@JonEricson Speaking of kerning...

@wikis RE this comment:

I'm not commenting there because it's not about that question at all (which I've upvoted for other reasons) but I'd like to forward the idea that questions asking for a Biblical answer is not inherently a good thing. It is also not inherently bad, but in my experience it's often a tell-tale sign of a question that has other problems.

Here's a rather extreme example:

That's not entirely relevant to the kind of issue they have in general, but my point is that just asking for Biblical evidence of something does automatically make a question good, much less great.

Interpretation is complicated and one of the issues we deal with on C.SE is different groups have managed to come up with different doctrines based on the same source text. (Personally, from a theological angle I'd argue they also base it on other things, but that's not the line anybody uses.)

@TRiG Mercy no please let it not be so! Most church signs are about as inspirational as your average demotivational poster.

@Caleb Plenty more where that came from.

@JonEricson this doesn't need to be private. The thing that drives me the most nuts is that there are people who will take a passage of scripture from the OT often something fairly obscure and be like "your bible says you have to do this, why don't you?"

@waxeagle Generally there's good reason for that.

In other words, out of the blue, it's silly, but in response to someone yelling at me, it provides a certain amount of relief.

@TRiG makes sense. And I understand that there are plenty of people who pull these verse out of context on this side and use them as weapons, those people are equally mistaken...

@waxeagle And you know those "are you a member of the tribe" tests? I saw an article today wondering why telling the truth wasn't recognised as one of them.

Because, to be honest, "bearing false witness" is an accusation which can often be quite rightfully hurled at the louder variety of Christian.

@TRiG yes, and in more ways than one unfortunately

@waxeagle And we don't help ourselves by ripping passages out of context to prove our point.

@JonEricson yup

Anyway. Why am I hanging around here? I'm supposed to be reading Girl Genius.

it's a two way street and both sides are driving on the wrong side of it...sort of like the British

@waxeagle Oi.

@TRiG :)

Ireland decided it would switch all cars to driving on the right hand side of the road in January 2013.

@TRiG really?

If the experiment is successful, buses and lorries will follow a year later.

@TRiG lol

@waxeagle It's an old one.

@TRiG and excellent I dare say

@TRiG Reminds me of the Arrested Development episode where people drive from "Little Britain" to the rest of Los Angeles to humorous effect.

@JonEricson The only Little Britain I know of is in France.

@JonEricson There are countries in Africa which share a land border with countries which drive on the opposite side of the road. I don't know how that's managed.

@TRiG On the show, Charlize Theron is British!

@JonEricson What strange names you people have.

Charlize?

I've only seen that name once before: Ben's mother in a genderflipped version of Twilight.

@TRiG Turns out she's South African. Who knew?

@TRiG Wow.

@JonEricson South Africans have a rather distinctive accent, generally.

@TRiG There's a bridge somewhere between two countries that separates the sides and crosses them before rejoining them to accommodate the different driving rules of the two countries.

@El'endiaStarman Clever.

@TRiG Her "British" accent is amusing, if not accurate.

@JonEricson It's actually really good, though you need to be sort-of familiar with the original Twilight to get it, which I'm reading at one remove.

@TRiG No thanks. ;-)

@JonEricson Ana Mardoll's Twilight series is absolutely excellent. She's basically not criticizing the books themselves, but using them as a jump-off to look at probelems in society. (She's also very funny, and there is even more humour in the comments, including an unexpected and excellent Dr Seuss parody at one point.)

Or, if you prefer, she's also analysing Narnia.

@TRiG That's more in my line. I'll see if I can round up some time to sample. ;-)

@waxeagle A case in point, from Rick Warren (Sodomite).

@TRiG That echo chamber is just as enlightening as every other one. A repeat of a blog post on another blog post on a deleted tweet that Rick Warren may or may not have written himself? Who has time for that?

(I assume, by the way, that most celebrity tweets are written by a PR person somewhere.)

On another topic, here's something some of the men of our church have been up to lately: abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/…

> Inmates who want to participate must get approval from the prison's chaplain after an interview

How the flip is that legal?

Either it's an educational programme or it isn't.

@TRiG Prisoners rights are greatly restricted around here.

@JonEricson That doesn't mean foisting religion on them is legal (or, indeed, ethical).

And the idea that special permission is needed from the chaplain is just weird.

@TRiG Um... I think I better walk away before I say something regretful.

@JonEricson An educational programme I cound understand, and even support. But this looks like some half-arsed combination of an educational programme and something rather more sinister.

@TRiG You've got the whole thing backwards. Nobody is foistering anything on anybody else. They are providing an opportunity that wouldn't otherwise be available to those that WANT it because there rights are restricted because they are SERVING SENTENCES.

@Caleb Ever heard of coercion?

Getting permission is a filter so that only people genuinly interseted in the topic apply, not just anybody out of boredom.

Any form of education which is available only with the permission of a a chaplain strikes me as extremely dodgy.

Who appoints the chaplain, anyway?

@TRiG Then don't apply.

@Caleb I just find the whole idea very uncomfortable. And yet another example of the privileged role of religion in society.

@TRiG You have to get permission from a chaplain to get into many seminaries, even on the outside! You can't just walk up to a seminary and say you want an education, you need an endorsement from your local church that says they think you are in this for the right reasons and want to see you trained fo rministry.

Any seminary that doesn't do that is doddgy.

@Caleb But, as I read it, it was the prison chaplain who was the gatekeeper.

The seminary/whatever screening applicants itself is one matter, but a prison offering educational programmes to some inmates but not to others on the basis of a chaplain's whims seems decidedly dodgy to me.

@TRiG I don't know about other institutions, but the sheriff's deputy who runs the LA County jails is quite open about not caring what is taught as long as it isn't illegal. If someone volunteers to teach atheism, they can set up a program for that.

@JonEricson Not much to teach.

Now, a course in philosophy and ethics might have something going for it. Or a course in science.

But beyond a GED, there is absolutely no money for education, so you get whatever volunteers want to teach.

@JonEricson Stop me before I start ranting about private-run prisons bribing judges to send people to jail.

If Christianity is the only thing taught, that's a condemnation upon those who oppose it.

@JonEricson I'm not sure what it was about that article that really rubbed me up the wrong way.

@JonEricson Given that the tweet in question was a jumping-off point for a broader ranging discussion, it's something you might find interesting.