You seriously got a Bible for christmas? Is that usual in the US or is it just something your mom does? I'd start crying if I got one(no offence, religious people).

Congrats on the happy day though, I hope you get several more of those. Happy new year Dom. And everyone else too!

hehe you should go get a bible, highlight some verses like "Love thy neighbor" and "Judge not lest ye be judged" and send it to her. it seriously grinds my gears when people pick and choose things to follow when reading the bible. lol. glad to hear things have been better!

Hey dom! Glad you're feeling better...the holiday cheer got to ya eh? (I told you things would get better... )

In my opinion, I think what you're mom is doing is unhealthy. i'm sorry to see that you're mom is still sending you those bibles, but I know how you and your mother have that unspoken understanding of your relationship to one another so i'm not going to talk about it (how would i, a stranger, know anything about your relationship with your mother other than what you've posted in your blogs? it's just that my mother is so similar to yours that I can't help commenting on it), but I am VERY glad to see that your mood was not brought down by her christmas present.

Anyway, I look forward to reading the last chapter + epilogue of TOSOM...I've been hooked on that story since the beginning! It's a very different side of Dom..one that should show its face more often.

To write something happy...what about another chapter of WT? (I had to try!)

And about your parrot...LOL! I wish I had one!

cheers!

bKite

P.S. 2007 will be better dom. Good things happen to good people...I truly believe that.

Just read 1 Samuel v18 onwards, very carefully, and then put that in other peoples pipes and smoke it, and as probably the obnoxious verses that have been underlined, could all point towards sex for religious purposes rather than for secular love, many people have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak

bodgy

I think 2007 is going to be better. If it

Just read 1 Samuel v18 onwards, very carefully, and then put that in other peoples pipes and smoke it, and as probably the obnoxious verses that have been underlined, could all point towards sex for religious purposes rather than for secular love, many people have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak

bodgy

Bodgy has a point on the David - Jonathan story. It's really quite sweet. -- perhaps bittersweet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Jonathan

I'm sure your Mom would probably not appreciate it though. Anyhow, I'm so glad things are going better Dom. I don't mind waiting another few days for TOSOM. Heck gives me an excuse to re-read the last couple of chapters. LOL.

Happy New Year Dom -- I'm sure it will be better

Rick

You seriously got a Bible for christmas? Is that usual in the US or is it just something your mom does? I'd start crying if I got one(no offence, religious people).

It's definitely not normal to give bibles for Christmas presents in the US, especially ones with obmnoxious highlighting in them. That excessively religious, unthinking, nasty-minded, intolerant, anti-scientific, mean-spirited, anti-freedom stuff you see coming out of the US is powerful, but it only belongs to a tiny minority of the country. We've been letting them get the upper hand for twelve years but it's only because they're better organized and they are more ruthless and have won over or frightened or made shaky alliances with a lot of the ruling class.

On the other hand, my atheist grandmother gave my atheist father an Old Testament for a wedding present, at his request, I think because it's a Jewish edition and my father grew up Protestant and he wanted to compare. There's a lovely note on the flyleaf in which she warns him against taking it seriously as anything other than the ancient folklore of a nomadic desert people.

Glad you had a good day. As for 2007, who knows? I don't believe that it will be what we make it. That is so American!! Will you people never learn about structural determination?

Still we have agency and we can endure and as Dr Johnson said, 'cheerfulness keeps breaking out.'

So no talk of quitting.

As for the bible, well first what can one say when one's mother does that? Best to maintain a silence.

As for the bible itself, I was reared in the Catholic tradition and thankfully we never went in for that literal bs, but there is poetry in the bible and people have gotten comfort from it. My own favorite bit is Corinthians 1 V 13. Few Christians that I know act on these lines but they have a remarkable beauty nevertheless.

Apart from Corinthians I recommend the original Q gospel as interpreted by the members of the Jesus seminar. They construct Jesus as a radical philospher in the Greek cynic tradition rather than as a traditional Jewish rabbi. Serious biblical scholars are a good source of one way to counter the fundamentalists who would have to be about the stupidiest people on this planet. My own favorite is John Dominic Crossan. His books are so wickedly subversive.

I highly recommend them.

ae

Gearoid