one Peterr, awaiting an answer will be like looking for a reflection in a mirror of Dracula, aint gonna happen. For one, I don’t follow belief driven religion but I know it has its place in the scheme of things. I do know that there is evil, it is where ever there is falsehood. Like Dracula, falsehood is never found in the mirror of fact.

Actually, that “fish in the dirt” story has roots that go back to the first century in Christian history. It’s been told in many places, well before McCain or the Gulag Archipelago, as a way in which two Christians identified themselves to each other in times when the church was living under persecution. The only two people who could possibly verify it are McCain and the guard.

See wiki: Ichthys

The right wingers over the past 8 years have taken the time to redefine words to make themselves feel better. For instance…

Liberal means bad, war, no peace…

whereas,

Republican means peace, white, just, pure, and good.

Other examples:

Being poor means….you’re happy with your life.
Being rich means….you’re unhappy with your life and suffer everyday.
Torture is good for the soul.
Being treated with respect and dignity is the work of Satan.

See? Just like the commercial says…you really can learn a lot from a dummy.

Addendum question/s for Rev Rick:

Did you know that John McCain knew your questions before you asked them…or did the crafty ol’ codger dupe you?

Since you made such a point of saying you were asking both candidates the same questions, and telling Obama he could not use his stump speech, why did you not protest when McCain used his stump speech talking points?

Excellent question. Unfortunately, we now live in a country where thoughtfulness and self-reflection have become synonyms for cowardice and elitism. So, I would not expect a real answer to such a question for some years to come…

Digg it Pups!

he owns with his mistress/wife/buffalo chip entrant

fixed it for ya

Religion seems to be a terrible test for selecting a President. Just look at Bush, an alleged Christian. Now we have McCain and we can’t even be sure what his religion is. He was raised an Episcopalian and now claims to be a Baptist. He said that “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.” What is McCain, really, besides yet another blatant Republic oportunist?

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires a President to be a Chritian. Yet, since there is no chance that anyone with another belief would be elected, Republic canidates are happy to lie and Republic voters are happy to believe their lies.

Rev Peterr, your question suggests a basis for questioning your patriotism! McCain was captured, imprisoned, and tortured, so therefore I question your fidelity to US fidelity to the Roman Empire.

However, I am singularly troubled by your references to a ‘kangaroo court,’ ‘no real evidence,’ ‘torture,’ and ‘media-driven spectacle.’ Why do you hate Saddam Hussein’s Iraq George Bush’s America?

That’s true about Warren being the real winner. Do you suppose that was planned that way? *G* But by and large, I felt the questions were better than we have heard from the MSM or other organizations. There were a few I found too “fundie” for my taste (when do individuals start deserving human rights protection, for instance) but I thought, for the most part, they were fair. Similar to what you want to see for a job interview, which, in essence, it was.

Well while they believe their lies they also don’t remember what they were all jumping up and down in unison 8 yrs ago. When Clinton’s infidelity and lies came up the cries were deafening now they serve up Johnny McShame.

Perhaps they don’t believe what they say and only say those things when it’s to their advantage. It’s all part of being able to claim to be a Christian and never, ever, being challenged on that claim.

Thank you, sir, for asking the same question I’ve been wanting to ask my more (politically) conservative Christian friends. I used to think of those folks as Pharisess. I was wrong. In the last thirty years, I’ve seen them go all in on being Sadducees, with the same overly literal interpretation of scriptures and the same attraction to wealth and power. Just as the Sadducees became agents of the Roman empire, the Religious Right has become complicit in the worst excessives of the American empire.

The question at the very end — “Quick — in 20 seconds, what would you say to people who oppose me asking you these questions in a church?” — struck me as a very slanted way of trying to address the issue of church and state, and was about as subtle as my question above about torture. If the question was worth asking, it was worth asking at a time when the two candidates had sufficient time to give a complete answer.

Of course, the question also was Rick Warren’s way of making sure the last word in the debate was about him and his church.

One could challenge them on their claims and they would respond with their code words – your a liberal or socialist or Godless (Ann Coulter)

too bad he’s on vacation. I was hoping to see Toles toil, inking to “Warren Piece”.

Not challenging lets them get away with saying anything.

I think I could handle being called “godless” by Ann Coulter. I’ve been called worse by Fred Phelps.

Of course, in the interests of civil discourse, I would hope that Coulter would call me “Rev. Godless”

True enough just have to make sure I stocked up on Pepto

Book Salon upstairs with Tula hosting Steve Greenhouse

Dear Pastor Peterr:

In the 21st Century, nations do not torture and execute divine saviors, and due process applies — to divine saviors — in keeping with the time-honored principle of habeas corpus christi.

(For nondeities, all bets are off.)

Sincerely,

John McSame

It’s too bad that McStupid is such a computer illiterate he’ll never see the question. Peterr, will you be sending it to him via snail mail? Better send a bunch of copies, one to each of his 8 houses, just to make sure he gets it. Splendid post.

LOL!

(”habeas corpus Christi” . . . gotta remember that one. *g*)

*slaps forehead*

How could I have forgotten that?

Perhaps his daughter the blogger will print it out for him.

Well said. Thank you, Peterr.

Thank you for this post, peterr. I wish every American could see it.

i’m willin’ to bet she doesn’t venture much out of her ‘megan’s world’ to do much for anyone.

====

blew my gourd last night when mccain talked about his torturers–not even thinking how he condones torturers now. enemies-ok for them not ok for him.

thought he was drawing in sympathy i bet, but all he illustrated was how he learned nothing from his experiences.

i made a comment that repubs often say things in a double entendre, not even realizing they just supported the thing they were arguing against.

I have a “Faith-based” question for Obama. Do you anything to offer a gay black atheist like me — other than the undercarriage of the bus?

Your performance at yesterday’s “Purpose-Driven” Dog and Pony show was FUCKING PATHETIC!!!!

As much as I abhor McCain I contemplate voting for the likes of you with disgust and horror as a very last resort.

Jesus must have been a risk to national security.

Better yet, have someone with a beautiful Palmer handwriting (the best I’ve ever seen all come out of Catholic school in the 40s and 50s) write it out for him in longhand. That’ll make him feel all comfy.

Just in case I’m such an antique that nobody learns it any more, this is the Palmer script. It’s served me well for 56 years!

Although I don’t use it exactly as taught, that is the handwriting style I was taught. Far more legible than the spiky script that my grandmother had learned.

Isn’t that why God created the Internets?

And Digg?

*g*

Done Dugg it.

A. 9-1-1 changed everything.

B. In my particular Episcobaptist faith, it’s all God’s will.

C. I have faith that there is no inconsistency here, and faith is all that is required.

D. The principal that reconciles these is a Mystery, beyond human understanding.

E. Did I mention I’m a war hero?

Jesus stated His answer to the myriad soi disant “Christians” [read: Christianists and trimmers true blue]:

I know you not!

–Cleanth, MA,DPhil, ThD

Peterr,

I was thinking along the same lines last night, watching the weird spectacle. As I commented at majikthise yesterday, “tonight, on CNN, both presidential candidates kicked off their debate/forum regime at an eliminationist megachurch, hugging a pastor who welcomes Nigerian and Ugandan clergy who fund hunting expeditions that kill hundreds of non-Christian people.”

Can I re-post “A Faith-Based Question for John McCain”at Progressive Alaska?

Feel free!

I take it that you believe that there is absolute truth, and absolute falsehood? Enquiring minds want to know.

Thanks you kindly.

I’m already looking for Christ images involving Gitmo and Abu Ghraib detainees. I’m surprised at how many of them there are that don’t reference the most well-know, obvious one, of the hooded man on the stool, with his arms in the air.

Indeed, this tale has even earlier roots, much earlier than Christianity. Viz: “traces on the Rhodian shore”.

Some ancient-time Greeks, being shipwrecked and foundered on an island, knew that there was civilisation there because of geometric diagrams found scratched on the sand of the beach.

the hooded man on the stool, with his arms in the air

That one is SO obvious and SO pointed that the people who need to “see” it can’t or won’t allow themselves to.

Interesting…

http://whitenoiseinsanity.word…..ment-56631

I guess most of us were right about Rick Warren and Johnny McTeleprompter duping the masses out last night at the Saddleback Church!

Great question, Peterr! ow can we possibly be surprised if the prisoners’ societies apply the same principle of martyrdom to them as ours did to Jesus and end up revering them?

If you are looking for signs of acknowledgment of cognitive dissonance, I don’t think you’ll get them from McSame and pals. Same deal with the question “Based on BushCo pronouncements about invasions, Georgia is to Russia as Iraq is to ______?

Jesus must have been a risk to national security.

Have a look at the splendid “The Power Tactics Of Jesus Christ” by Jay Haley.
You can conveniently find it in a book of his essays thus entitled. He portrays Jesus as a sort of Saul Alinsky type who made a fatal miscalculation. There is a lot of perspicacity in his analysis, for theists too.

The ghastly thing to consider is that the man was posed that way specifically (maybe subconsciously) to mimic a crucifixion. I don’t care to let my mind wander too far down that path…

Oohh snap! And dugg

However, Palmer and Spencerian script degenrates when written at speed. In Europe, Chancery (Italic) script is taught in schools, and has been for a very long time. In this script, the edged pen guides the hand and so one is able to write legibly at speed, and with ease.

And the extremely pricey and chi-chi private schools (at least in NYC) teach some sort of bastard child of Italic and block printing. It’s completely unmistakable to anyone who’s ever seen it, and what it says is basically “I don’t give a crap about what my handwriting looks like — I have a social secretary to write out my invitations.” You should just SEE my high school yearbook… (I did a deuce at one of those schools on scholarship for grades 11 and 12.)

A question I’d put to the candidates is – Why is this the forum you’ve chosen as a “special interest” debate? Why are you not debating ecology and energy policy in front of a group of scientists? Why are you not debating Constitutional matters in front of a group of lawyers?

Instead, you choose to debate morality in a place where one might infer that those who don’t believe in that religion, and those of us for whom religion is not a concern, are automatically not experts? Why were there no professors of philosophy asking some questions, war correspondents, doctors, or anyone else who has to wrestle with real-world ethical issues as part of their jobs?

I should add, Peterr, that I like your question.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama weren’t willing to do what you suggest. Can you even try to imagine McStupid’s handlers allowing him within 100 yards of such a situation? I’d LOVE to see it, but it won’t happen.

Sadly, you’re probably right on both counts.

Hi, Marion!

Those Chancery Script knockoffs are indeed abominable. But if you look at, say, the copy-books of Arrighi, you will, perhaps, agree that this is the acme of handwriting.

Iam sure that you had/have lovely handwriting. My late mother also had lovely Palmeresque handwriting, as taught her in elementary school. But this script does indeed degenerate at speed.

When I went abroad for a large part of my academic career, I noted that many Europeans write their “r” and “t” letters much differentaly to those schooled in the US. Their letter formation conduces to fluid, rapid writing of those letters. Myself, I find the cursive styles taught me in the US as a mere child to have been difficult to write, and my handwriting in those days often incurred the censorious disdain of my teachers. Now I write fine Italic hand. I also custom grind my nibs, being left-handed. Fine quality italic-edged-sharp nibs are coming back into style. Formerly they were fairly standard in fine pens. Nibmeisters such as Richard Binder or John Mottishaw have a brisk trade making custom italic nibs and nib conversions here in the US. Waiting times approach a year-and-one half now.

Because most ‘murricans are idjits, Cujo.

Oh, please don’t get me wrong. Real Italic is fluid and beautiful. It’s the half-bastard thing that’s taught that’s hideous. I know about the “r” and “t” that you’re talking about, I think.

As a lefty you must have suffered the agonies of the damned if you’re of a certain age. I recall that EVERYONE in the class (lefties included) had to position their paper JUST SO… Which was, of course, completely wrong for southpaws. I hope that you weren’t tormented that way!

In my public grammar school there was a delightful 4th grade teacher who signed everyone’s yearbook or autograph book using an italic nib and with a particularly beautiful hand, replete with flourishes. We would hover over her signature for what seemed like forever until the ink dried because we didn’t want it to smudge.

I remember seeing one left-hander who found it easiest to simply hold the paper sideways, and write vertically. There’s no doubt that script writing, at least the way I was taught, favors right-handers.

We were told that we had to point the lower left corner of the paper at our stomach. Makes a good angle for a righty, impossible for a southpaw. When left-handed kids tried to point the lower RIGHT corner of the paper at their stomach, to align it properly for them, they were told not to. Insane.

The next special interest group “Focus” should be hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Peterr,

“You gotta have a sense of humor, my friend.”

Love in Christ,
John McCain

Now there’s a great idea!

I am no Rev Peterr or Rev Rick, Not even a Reverend.

Didn’t sleep in a holiday inn express last night.

But I ask of the Reverends, not because I am pure, religious, et al, to the contrary. I don’t project any false pretenses of my better than thou.
Self described “Thrill Seeker” is a close description………….

I ask because how some portay themselves, how they portray others and those that enable their lies for profit or fame.

So I ask,
“Senator McCain, recently at a campaign stop at Sturgis,S.D.. Where you spoke with Hells Angels and thrill seekers, you were the opening act for Kid Rock, you offered and encouraged your wife, Cindy McCain, to enter in the Buffalo Chip Queens’s competition. You boasted from the stage to these Hells Angels and other thrill seekers for your wife to do it..

*Sir, where was your God that day?

*How does your faith in the Lord allow you to offer your wife into a contest of public sexual content? (nudeness and Banana acts to excite the bikers for votes)?.

*Did your wife refuse ? And if so, what was her refusing reason ?

*If you excuse yourself for “not being aware of what the contest involved”, what else would you offer your wife up for & expose her to without prior knowledge for personal gain? (would it also include no clothes and sexual acts with banana’s ?)
-And if President, what else would you offer America into without prior knowledge?

*Now knowing about the contest,

A) Would you here and now like to appoligize to your wife in public after humiliating her in public ? (if you believe she was humiliated)?

B) Would you believe, (in front of these Christians today), that the Buffalo Chip Queen contest is Risky, sinful, sexual lewd activity?

*Senn McCain, My Friend, you already stated there is Good and Evil.
Is the Buffalo Chip Queen contest Good or Evil in your opinion?

Would you as President promise now to ban such Pagan acts in this Christan Nation?

Good morning, just got your response.

I do know that there is evil, it is where ever there is falsehood. Like Dracula, falsehood is never found in the mirror of fact.

you wrote:

I take it that you believe that there is absolute truth, and absolute falsehood? Enquiring minds want to know.

Please indicate just where absolute truth or absolute falsehood are found in what I wrote. You ask about belief, I spoke of knowledge. Please demonstrate the relationship between truth and fact, if indeed there is one.

cleanth, you are new here apparently, I do enjoy your engagement in the discussions here, there is a fresh point of view usually expressed. However, I would note, you also bring a mountains worth of hubris with you, just be cautious around the doGs. Just say’n