::::: : the wood : davidrobins.net

Weekend exercise, unnecessary procreation, unsound doctrine

News, Theology ·Sunday May 11, 2008 @ 22:04 EDT (link)

20080508: Honey and I went to Cirque du Soleil, paid for by Microsoft as a Word development team morale event today (left 1500, arrived 1530, parked for $1 not $15 (would be reimbursed anyway), starts about 1555, intermission 1700-1730, over 1830). Worked some when I got home to generate a new deviations book.

20080509: Word 25th anniversary event 1300-1500. Left around 1630 for Honey's Uncle Dave and Aunt Lynn's in Pullman; went to sleep soon after we arrived.

20080510: Up early (0730), went to a few garage sales; picked up some shirts (2 each, $1 total) and a knife ($7, down from $10). Played frisbee at a nearby park for a few hours, then back for lunch, then biked ~11 miles with Will and Uncle Dave (Honey walked with Sarah and Aunt Lynn). Got a little windy and rainy while we were biking but didn't last long. Played some table games (Sequence x 2, Euchre, Guillotine, Skip-Bo) later in the evening; the bike ride wore me out.

From WSU's "The Summer Evergreen" (May 8), opinion page, "Perceptions" column (Crystal Neifert): "Procreation no longer a necessity" (on the face of it, the title sounds wrong, since without any procreation the human race will die out—some would argue that’s not a bad thing—but the application is to individuals, not the entire human race). Some salient excerpts:

Although the purpose of life is to raise offspring to adulthood, it does not mean everyone has to do so. I am not a big fan of children. And this is my rant about why I do not want one. They are expensive, always around, sticky, tend to break things and can possibly ruin your life as you know it.

...

It is almost an expectation that everyone’s life should follow a close path. After finishing your education, you settle down on the fast track to a career, childbirth and middle age. At this point, it is commonly accepted you should completely devote your life to your child’s. Moreover, anyone who does not conform to this school of thought is seen as cold and heartless. This needs to change.

The population is overflowing; having a child is not a necessity. There are plenty of other things you could do, instead of living for a child. … A comparison could be made between the specialization of labor and the trend of having children. When humans first started to become civilized, everyone grew his or her own food. There was little expectation of another career option. Then specialization of labor took hold and progressed to where we are now, only 2 percent of the population growing their own food. This same evolution should happen with children. At first, because many children died before reaching adulthood, it was a necessity for everyone to have children. Now, with the advancements that have been made, the number of children dying before adulthood has decreased severely, so it is no longer a necessity for everyone to have one. In fact it many do a lot of good for the population people put the clamp down on their reproductive mojo.

20080511: Up early again (0800—early for us for the weekend, we prefer to burn the candle at the other end); church.

The preacher at their church (Evangelical Free Church of Pullman) is usually pretty sound in his teaching, but he made a few blunders this week. Since it was Mother's Day, naturally some sappy homilies about mothers are expected and tolerated, but then he went off the rails a bit. (BibleFilter: if you don't care, skip the rest of the paragraph.) He built up a straw man argument about women being silent in church using 1 Peter 3:1:
Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.
His translation had "without words" or "without speech" or somesuch to replace "without the word" (same word for "word" as in "obey not the word"; it can be used in both senses, but context and usage would indicate it carries the same meaning). But the fact that his is a bad interpretation is not even the point; the point is that there are other, commonly used and better suited passages that talk about the silence of a women in church gatherings (for those of you coming late to the game, know that this isn't about misogyny, it's about God's order), for example, 1 Timothy 2:10-11:
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
There are also applicable passages from 1 Corinthians 11. One of the first rules of exposition is to take what's plain at face value first; when God commands something so clearly, great will be the reckoning for those that attempt to twist His word.

It doesn't help that the pastor (we won't even go into that title) has, shell we say, political reasons for his interpretations. I think only my wife and the Swahili singing group had their heads covered during the service, and theirs may have just been a national costume, which was very colorful. Women pray during the prayer time, with heads uncovered (even if one interprets the head covering to only be strictly when vocally "praying or prophesying", that tenet too is violated); I imagine he'd have a mass exodus, a decline in membership, and a corresponding fall in funding—a bad thing to have when they're saving for a new building (and all the power and prestige that goes with the ruler of such a demesne).

Lunch—we'd all baked a chocolate cake for dessert yesterday as a surprise for Aunt Lynn—and then more games (Euchre again, Stock Ticker (in which I broke $10k)). Left at 1500, home about 2000. Got gas in Othello—we were almost out—which is getting seedier, due to a large and somewhat inexplicable influx of Mexicans (illegals to work the local farms?). I think I'll be carrying next time we go that way.

Books finished: The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book, The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes.