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has proved to be such a great tool for impromptu casual forums in particular for religion and politics formerly taboo subjects for polite conversation these twins have latched on to the fact that the innertubes are often less than polite if not just plain insufferable the speed of technology makes it harder and harder to hold on to good ideas and remain intellectually honest with out going all troll in the midst of trying to be a better person which at times seems like a nowhere to go but up proposition like a raven i still look for the shiny objects to plunder and horde thankfully the times for needing to deliver the smackdown meet my match or duel to a draw are waning and i m relieved to see calm measured respectful and knowledgeable discussion increasing so today let s take religion a recent gallup poll posits that nearly one third of the people in the u s believe the bible is to be taken literally i perceive that number to be big and it s actually down 10 percent from a peak in the 1980s the poll shows the unsurprising trend that belief in a literal interpretation of the bible declines as educational attainment increases speaking of which it was also not surprising that a fellow writer seminary student and fb friend from whom i shared the link wryly questioned how many of the 30 percent have sold all they own and given it to the poor a commenter replied with a question how do we interpret god s word without clouding the truth with our own biases and those of society indeed the truth is always elusive and most of the time impossible to fully ascertain but for me and many other seekers it s not about recognizing anything written down by men as canonical eschewing that has served me well since the time when my christian faith began to diminish because of as is written in ecclesiastes making many books and from trying to parse meanings as literal figurative or metaphorical the seminary student commented that the only way to go deeper than interpreting an interpretation is by knowing experiencing and opening ourselves to god i agree on two of three points opening ourselves to spiritual experiences is important if difficult in the lives of the paycheck to paycheck lower middle class parents of a special needs child i ve done precious little of it in the past few years and struggled with depression knowing that any justification rationalization or excuse is not insurmountable but i have to draw the line between me and so many religious people in my belief that knowing is dangerous ground for anyone to stand on whether a believer or an atheist the questioning fb friend said in a separate discussion that they suffered ptsd from their past religious experiences they said that it put them at risk of being overly judgmental of the god that has been created by man and of forgetting that there is a peaceful function for many people in religion at the risk of sounding crass amen brother i also deal with ptsd of that type and part of the continuing struggle with that is dealing with my occasional bigotry toward religion particularly hyper dogmatic doctrinaire christians as i stated in my recent post on the pledge i strive to apply my faith in the human ability to love one another including our enemies i can overcome the seeming harshness of the latter by considering how often is someone truly that but i am going to need a lot of tweaking because i am a product of those who know and that tends to have me perhaps like most people on this planet wanting conclusions instantly and missing the usually wonderful always unfinished process of discovery as questioning pointed out dogma is living with the results of other people s thinking and while i m getting better at calling out dogma i hope i can eventually eliminate my usual kneejerk reactions of either pummeling dogmatists with all that i know or running away screaming in judgment better results should come from my often being mindful of jung s famous quote everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves and if questioning things isn t pretty understanding them ain t the belle of the ball either shall we dance labels blogsturbation depression hope religion posted by o tim 7 12 2011 12 49 00 am 5 comments june 30 2011 i m not a cynic but i play one on tv the u s is in the midst of yet another national debt brouhaha it s a common situation the country has experienced federal debt since its founding btw happy birthday with war being a consistent culprit currently the u s is in the highest spike of the percentage of its total debt to gdp 2010 96 3 ratio since world war ii but the debt sunk quickly in the prosperous post war years while today financial wonks in public accounting agencies and private sector economists are in lock step agreement as to the path of sustainability the country is on or more accurately flying wildly off of is it coincidence that the u s is experiencing some of the highest federal debt during a half century low of its marginal tax rates could there be some kind of correlation between tax rates and tax revenue in the parlance of the new gop math of course lower taxes increase revenue i m seriously thinking of adopting this method as surely it would help my personal budget in a manner similar to the government s current faux fortune yeah that s it if i spend more than i make i ll just work less hours to make up for it labels gummint taxes posted by o tim 6 30 2011 11 18 00 pm 3 comments june 23 2011 i don t pledge of allegiance recently there was a dust up caused by nbc when as part of its coverage of the u s open golf tournament the network twice omitted the words under god from a clip of students reciting the pledge of allegiance of course pious america gave the move the thumbs down and while i understand why they would i m still not buying what they re selling something that s become a tradition for me frankly ever since i was old enough to give it some thought i ve found the pledge to be rather hollow we recited it daily in grade school but i don t recall ever being taught the meaning young students simply memorizing a pledge is less about patriotism and liberty than it is about obedience the latter is not an undesirable teaching but aren t supporters of the pledge missing the irony of a nation built on the principles of freedom of thought and the right to dissent requiring its youngest citizens to pledge allegiance to it they don t understand most of the pledge they are taking nor by any of our laws are they qualified to give their consent before i continue with my main theme some background is essential the pledge of allegiance was written in 1892 by baptist minister francis bellamy avowed socialist and inventor of the bellamy salute shown here a particularly ironic choice of deference that was 86 d by fdr after the u s entered wwii it was published in the popular children s magazine the youth s companion as part of a campaign to instill the idea of american nationalism by selling flags to public schools and magazines to students in cash we trust no the original pledge read as follows i pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all the phrase under god was incorporated into the pledge of allegiance by a joint resolution of congress and signed by president eisenhower raised a jehovah s witness see below on june 14 1954 from the outset objections were raised mostly on grounds that the first amendment to the united states constitution protects one s right to refrain from speaking or standing ironically decades before any atheists were led to challenge the pledge legally prominent lawsuits were brought in the 1950s by the jehovah s witnesses a christian sect whose beliefs preclude swearing loyalty to any power other than god and who objected to policies in public schools requiring students to swear an oath to the flag they objected on the grounds that their rights to freedom of religion as guaranteed by the free exercise clause of the first amendment were being violated by such requirements in the last decade lower courts have ruled both for and against reciting the pledge or the inclusion of the under god phrase but the supreme court won t touch it with a ten foot pole in 2004 the scotus cited a technicality to duck a ruling on the merits and on june 13 2011 it denied an appeal against a lower court s upholding of the god phrase there is a very prevalent misconception in the united states that lends to my distaste for religion which here of course pretty much means christianity that the government is a democracy and in a democracy the majority rules the first point is erroneous because the government is a democratic republic thus and to the republic for which it stands with representative governance pure democracy is direct governance by the people where policies are decided through town hall meetings referendums etc in a democracy majority indeed rules but in a republic the officials can vote according to their knowledge wisdom ignorance and or campaign donor list indeed the majority of the u s citizenry identifies as christian with tens of thousands of denominations over a massively wide spectrum of doctrines http en wikipedia org wiki list_of_christian_denominations but does that make it a christian nation to say that the u s was founded on christian principles is quite true but there is a great chasm between the principles of jesus teachings and the doctrine and dogma that too often rule the day in the average fervent follower s perceptions the core group of the framers of our government was undoubtedly influenced by christianity but split about evenly between fervent bible readers and those who espoused a deistic philosophy thomas jefferson called the book of revelation the rantings of a madman all however realized that the establishment of a state religion would be anathema to the new republic though not in our constitution as is often believed jefferson s proclamation of there being a wall of separation between church and state is an effective metaphor i don t see any current infringement on christians free exercise within the walls of their churches and rarely in the surrounding community especially here in the baptist belt where the right wing has refashioned the classic three estates of the realm clergy nobility and commoners into a single bastardized one when exceptions are voiced against public exercise it is always on the grounds of being inappropriately foisted upon mixed public company think lakeview fort oglethorpe cheerleaders with religious signs ten commandments in the courthouse etc and not against any peaceable assembly exclusively made up of believers unfortunately the courts have not always held that inappropriate equals an unconstitutional establishment dare i say endorsement of religion though i have eschewed revealed religion in my life i don t disagree that there is often intolerance of christianity on the part of staunch atheists with chips on their shoulders works both ways that but i believe we should all pledge to love our enemies and not scream back at them posted by o tim 6 23 2011 12 15 00 am 16 comments september 08 2010 the occasional max wow 10 months one of the biggest reasons that this blog has been idle for that long is my disdain for the obligation of regularly keeping up with it that and a little thing called facebook which has despite its shortcomings and sundry aggravations become my latest internet obsession i ll spare any non fbers we re pretty sure you must exist somewhere the details of my fancy except to say that it sort of streamlines the internet social experience and gives you a tad bit more control as to who enters your world and speaking only for myself i do not mean that in the prison sense there is also the fact that most people actually use their real name so i don t know yet if mtih will get the full lazarus but what else to start with after nearly a year but a recap many of my regular readers haha innertubes pals are familiar with at least some of this but i need the therapy as best i can recall the transition from 09 to 10 was fairly uneventful but as our son max s third birthday approached we decided to take steps toward determining something that we had growing suspicions about in early february we received an initial diagnosis that he is mildly to moderately autistic for months max had displayed some classic tell tale signs of autism spectrum disorder asd so the news while disappointing was not totally unexpected i spoke with my sister not long after the doctor s appointment and later she sent an e mail with these words which moved me to tears with their heartfelt honesty you are parents to a beautiful fun adorable little boy who brings a lot of joy to a lot of people max is special not only because he has different needs but because he is an amazing little boy and i truly believe that he will thrive and flourish and show us all what he can do indeed on the plus side max has shown improvement in some of the areas we were initially concerned with and the developmental pediatrician who diagnosed him noted some strengths that with the relatively early intervention we ve been provided indicate the strong possibility that he will lead a relatively normal life of course jen and i dove right into protective pro active parent mode and after some therapy assessments we determined he would do well to have weekly speech and occupational therapy sessions it s interesting to weigh in our minds the differences and similarities between max and neurotypical kids pardon the jargon i ll try to be sparse with it for example when he has a meltdown is it because of the sensory overload that his autism sometimes subjects him to or is it because he s three max is a bright little boy and very sweet except of course when he s not his vocabulary is solid and he often talks up a storm the asd is apparent in the conversations though the vast majority of his speech is echolalia or repeating what he has heard he doesn t ask questions very often and sometimes has trouble answering even direct yes or no questions though he is gaining excellence in the art of no he also has trouble making eye contact with whomever he is speaking to he is not particularly socially awkward but he is deficient in the area of respecting much less knowing about personal space sometimes it s cute how gregarious he is but he is big for his age nearly 40 inches and 45 lbs and has been known to knock other kids over sometimes quite forcefully there is some consolation in that it s from excitement and not aggression there is also consolation in knowing that it takes extended observation or a professional eye to even notice that max is any different from the other kids on the playground he plays enthusiastically climbing like a monkey or riding his balance bike a two wheeler without pedals and drive train he really moves on it he is usuall...