When the father was more prodigal than the son

And he said, A certain man had two sons: 

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.

And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

-- Luke 15: 11f.

Prodigality is a vice to today's stingy Calvinists, to Jesus a veritable necessity for discipleship

 

 

Calvinists: We can't be prodigal with our money. We need it to rule the world! You know, so that we can do away with heretics like Servetus. 

  

A Theology of Money

 ... it remains true that we all know plenty of people afflicted by Prodigality, and one of them is likely to look us in the mirror every morning. This is the vice of failing to recognize that wealth is a very important tool that God has given us to effectively rule the world as his stewards, and thus failing to take appropriate steps to manage it prudently, instead throwing it around loosely and thoughtlessly, whether out of bad motives or good. ...

What part of "all" do these people not understand? 

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. 

-- Matthew 13:44

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. 

-- Matthew 19:21 

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. 

-- Mark 10:21

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. 

-- Mark 12:44

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

-- Luke 12:33

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. 

-- Luke 14:33 

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. 

-- Luke 18:22

For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. 

-- Luke 21:4

 

Do the Calvinists even read the Gospels?

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

 -- Matthew 20:27

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 

-- Matthew 23:11

And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. 

-- Mark 9:35

And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 

-- Mark 10:44 

 

Meanwhile Paul mocked the arrogant Calvinists of his own time, who only imagined that they ruled anything: 

You think you already have everything you need. You think you are already rich. You have begun to reign in God's kingdom without us! I wish you really were reigning already, for then we would be reigning with you. Instead, I sometimes think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor's parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world—to people and angels alike. Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are so powerful! You are honored, but we are ridiculed.

-- I Corinthians 4:8, 9, 10 

New Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, who lives with her civil partner Wendy and their two dogs, touted as the right pick to end misbehaviour at Bangor Cathedral

 

Cherry Vann has been announced as the new Archbishop of Wales.

She becomes the first female leader of the Church in Wales, replacing Andrew John who retired following a turbulent period.

Originally from Leicestershire, she has been Bishop of Monmouth since January 2020, and was among the first women to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1994.

Mr John announced his decision to retire with immediate effect in June following the publication of two summaries highlighting safeguarding concerns and misbehaviour at Bangor Cathedral. ... 

Ian Black, Dean of Newport, welcomed the appointment on behalf of the Diocese of Monmouth, said Ms Vann was "the right person for this moment in the Church in Wales' life". ...

More.

New imaging analysis indicates Shroud of Turin image could not have come from Jesus' body, which would have made it wider and more distorted

 

 The Shroud of Turin was not laid on Jesus' body, scientists reveal

... the shroud is nothing more than a 'masterpiece of Christian art'.

Mr Moraes used digital modelling software to examine how cloth drapes over the human body compared to a low, flat sculpture of a body.

These results, published this week in the journal Archaeometry, show that the shroud's distinctive pattern could only have been produced by a sculpture. ... 

Imagine covering your own face with paint and pressing it into a paper napkin.

The image left on the napkin would not resemble a portrait of you, but rather appear stretched and warped.

For this reason, Mr Moraes believes that the images on the Shroud of Turin could not have been produced by laying it over the body of Jesus.

Mr Moraes told Live Science: 'The image on the Shroud of Turin is more consistent with a low-relief matrix.

'Such a matrix could have been made of wood, stone or metal and pigmented - or even heated - only in the areas of contact, producing the observed pattern.'

The first recorded mention of the Shroud of Turin dates back to the 14th century, and the relic was almost immediately accused of being a fake.

Modern carbon dating, a way of measuring the age of natural materials using radioactive isotopes of carbon, carried out in 1989, placed the Shroud's creation between 1260 and 1390 AD. ...

A watch's supernumerary power

 As in a watch's fine machine

Though many artful springs are seen,

The added movements which declare

How full the moon, how old the year,

Derive their secondary pow'r

From that which simply points the hour.

 

-- Matthew Prior

Tell how learning shoots

 Tell like a tall old oak how learning shoots

To heav'n her branches, to hell her roots.

 

-- John Denham 

Interview with Religious Studies academic states right out of the box that many UFO experiencers learn from it that a bad end of the world is coming lol

Gee, where did they get that idea?

The possible answers to that are not seriously addressed in this more-ways-than-one frustrating podcast with Ross Douthat of The New York Times.

 

... Douthat: When people report having a telepathic connection, you said they get information from, or they feel like they’ve gotten information from, these experiences. What kind of information do they get? What does that mean when people report this?

Pasulka: A lot of the people would report the information as something that had to do with the future. They would have ideas of basically an apocalypse, a bad scenario for the future.

The people who I talked to at this conference were pretty convinced that we were going to face some type of cataclysm. So I talked to them a little bit about how people have thought that for about 2,000 years. [Chuckles.] ...

Pasulka: It appears to be a perennial thing. So there appears to be something that interfaces with humans and has been identified in the various traditional religions.

Douthat: Identified as what?

Pasulka: Well, I’m not going to name it, because in some traditional religions it’s named in different ways. So it could be bodhisattvas, angels, demons — things like that. ...

 

The whole thing is here in "What if the Government Believes in U.F.O.s More Than You Do?"

If you are looking for a religion scholar to say that the UFO cult is a human creation just like every other religion, you won't find that from Diana Walsh Pasulka, a practicing Catholic who wants to argue for the legitimacy of mystery and of people's experience of that mystery, even if they work for a government which cannot be trusted on UFOs.

It is telling that a member of a hierarchical religion which is imbued with deference to authority finds the belief in UFOs among government employees somehow more compelling than that belief among private individuals:

... they have various titles. They have quote-unquote “day jobs” as, say, a mission controller at Cape Canaveral, things like that. And almost all of them called it this: They said, “my hobby job.” They would call it their hobby.           

Elites also run in herds.  

I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

KJV Psalm 116.11:  I said in my haste, All men are liars.  

RSV Psalm 116.11:  I said in my consternation, "Men are all a vain hope."

LXX Psalm 115.2:   ἐγὼ εἶπα ἐν τῇ ἐκστάσει μου πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης

God bites off head of Satanist, 76

 

Ozzy Osbourne, pioneering heavy metal singer and Black Sabbath frontman, dies at 76

 

... Their 1970 self-titled debut album hit the top 10 in the U.K. and No. 23 on the U.S. charts. A year later, their second album, “Paranoid,” topped the charts in the U.K. and reached No. 12 across the pond.

Still, the critics were not kind at first. Black Sabbath was dismissed by some as “Satanic claptrap” and worse.

... Despite all his success, Osbourne — in the eyes of many in the public — continued to be the madman who outraged animal rights groups in 1982 by biting the head off a live bat during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa.

“I thought it was a rubber bat,” Osbourne said at the time. “I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am.”

That same year, Osbourne infuriated the state of Texas by urinating on the Alamo, a stunt that got him arrested. ...

Human flailing, divine economy

 

 

 In human works, though labour'd on with pain,

A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

In God's, one single can its ends produce,

Yet serves to second too some other use.

 

-- Alexander Pope 

 

The dreams of avarice, we all have them

 I often wish'd that I had clear,

For life, six hundred pounds a year.

 

-- Jonathan Swift 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Samuel Johnson, who quoted Jonathan Swift more than three thousand times in his dictionary, had himself to write for money most of his life, until he received a royal pension of £300 a year from King George III in 1762, the equivalent of about £53,400 today, or about $72,500.

 

In death, Johnson left his servant and friend Francis Barber an annuity of but £70 a year, from a fortune of just £750. This, however, turned out to be too generous an annual sum, seeing that only skilled tradesmen might make as much as £50 a year. A prudent man could have lived comfortably on less.

 

The money did run out in the hands of the spendthrift Barber. Not many years later he was forced to sell off Johnson memorabilia which he had inherited to pay debts he had incurred, and he died in poverty not seventeen years after Johnson had died.

 

This means that, for his part, Johnson himself had run through about £5,800 or so by the time he died in 1784. The servant had learned from his master. 

 

Swift, meanwhile, had died with a fortune of £12,000 in 1745.