Weekend Update 09-17-2011

Best line in this post? Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP.

This episode of Mysterion offers one of the shortest, clearest, and perhaps easiest to understand explanation of the distinctions between pantheism, theism, and panentheism. Christianity, of course, is panentheistic with a personal, intimately knowable God. That is its chief distinction from the religions of the world. (Yes, it’s true also that we can still only know God in his ‘energies’ not his ‘essence’. But those energies are still God and we are invited not only to know him, but actively participate in him.)

George, Mildred and the Thin Places is an excellent post. It captures the quintessentially Christian perspective on the true nature of reality, even if many threads of modern Christianity have for all practical purposes lost that view.

The income, poverty, and health insurance statistics should be sobering. Median income is in decline. Poverty is on the rise. And true poverty is somewhat masked by the “doubling up” of households described in the report. Assuming Republicans (either in Congress or through their activist judges) aren’t successful in dismantling the ACA, we will hopefully see the health insurance numbers improve in 2014. There has been a bump in the number of young adults with insurance (through their parents) thanks to one of the early provisions, but most of the significant changes don’t take effect for a couple of years yet. It boggles my mind that even after Republican economic theories (like the supply-side economics George H. W. Bush rightly called “voodoo economics”) have largely reigned over much of the past three decades and should be utterly discredited by this point, a surprising number of Americans still believe they work. And to a large degree, these are people who have been actively harmed (in aggregate) by those policies. The mind boggles.

The technology behind electronic ink is pretty cool. Once it becomes inexpensive and durable enough, it will be an excellent replacement for textbooks. Textbooks in which errata and other corrections (from new discoveries, for instance) can actually be updated? Definitely a plus.

The Perry (and Bachmann) vision of an America with ever decreasing standards of living is not even vaguely the legacy I want to leave my children. The only reason I can see that such a large cross-section of this country (outside some of the wealthiest few and corporate interests) support GOP goals is that they foolishly believe it’s a prescription for “others” not for themselves. In other words, they expect some unspecified other group to take the low-paying, no (or few) benefits, hourly jobs while they and their children achieve gains. That’s delusion for most Americans. I suppose it’s the same sort of delusion that leads people to believe they are actually going to win the lottery.

The world’s biggest employers. A visual way to explain why cutting government in the middle of a jobs crisis is usually a pretty stupid move.

Let Him Die. The GOP position on health care (where they can even be said to express a coherent position). “Details remain to be worked out around the disposal of corpses and the distribution of orphans. But, say what you will, theirs is not a socialist approach.” So obviously these are the candidates for whom good “Christians” should vote.

Elizabeth Esther has a great post about apologizing to her gay neighbors.

Free to Die. The GOP prescription for America.

Robert Reich debunks 6 big GOP lies. And there really isn’t a more appropriate word. They are bald-faced lies.