The cause of all pain is NOT Sin.

Christian Fundamentalist Myth #1 - The cause of all pain is Sin.

The implication is that pain/suffering could've been avoided with righteousness [non-sin].

A first response is "well, I didn't sin. and yet this bad thing happened to me (causing pain)."

The American Christian fundamentalist's response to that would be something like, "well, maybe you didn't sin, but someone did."
[this is where it gets a bit muddy.]

"Either the person who put that pain upon you (obviously the murderer, the thief, the adulterer, the liar, etc.) - you were a victum of disobedience to God."

OR

"Your own actions of sin caused this pain/suffering. You brought it upon yourself."

OR

"The cause of the pain was the sin of your forefathers - even if we have to go all the way back to Adam and Eve who did the first sin."

These answers are not good enough - though they contain enough truth to muddy up the issue causing you to feel at fault for your own pain.

The part about evil men hurting you holds true. Their sin did cause your pain. A bad man hits me over the head with a baseball bat, sending me into a coma, depriving my family of an income and a father. His sin caused my pain.

The other view is you caused it yourself. The normal implication from an evangelical preacher would be something like, "Well, maybe you was sinning by hanging out with bad people, or you did some hidden sin that caused this [karma-like] evil to come upon you." This is often thought, implied, and used as an excuse to distribute guilt and ignore suffering.
Another twist on this thought is: "well maybe its just your response to the situation that holds the sin that actually causes your pain" Something like, "If you didn't try to play God and be in control of your own life in the first place (implying that you don't trust God to make your decisions for you and somehow don't metaphysically manifest Himself in you) then you would not feel this pain/suffering or notice it as painful. (see, it gets muddy)

They call it "putting God/Christ on the throne of your life") - [Pastor Mark of Wimberley First Baptist preached a whole sermon on this thread yesterday].

The implication of this is some kind of evangelical twist involving the truism that if we respond positively to a negative situations we can still be happy - even in sad settings. (This has some obvious mixed truths and lies that we can't go into now.)

The part of all this I don't like - is somehow it's still your fault. You COULD avoid the suffering if you were somehow less sinful, more spiritual, or a better responder. (or something like that).

Jesus' first disciples had this mistaken and harmful view also. They came upon a blind man from birth and they asked him, "Who was it that did the sin - causing this man to be born blind? The man himself or his parents?" [John 9:2]

Jesus responded, "Neither."

Neither. Nobody did some kind of sin that caused this man to suffer. Not the man, not the parents. And by implication, not the parents' parents' partents' parents.

Then why was he born blind? Why was his whole life one of suffering - the loss of eyesight and begging on the streets? - life as a burden to himself and to all. I don't know. Jesus really didn't answer them other than healing the man and telling his disciples the reason was so that God's glory could be revealed.

That's a bit mysterious.

But it wasn't because the man or the man's parents caused it by sinning.
We do Christianity and our brothers and sisters a grave disservice by perpetuating this myth that "the cause of all suffering is Sin." We also allow grief and suffering to continue by believing this lie.

We should be healing the people that suffer. Not explaining their pain with non-Jesus theologies.

Our call is to heal.

Guess Or Google - "it's a phrase !"

"guess or google" - Google Search

...heard a phrase from the DJ on radio today asking callers to answer a trivia question for a prize... in passing he said you could "guess or google" the answer.

I hereby predict this phrase - "guess or google" - will become a common lingustically redundant clause of Americana nomenclature.

"guess or google" returns only 81 hits if googled today.

..... we'll see how many hits it returns a week, a month, a year from now

or

if you ever hear this more than once - then i will be proved right

or

if you ever use "guess or google" as a phrase - - then i will be proved right

...if i am proved right, i will immediately declare myself "master guru Nostrodomus-like predicter of cultural nomenclature changes".

(google that ... hmmmm...)

the Moon

Almost 50 years old and just learning how the moon works - pathetic..... I've always been curious but never quite understood the cycle "new moon" "waxing/waning".... that kind of stuff.... i mean when you look up at the moon (this same moon that all mankind looks at every night and has done so for ... hmmmm .... how long?) do you know if it's getting bigger? smaller? how fast it changes? what's a quarter moon? etc.

Well you get the idea. I went to this Virtual Reality Moon site and this site and putting the two together you can figure it out.

My question is, how did I grow up? get through grade school? get a college degree? (in Environmental Science even!?) and grow to be 49 years old? and live in the deep dark Texas hill country? and still not follow what the moon does ???!!??

...the one giant orb in the sky that has ruled the night and earth and humanity and the animals and the people for eternity.... the most primitive cave man ancestor that i ever had would have understood what he looked at every night and would've had names for each face... and would've known what to expect the next night - all his life! It was assumed knowledge.

...and i look at the moon nightly and go, "hmmm", if that, and not much else.

...society somewhere let me down... this should've been taught like in kindergarten. Are we that much removed from nature!?

Anyway.... Bruce Lee's son has a nice quote of mortality and the moon that's actually on his grave stone. He's buried next to his dad in Seattle. Here's a picture of me pondering them both (from this page.)

Multitasking Myth

Multitasking Myth - Google Search

Yes! I knew it!

I've been saying for years now that multitasking is basially a myth.

A VP of a major business here just said to us recently, "You can only focus on about 5 things at a time."

That's plain erroneous.

You can only focus on 1 thing at a time. (sure you can DO multiple things at a time that don't really take thought - walking and chewing gum for instance, even driving and talking on the phone, but let me see you brush your teeth and comb your hair at the same time.)

Now I've found the studies and the charts to explain it.

I love it when my intuitive self-realizations goes against everything my surrounding culture tells me - and then I turn out to be right!

Wahoo!!! (...and it seems to happen more often than not.)

:)

Ambiguous Replies to CYA

...while emailing a co-worker here yesterday - trying to find some answers to questions - i finally realized the answers given me could just as easily come from a magic 8-ball.

.... on about the 12th email reply, I told her this. She didn't think it was funny, but all her answers were buttressed with caveats such as "I believe blah blah is the case", "blah is true unless your boss tells you otherwise", "as far as I know...", etc.

... i can't write computer programs based on that. Computers and logic have a strong tendency to be binary.

After analyzing this some i've realized this is a corporate cultural tendency - so i went to my favorite corporate guru and tried to find a dilbert cartoon that utilizes the Magic 8-Ball. I couldn't find one but i did find a quote and the list of 8-Ball responses - both published here. [please forward the dilbert comic if someone finds it.]

The Necessarily Ambiguous List of Acceptable Corporate Replies

Reply hazy, try again.
Better not tell you now.
Ask again later.
Concentrate and ask again.
Cannot predict now.
Signs point to yes.
Most likely.
As I see it, yes.
You may rely on it.
Outlook good.
It is decidedly so.
My sources say no.
Very doubtful.
My reply is no.
Outlook not so good.
Don't count on it.


I've didn't include the following absolute statements from the original Magic 8-Ball because they don't really fit in with our corporate culture:

Yes.
Without a doubt.
Yes - definitely.
It is certain.


Scott Adam's 8-Ball Corporate Wisdom

Dilbert.com - DNRC - Read the Newsletter: "If you replaced all of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies with Magic 8 Balls (tm), and came back in five years, you would discover that some of those companies had compiled excellent track records by pure chance. The CEO's job in a huge company is essentially the same as the Magic 8 Ball: saying yes, no, or maybe, without the benefit of understanding the questions. A Magic 8 Ball is highly qualified for that sort of work."

Manic Management

I koined this phrase "Manic Management" trying to describe what I see as a fractured-focus quasi attempt to solve problems that results more in churn than in productivity. It's measured more by the high energy input and frantic interactions than by success for the long haul within short periods of time. Meetings burst open and slam shut and you're back next week on the same problem, each time thinking you've solved something but you haven't.

Churn is a new term I've learned here at work also. It can best be described as walking hard on a treadmill and then looking up asking, "Hey, are we there yet?" And everybody does it.

Anyway, I thought I was being witty and wrote these 7 tips addressing the concept. Now, it's been on my whiteboard in my cubical for more than a couple of days, and I may be offending people with it - the cardinal sin of office cube etiquette. I need to erase it, so I'll slap it on this wall and see if it sticks.

7 Tips to Avoid "Manic Management"

1. Less is usually more
2. Don't confuse multi-tasking with multi-accomplishing
3. Sound coming from the mouth does not equal expressed knowledge
4. Remember: Your $.02 probably won't pay the tax
5. It can be planned without being done
   It can be done without being planned
   It cannot be done without being done
6. Too much information is the problem - not the solution
7. "Fractured Focus" is a symptom of our age. Avoid it.

Why I don’t want Burnett Ranch Turned into Another Subdivision

1. I hate subdivisions
2. Less water for everybody
3. Subdivisions suck
4. If I wanted to look out my window into someone else's window, I would move back to suburbia
5. Burnett Ranch wasn't meant to turn into suburbia
6. I like walking to my neighbor's house and it taking longer than 30 seconds
7. I like wildlife
8. I'd rather see deer, raccoons, rabbits and foxes, than concrete, driveways, roofs, cars, and bulldozers
9. Enough is enough
10. I lived in tract homes and didn't like it
11. Trees are better than buildings and concrete
12. I'm looking for a peaceful co-existence with neighbors and nature
13. I am not looking for a peaceful co-existence with developers, businessmen and real estate profiteers that live somewhere else
14. I clear cedar and own and live on the property I bought and want others to be able to experience that same joy
15. I believe in clearing, working and living on your own land - a way of life nearly extinct
16. Bulldozers destroy nature, they don't make it
17. I'm sick of living elbow-to-elbow with commonly designed housing projects designed by some developer for his benefit
18. I moved to Burnett Ranch to live different than the 99% of Americans - is that so wrong?
19. I like nature
20. I hate subdivisions, tract homes, "custom"-housing-that-looks-the-same and grieve the loss of the last bit of American frontierism which is still alive in Burnett Ranch
21. People buying property to chop up into smaller units to sell most likely aren't planning on living here and planting a garden and becoming a good neighbor
22. Light pollution from the concentration of homes blots out that pretty starry night I've gotten used to seeing
23. I seriously dislike traffic
24. Hays County already has water wells going dry. How much more water do you think is down there?
25. A good thing is a good thing is a good thing. The style of living and the size of lots existing in Burnett Ranch provide a good thing. This good thing will erode away once we start allowing the further subdividing of the existing land into smaller and smaller suburban-style lots.