Arkansas Blog

I'm accepting your cocktail call.
Mango juice and vodka with a squeeze of fresh lime.
Best spring-summer drink you can whip up.

Hell is full of Holes

on blue name.

Interesting that the commentator has worked it all out in human logic and reasoning, positing his propositions largely on "if-then" reasoning. In short, God doesn't behave as he would behave if he were God, therefore God must be wrong.

He believes there is no hell--or heaven, for that matter--that after death there may be nothing--or nothingness.

And he could be right.

He cites the lack of evidence; but he never suggests what he would accept as evidence. In other words, he has witnessed no evidence according to his own requirements; he demands evidence upon his own terms. Which is OK. Which makes him, in his own estimation, the supreme being of the universe.

The millions of Christians who believe in heaven and hell have accepted evidence which is reasonable and valid to them. But not everyone accepts the same evidence.

An old preacher said it pretty well: "You may not believe in hell. But thirty seconds after you're dead, you'll be orthodox on hell."

If you examine the New Testament carefully, you'll discern that hell was never created or intended for human beings. But there's only one place where God is not: hell. And if a person does not believe in God, or does not want to be in the presence of God in an afterlife, God does not force him into His presence. In other words, hell is God's final act of love, not forcing a free-will agent against his will.

God appeals and persuades, but never forces Himself upon anyone.

In fact, if anyone ever goes to hell, he does so in spite of every effort God ever made to prevent it.

So if it turns out that we're right and you're wrong, don't blame us and don't blame God. We told you.

And if it turns out that you're right and we're wrong, it won't make any difference. We won't know it. At least you won't be telling us, "See, I told you so!"

IMHO.

Dad-gum guys, what a depressing start to open line! A debate about heaven and hell? Dang, I'd rather debate the pros and cons of clubbing baby seals.

Come on Mr. eLwood, liven up the conversation with something more seductive. I know you've had a toddy or two.

Admiral Hays is running for senate it appears. Clicky blue.

I have no worries about hell. Like Kurt Vonnegut I know that we humans were born with
Original Virtue. Adam and Eve were doing just fine until god created that beguiling serpent
and sent it their way.

But when I was a kid and dragged to church numerous times and reminded of 'going to hell'
so many times...then later after 4-5 years of science classes..one had no choice but to
wonder about the accuracy of dying..being put into the ground and worms devouring the
nutritional parts while bones would break down much later then a few hundred years or
a thousand years later, using some magic never explained, you would be re assembled only
to be tortured for an eternity....all for whacking off one Saturday night when you were 11
while fantasizing about Miss Stiles, the foxiest 6th grade teacher in the world.

You can spin it anyway you wish Sky, every minister does, but I only take out insurance for
known possible losses and if it takes the threat of eternal torture to coax you into socially acceptable behavior then I would question the ones doing the coaxing and your understanding of your self.
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"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
Isaiah 45:7

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. Voltaire 1694-1778

.

I don't know, I thought I once knew, but I was mistaken, so now I don't know. Atheist isn't the term for me, cause I'm not sure, I just don't know. Plus it sounds too organized to me. If I knock on your door it's because your lights were left on or your cat is squashed. I don't knock on doors to pass on my opinion on life.

I have no history of enjoying fiction or science fiction or magic or discussions on possible life on Mars. I'm literal, I like real, I like to hear, smell or touch it. Yes, I do believe in love and hate and I can't touch either though it's real easy to see their aftermath. I don't play games, I don't like games, and I don't like competition because for every winner you have at least 1 loser and I always feel sorry for losers.

If I was God, I wouldn't play so many games, I wouldn't play any games. So, I don't appreciate all the hoops and loops required by God according to the Bible and those who profess to know how it all works. Keep your Father may I, and cloven hoof or no cloven hoof, and all that clean and unclean and snip off the tip of your pecker and on and on and on. Too many rules, too many games, to many got-cha tricks. I'll pass. You don't have to pass, but I'll pass.

The very best most miraculous things to ever happen on earth were done by humans. By the same token, the very worst most heinous things on earth were done by humans. I like cats and dogs, but if I was a worshiping kind of guy, I start the First Church of Mankind and worship the very best examples of human beings. The Biography Channel is my 700 club and like some of the stories on the 700 Club about the devil, the Biography Channel teaches some great lessons on how NOT to live through biographies of people not deserving of any worship.

In my opinion we're all we got and if you do it right 1 life is enough. Eternity is for mountains and stars, not for me, thank you. Now....this is my opinion for me and my life. I think it is a valid opinion but I understand if SkyPilot fails to agree. We can agree to disagree and still lend each other a pint of blood in an emergency. I hope after all these years of division and derision, believers and non-believers can go back to minding their own business and live side by side happily ever after. Hopefully the stirrers of the stick will quit their stirring. My rules for me and mine stop at my property line, I'd appreciate it if that was your rule too.

OK, here you go...DBI and eLwood waxing poetic about the great beyond. The way ya'll talk, you're both pretty close to the "jumping off'' point so your bravado is either admirable or foolish. As they say, "There aren't atheists in foxholes.'' I'm not sure how either of you would stand if push comes to shove. (And no, I'm not calling either of you atheists).

Here ya are Sista toldya. On blue name, making it all modern.

.

>>waxing poetic about the great beyond.<<

What great beyond?

NLRkid, loved your Hayes for Senate bit. Really good. Keep up the good work!

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Here's a great cartoon for the "TEA" folk.

click me

Left them go to ach-ee double hockey sticks on their own without my guidance and from the looks of it, Murdoch and the boys still are . . . CLIK

Minnesota's Missing Votes: Some Senate absentee ballots are more equal than others. (Especially if they are Republican)

Humpty Dumpty (incumbant Senator Coleman and the GOP) sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty (Coleman and GOP) had a great fall. All the king's horses (GOP/Conservative lawyers) and all the king's men (Murdoch's paid pundits and skilled conservative propagandists) couldn't put Humpty together again.

Murdoch and his paid pundits, the GOP and the over-paid lawyers have made reality of the old joke "Republicans will do ANYTHING to get elected, except get the most votes."

GOPers, You lost, get over it. But, please, please, please continue to prevaricate, obfuscate, demonstrate and propagandize to prevent the People of Minnesota from having their second Senator seated. You couldn't do more to promote the evident avarice, fear and untrustworthyness of the GOP, its leadership and their conservative supporters.

Way to go GOP, Murdoch . . .etc. Enjoy your association with greatness Blanche!

Point taken with the cartoon, Mr. eLwood. I just don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water, or so they say. Make sense?

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Here you go, SisterToldJa.

T'would seem conservative pols in Poland are not only homophobic, but homoxenophobic . . . er . . . homopachydermophobic . . . Let's just say when Poland receives it's next enema, Michal Grzes will be stage center.

That was great, Doc. You're a dear and I think you do 'get it.' Not many of you out there, though (unfortunately).

The 28-hour silence from jazzy's corner is both deafening and disconcerting on this foggy, rainy Arkansas Saturday evening. With each passing hour, I grow increasingly tense (alarmed, actually) with an imagination-gone-wild of Frenchie having found that of which he was in search and then stabbing (so to speak) our girl into a state of prolonged unconsciousness. Or worse. Please check in jazzygirl, if for no other reason than to give us a sense of peace and the prospect of a restorative sleep!

I'm sure that someone has already reported this, but in this week's "Newsweek" (page 8), while discussing whether religion is declining or rising, an author offered this comment.

"In the Islamic world and poorer bits of India, or Arkansas, religion is a shield against the modern world."

Newsweek = Newsweak

There is a Goddess!

Texas is for sale on ebay.

The great state of Texas is for sale. All proceeds will go towards paying off the national debt of the United States of America. Must sell before she secedes! You'll receive the whole state including all sports teams. Historic sites include the Alamo, Lyndon Johnson's boyhood home, Bishop's Palace, and so many more. Think of the income opportunities. The state is also plentiful in both hunting and fishing sites. As an added benefit you can make all your friends real, Texas Rangers. How about that!
On Apr-17-09 at 15:17:16 PDT, seller added the following information:

A question was posed by a potential buyer: Can Texas is moved?
Answer: Yes, Shipping is extra but please consult your local zoologist and botanist in the geographic zone you wish to move Texas to as many of her plants and animals do not do well outside their native climate range. In other words, there are no refunds on dead cactus and prairie dogs.

That would be just fine with me ES. I just want Grapevine. I can't tell you how many dinner conversations my Dad had with us while I was in Jr. High and Sr. High about how he and some business partners believed that buying pasture land in Grapevine would be a good investment. They thought that Dallas and Fort Worth would eventually grow together. Little did they know that LBJ would be the bidder against them and have an airport built on that land. And I doubt LBJ ever imagined a 40 million payment for the Barnett Shale mineral rights at DFW.

"The class struggle is the central conflict of the world; all others are incidental. When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad. I dislike it in principle as dangerous to its own objects. But the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world. . [There] I saw ... fresh, vigorous expressions of free living by workers and peasants all over the land. And further, no champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some suppression was necessary to achieve it. It could not all be done by persuasion. . [I]f American champions of civil liberty could all think in terms of economic freedom as the goal of their labors, they too would accept 'workers' democracy' as far superior to what the capitalist world offers to any but a small minority. Yes, and they would accept - regretfully, of course - the necessity of dictatorship while the job of reorganizing society on a socialist basis is being done."
...

"I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the properties class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It all sums up into one single purpose -- the abolition of dog-eat-dog under which we live. I don't regret being part of the communist tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the communists wanted and I traveled the United Front road to get it."

What's My Line?
[CLICKY]

Three cheers for Roger Baldwin! And a big raspberry in David Horowitz's finky face.

[Right-Wingers Are Desperately Trying to Destroy Obama, and the Cowardly Corporate Media Are Helping]

"There have been times, living in America of late, when it seemed I was back in the Communist Moscow I left a dozen years ago," wrote Rupert Cornwell in the London-based Independent. "Switch to cable TV and reporters breathlessly relay the latest wisdom from the usual unnamed 'senior administration officials,' keeping us on the straight and narrow. Everyone, it seems, is on-side and on-message. Just like it used to be when the hammer and sickle flew over the Kremlin." [Independent, April 23, 2003]

...

"By and large, the Washington press corps continues to function within a paradigm set in the 1980s, mostly bending to the American Right, especially to its perceived power to destroy mainstream journalistic careers and to grease the way toward lucrative jobs for those who play ball.

The parameters set by this intimidated (or bought-off) news media, in turn, influence how far Washington politicians feel they can go on issues, like health-care reform or environmental initiatives, or how risky they believe it might be to pull back from George W. Bush's "war on terror" policies."
[CLICKY]

Oh wow...GREAT/apt article, bejeeus! My favorites (mostly 'cause I see this 'there's no difference' as one of the most destructive paradigms/biggest road blocks to overcoming Reagan/Bush and bringing about true healthcare/environmental reform):

"...The parameters set by this intimidated (or bought-off) news media, in turn, influence how far Washington politicians feel they can go on issues, like health-care reform or environmental initiatives, or how risky they believe it might be to pull back from George W. Bush's "war on terror" policies.

Democratic hesitancy on these matters then enflames the Left, which expresses its outrage through its own small media, reprising the old theme that there's "not a dime's worth of difference" between Democrats and Republicans -- a reaction that further weakens chances for any meaningful reform..."

I'm loving Robert Parry! It's like he took the thoughts out of my head and communicated them succinctly and beautifully. Once again...screw Ronald Reagan and his cult worshipers. And, let's not fall for the same tarring/feathering that happened to the Clintons. Hillary was right...several times...the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' killed Bill's Presidency, Gore's candidacy and gave us Monkeyboy and a perpetual war on everything/everyone that keeps the military industrial complex humming along and keep the idiots distracted from their own economic decimation.

Mango juice/vodka is a drink I can happily wrap my lips around, elwood (even though I'm not much of a 'hard' liquor fan). Of course, what wouldn't be good when combined with mangoes. I love em. (Good cartoon, too).

I'm wondering how Conway's non-end-of-the-world party turned out. But I'll have to talk to my 'peeps' (my oh-so-young/cool niece will be proud ha) to find out 'cause the LCD doesn't report anything contrary to the town's PR machine (unless, of course, it becomes headline news everywhere else...then a sanitized version might appear).

I'm also hoping for enough sunshine (or just the absence of rain) to play in yard/plant flowers...better than narcotics (well, almost).

Boy, jazzy...that's some silence, girlfriend!

"I just want Grapevine."

I want it all, Goof. I'm a native Arkie (perhaps the only one) who loves Texas! All of it. Well, except for the Longhorns, Dubya, and Guv'nah Perry. Before selling Texas, give me her highways, her bluebonnets, and the beaches of South Padre. You can also hand me Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, Marfa, Austin, Fredericksburg, and the rest of the Hill Country. And, yep, Grapevine could come in handy, come to think of it. Hey, while you're at it, gimme Amarillo, too, since it's half way to Santa Fe!

What days men prefer to have sex: It was found that men preferred to engage
in sexual activity on the days that started with

"T":
Tuesday
Thursday
Thanksgiving
Today
Tomorrow
Thaturday and Thunday

Joke of the Day...

A woman meets with her lover, who is also her husband's best friend.

They make love for hours. Afterward, as they lie in bed, the phone rings. Since it's the woman's house, she picks up the receiver. The best friend listens, only hearing her side of the conversation:

"Hello? Oh, hi... I'm so glad that you called... Really? That's wonderful... Well, I'm happy to hear you're having such a great time... Oh, that sounds terrific... Love you, too. OK. Bye-bye."

She hangs up the telephone and her lover asks, "Who was that?"

"Oh," she replies, "That was my husband telling me about the wonderful time he's having on his fishing trip with you."

Im going to check on jazzy and frenchie today. Last thing I heard was something about a new browser. bless her heart. am kinda skeered to what i might see according to her last comment about national slience day and frenchie checking out jazzy's....

Im going to check on jazzy and frenchie today. Last thing I heard was something about a new browser. bless her heart. am kinda skeered to what i might see according to her last comment about national slience day and frenchie checking out jazzy's....

Glad to see the tornado hasn't dampened your sex drive, cato...or your wit. (Oh yeah...I agree...that's pretty much my assessment of men...)

Let us know how she's doing, alijb...a silent jazzy ain't right.

Zelda, let me tell you, it's the pits over here in the ground zero area. Pictures can't even convey the awfulness of it all. Sunny, warm weather would help but the Great Master isn't obliging in that request at all. We sit in church and look up at blue tarps everywhere. Desolation, destruction and lots of pain.
We have two groups of citizens now: those who were unaffected and life goes on in a normal way as to electrical power, television, no damage, no reminders. Then the others whose homes are gone, signs of rampage everywhere, no power, no nothing.

And guess what. No FEMA either.

Do the clicky to see the street behind me.

Is this sunday or what???????????

I'm here never fear,,,,guess Frenchie is still looking for that perfect vajayjay, he
left early this morn and not back yet.

Having computer trouble since I plugged in new browser, been fighting it all week,
waiting for a real expert, ALiJB, but they are very, very busy, I must be patient
and wait my turn.

Thanks for thinking about me.

Not to take anything away from Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent--now this video is circulating of her competition. It's a twelve-year old boy with a great voice! Clicky

NO FEMA...WTF??? That's newsworthy...guess dumping formaldehyde trailers here is the only attention FEMA's gonna send our way. Does anyone know why FEMA hasn't shown up?

Your picture looks like a wasteland, cato.

(Making a mental note to find the best way to help, donation-wise, my fellow Arkansans.)

Thanks for checking in, jazzimine. Thought for awhile there that Frenchie might've overheated and . . . . oh, well. Thinking about you folk over there in Mena, Cato. Encouraging story in today's Parade about Greensburg, Kansas, and how it is resurrecting itself in the aftermath of its devastating May, 2007, tornado. Despite today's gloom, never doubt that ye, too, shall overcome.

FEMA or FEMA money is still up in NWA cleaning up after the ice storm. I wonder if Beebe (or who's Mena's other Daddy, Boozeman or Ross?) has asked for FEMA help in Mena?

Our congressman is Ross. I don't understand it either. If I were Ross, Pryor, or Lincoln I would be camped out on the front door of FEMA headquarters screaming bloody murder as loud as possible. But........nothing so far and today is this day # 10.

A volunteer group from Massachusetts showed up today in the neighborhood. Amazing dedication. They are downing trees, debris and hauling it to curbside. But FEMA money is needed to hire big equipment to haul it all off to designated areas. The City does not have the man power nor equipment.
Just don't understand it.

Praise for SWEPCO and all the volunteer groups.

Which browser, Jazzy?

I had considered experimenting with Chrome on the basis of On Computers (http://oncomp.com/ April 5, article and CNET). If that's what's busting your blogging chops and sent Frenchie to wander the byways instead of staying home, please illuminate us and help keep us from falling prey to another obstreperous piece of software like TypePad.

NEWLY-FRUGAL GUY
--Mark Fiore
[CLICKY]

cato.....that picture is horrible! Worse than last years tennis ball size hail or the ice storm of 2000 over here in Fort Baptist. I'm so dreadfully sorry Mother Nature can be such a bitch. We haven't made our usual pilgrimage to LA (lower Arkansas) lately, but we're already preparing to be saddened and shocked with our drive through Mena. Good luck and may FEMA descend on you all any day.