Caution, disclaimer, advisory if you think there is nothing to laugh at in regards to Covid and/or politics, stop reading, now. Continue reading
Religion and Politics
Posted in For Anyone who dares, Missouri Megatrends
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The Trolley Problem, FSD Mode, & ATOO
The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics in which in a fictional scenario an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person. The term is often used more loosely with regard to any choice that seemingly has a trade-off between what is good and what sacrifices are “acceptable,” if at all. English philosopher Philippa Foot introduced this version of the trolley problem in 1967, but philosopher Judith Thompson of MIT coined the term Trolley Problem (Merriam Webster.com/wordplay). Continue reading
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?, Families
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PFocus – Visit to Pflugerville Community Church
I struggle to write concise blogs of my visits to other churches. Pflugerville Community Church is just like the dozen other Contemporary Worship churches I have visited. The leaders all, including the LCMS and WELS churches, address the congregation as ‘church’ not people of God, as it was in the 90’s. For example, “Good morning church.” “Let me tell you church.” And this go around I noticed the prominence of the pastor, worship leader, music minister, introducing themselves like so: “It is my privilege to be a – insert job here – at -insert church here.” They must all be dipping from the same well as they all dress, speak, and act the same. Yet all of them think of themselves as “independent” because they are non-denominational. Continue reading
Posted in Contemporary Worship, Missouri Megatrends
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Let’s Stop Putting a Question Mark over Baptismal Regeneration
For centuries, the practice among Lutherans has been to ask the sponsors on behalf of the infant to be baptized to confess the faith and renounce the devil for him. Once ordained in 1983, I used the liturgy as then TLH had it and later Lutheran Worship. The Lutheran Service Book has it likewise, but like all their other tweaks, they made it longer. I used this order a few times in the Bible Belt surrounded by active and maybe even activist, Baptist. I could not answer how my asking infants if they renounced the devil and believed in the Triune God any different from their believer’s Baptism. I couldn’t explain how that practice meshed with the Lutheran acceptance of Baptismal Regeneration. I still can’t. So for 35 or better years I have left those questions to the sponsors out of the rite. Continue reading
Posted in Contemporary Worship, Missouri Megatrends
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That Don’t Impress Me Much
Crosspoint Church, Georgetown, Texas is my third outing to a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod church. At the following link you can view the one I attended on 23 April 2023: https://crosspointgtx.wpengine.com/liveworship/ . But if you want to know where the service and sermon originated. Go to this link: https://national.cc/about. Of if you want the original sermons go here https://national.cc/media/win-the-day . As with the other two, I came away from this ‘experience’ drained, depressed, defeated, and unimpressed. These folks are winning the day because it’s really a preaching of American Civil Religion. But with Shania Twain’s 1997 hit I say, “that don’t impress me much.” Continue reading
Posted in Ablaze, Contemporary Worship, Missouri Megatrends
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At Least it Isn’t Pot
In the first Episode of HBO’s “White Lotus”, an uber rich family is vacationing at an uber-fancy Hawaiian hotel. The mom comes into where her daughter and friend are smoking pot. As they quickly put their gear away, the mom asks, “Is there something burning?” To this her teenage daughter replies, “We were just doing some witchcraft.” Her mom shrugs and shuts the door saying to herself, “At least it’s not pot.” Continue reading
Posted in LCMS 2007 Convention, Missouri Megatrends
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50 Years Later and We’re Still at War with the Unborn
Don’t you cringe when women, usually in their mid-20s, express such righteous indignation at the Supreme Court could taking away a right they have had for 50, count ‘em, 50 years. I suppose anything twice as old as you seems really old. But using their dates and logic, slave-holding was a right people in the United States had for hundreds and hundreds of years. An entire nation’s peace was shattered to overturn that right. Continue reading
Posted in Families
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How to Change Your Mind….And Lose Your Soul
STOP! Read no further if you’re an integrationists (someone who seeks to combine the Bible with secular psychological theories), an All-Truth-is-God’s-Truth person, or you think the Holy Spirit leads by current trends in society. Also to be warned are those under the care of a counselor of any stripe be that Biblical, psychological, or psychiatric. If you’re any of these, you’ll be offended. Save yourself the heart or headache. I have no bona fides that testify to my authority on this subject. The one thing I know for sure is that I’m afraid of this new, new class of drugs and the new ones first proscribed in the 90s’. The SSRIs. The old-school antidepressant which basically tranquilled, not so much. It was well-understood how they worked and what they did. These new, new and new ones, they are approved by side effects. What became Prozac was first investigated as an antihistamine, and what became Viagra was first used to treat hypertension and angina. Continue reading
Posted in For Anyone who dares, Missouri Megatrends
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On Being Sane In Insane Places
All you need to know to be induced to read this lengthy 1973 article is this: “Eight sane people gained secret admission to 12 different hospitals. Their diagnostic experiences constitute the data of the first part of this article; the remainder is devoted to a description of their experiences in psychiatric institutions” (p. 2 below). This experiment is 50 years old, and nothing, as far as I know, has changed. I publish it here so that it might be kept in collective memory that there have always been some challenging the weight, the legitimacy, the helpfulness of the ‘science’ of psychology and psychiatry. Continue reading
Posted in For Anyone who dares, Missouri Megatrends
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Me and My Arrows Second Addition
The second, more price friendly, edition will be available at Lulu any day now. My thanks to you if you brought the first edition at its steep price. That was because I didn’t know how to manage costs on Lulu. I still don’t, but I had the expertise of one who did. Go to Lulu.com and search for Me and My Arrows.
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