SkovandOfMitaze
(Intellectually Atheist Emotionally Christian )
2991
Perhaps. But it still shows that they recognized it was not as rigid as people even try to make it today within some camps of people.
That’s even with just the bare minimum scientific method of looking with eyeballs. We now have a wide range of things like chromosomes, natural hormone levels and so on that shows that even biologically speaking it’s more so gray.
However, I was not really setting up for a discussion. Just showing a quote and where it came from and answered a question about resources for the gender issues where some people, whose sex they could not determine would be assigned a gender.
Now that we have science that has explored this even further we see rabbis taking this new data into consideration and have expanded even further. This is just highlighting assigned gender existed when sex was undetermined based off of just looking at genitalia. If 2,000 years ago they had the technology we do now they would have mostly expanded much further into this issue, like they are now.
“The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.”.–C S Lewis
Embracing rigid literalism is lethal to reason, critical thinking, and the basic intellectual curiosity that’s necessary for interpreting scripture - which is why religious authoritarians have always liked it. Real faith is not afraid of reason, and it can be enriched by engaging with the scripture thoughtfully and critically.
-John Fugelsang in “Separation of Church and Hate”
He cast his net into the sea of stars, But found no hand to pull him in. The laws were lovely, but they did not love. So he built a raft of metaphor, And called it God, And clung to it, Until the silence sang.
“When words bring you closer to the prisoner in his cell, to the patient who is dying on his bed alone, to the starving child, then it’s a prayer.”
Elie Wiesel, the beloved writer known for his memoir of the Holocaust, “Night,” speaks of the power of prayer and forgiveness in the wake of profound suffering.
In social commentary and especially comedy, the phrases
“punching up” and “punching down” refer to the power dynamic between the person making a joke or criticism and its target.
Punching Up
Definition: Punching up means targeting jokes or criticism at individuals or groups who have more power, privilege, or social status than the person speaking.
Purpose: This is generally seen as a legitimate form of social commentary or satire, intended to challenge the status quo, hold powerful people/institutions accountable, or advocate for systemic change. It is often perceived as a “David and Goliath” scenario where the underdog uses humor as a form of non-violent resistance or self-defense against a perceived bully or oppressor.
Examples: A working-class person making fun of corrupt politicians, or a person of color making a joke about systemic racism.
Punching Down
Definition: Punching down involves making jokes or criticisms at the expense of marginalized groups or individuals who have less power, privilege, or social status than the person speaking.
Perception: This is widely frowned upon and is often seen as bullying or an abuse of power. Such jokes can reinforce harmful stereotypes, prejudices, and existing power imbalances, contributing to discrimination and exclusion.
Examples: A wealthy, white, straight male comedian making jokes that mock the identity of a person with disabilities, a specific racial minority group, or the LGBTQ+ community in a way that reinforces negative stereotypes.
Context
The distinction between “punching up” and “punching down” relies heavily on the context, the power dynamics between the speaker/critic and the target, and the content of the remark itself. While most agree on the core definitions, there are ongoing debates, especially within comedy circles, about who gets to define the direction of a joke’s “punch” and whether this framework should limit artistic expression.
“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Here’s a thought coming from a recent Skye Pod where Skye discussed the difference between Nationalism and Patriotism and how Christians are now often confusing these two very different things:
Nationalism is to Patriotism what rape or lust is to real love.
(My words there, not Skye’s. My son proposed this first, but comparing ‘infatuation’ to love instead, which also captures some truth as well. But I don’t think the harsher words are unwarranted at this point.)
I’ve just begun reading Paul Kalanithi’s impromptu memoir which he wrote when he learned he had stage four lung cancer, just as he was about to graduate from Stanford as a neurosurgeon. He had a struggle with his major because he’d was very interested in English literature but came from a family of doctors.
Here is a Wiki blurb on his life that mentions his book:
And here is an excerpt from page 60 of the large print herd bound book from the library which talks about how his interests challenged him early on to choose a major.
I wasn’t quite sure where my life was headed. My thesis - “Whitman and the Medicalizaiton of Personality” - was well received, but it was unorthodox, including as much history of psychiatry and neuroscience, as literary criticism. It didn’t quite fit in an English department. I didn’t quite fit in an English department.
Some of my closest friends from college headed to New York to pursue a life in the arts - some in comedy, others in journalism and television - and I briefly considered joining them and starting anew. But I couldn’t quite let go of the question: Where did biology, morality, literature, and philosophy intersect?
Reading the book makes me realize what our need to specialize costs us as people and I wish he’d had more time to develop more observations.
Paraphrase: We don’t bind up the wounds of our nation by figuring out who the right people are to hate … what groups to aim our malice at.
…Practice the type of judging that is discernment of good fruit and bad fruit - from yourself first. Get those planks out of your own eye. Don’t practice the judgment of condemnation.
Paraphrased thoughts from Skye Jethani’s excellent 30-min sermon “With Malice Toward None” that you can hear for yourself at about 51 minutes inat this link. In it he distinguishes between the concepts of ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’. Am recommending this one to anyone who’ll listen!
Happy Thanksgiving, you all! May we enjoy good community with others, both friends and family!
I’ve finished Kalanithi’s book now and transcribed this part from page 182 of his memoir in my large print copy;
Surely Occam’s razor cut the faithful free from blind faith. There is no proof of God; therefore, it is unreasonable to believe in God.
Although I had been raised in a devout Christian family, where prayer and Scripture readings were a nightly ritual, I, like most scientific types, came to believe in the possibility, an ultimately scientific worldview that would grant a complete metaphysics, minus outmoded concepts like souls, God, and bearded white men in robes. I spent a good chunk of my twenties trying to build a frame for such an endeavor. The problem, however, eventually became evident: to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning - to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in. That’s not to say to believe in meaning, you must believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn’t have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge.
Many universities are now considering just this problem and allowing students to develop majors and programs, particularly at the graduate level, that combine formerly siloed disciplines. The variety is as great as the variety of interests of students and faculty advisors.
In librarianship we see this multidisciplary approach in practice, but we hav had to make it work for ourselves. All of my colleagues did their undergrad work in a wide variety of subjects. History, medieval English lit, environmental science, German, and on and on. We all rely fairly tangentally on our undergrad work and it informs our current approaches and practice differently. In this way we are a better-rounded team.
