Update XV: Stuck Inside of Tulsa with the Oklahoma City Blues Again

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Guys, things are not how I want them, but that doesn't mean they are horrible and pitiful right now.  I've made mistakes, but that doesn't make me a horrible manchild.  I am doing the absolute best job I can trying to get out of this current situation.  Now, about my faith.  You have to realize that God is the best multitasker in the world.  He is concerned about my everyday needs and desires, even when I screw up.  He will help me through them.  That is GUARANTEED!!!  Nobody can deny He will help me.  He can take care of the world's problems at the same time.  So, please DO NOT EVER mock my faith.  My faith is genuine and it is real and it is active.  My God is a good God and He is in control and concerned about EVERY little detail of my life.

Oh, I don't think any Christian could deny that God is concerned about the details of your life.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Guys, things are not how I want them, but that doesn't mean they are horrible and pitiful right now.  I've made mistakes, but that doesn't make me a horrible manchild.  I am doing the absolute best job I can trying to get out of this current situation.  Now, about my faith.  You have to realize that God is the best multitasker in the world.  He is concerned about my everyday needs and desires, even when I screw up.  He will help me through them.  That is GUARANTEED!!!  Nobody can deny He will help me.  He can take care of the world's problems at the same time.  So, please DO NOT EVER mock my faith.  My faith is genuine and it is real and it is active.  My God is a good God and He is in control and concerned about EVERY little detail of my life.

Oh, I don't think any Christian could deny that God is concerned about the details of your life.

He can't separate concern from complete control and he never will be able to.

Yeah. If anything I'd say that God is likely very concerned about Bushie, because Bushie has not oriented his life in a direction remotely in accord with God's control.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Bushie's in significantly worse physical shape than any of my septuagenarian aunts and uncles.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Being groggy all day long isn't normal. You should see someone about that. It isn't as if you aren't getting enough sleep!

I've got it on the list of things to bring up at my next appointment.  My next appointment is not until late September, but I've got it on the list.

I was very groggy all morning, but I got some lunch and a 44 oz Dr Pepper about 13:30 to get some sugar in me and I've felt better since then.  I did take a short nap this morning, but I've been by far more productive today, especially in the past hour.

Forty-four ounces? That's got to be at least a liter! In one go? What in the world?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

44oz of pop isn't that much.

We don't need to hear that from you of all people.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

When is he asking for Papa Allison's permission? I believe that is still a prerequisite.

Didn't he already do that when engagement was on the table the first time around? Is it something that needs to be done again or does the permission hold steady?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Fish, I think, could also be helpful, especially since there are a lot of kinds of fish that are vastly more flavorful than grilled chicken.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does anybody else find Bushie's use of twenty-four-hour time as strange and grating as I do?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does anybody else find Bushie's use of twenty-four-hour time as strange and grating as I do?

It's a vestige of the Kenyan escapade.

I'm not surprised.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does anybody else find Bushie's use of twenty-four-hour time as strange and grating as I do?

It's very odd, and it requires that I pause for a moment and mentally recalculate, so that I can process. And yet, it is more sensible than the AM/PM thing. It's similar to when somebody posts a temperature in Celcius. Except that it's an American who is just being a odd duck.

Yeah, I'd say it's mainly that the fact that it's Bushie doing it makes it come across as a really obvious and grotesque affectation, rather than what it is that he's doing itself being annoying.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does Allison's mother get a say in any of this?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

From what I've gathered, the standard practice amongst almost everyone I know who's married is to ask, and then after they say yes let their parents be the first people to know they got engaged.

That's also how it works in rural New England, which despite being one of the most secular parts of the country along with some roughly equivalent areas in the Northwest is still more traditionalist in its cultural assumptions than a lot of outsiders think.

Let's just hope he brings his cattle/shekels with him. According to Old Testament Biblical teachings, Bushie doesn't have to ask for permission from the father unless he has already raped her, and he can never divorce her. New Testament doesn't specify at all. So in reality, "conservative Christian culture" is just "contrived Oklahoma patriarchy". 

Simple Truth-worthy.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm genuinely starting to wonder whether it mightn't be time for Bushie to start considering bariatric surgery. This is that kind of critical.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Bushie's junk food addiction is serious business. There's no difference between his behavior and that of a heroin user. The lying. The enabling family. The health problems. The inability to hold a job. He's not in control of himself. He's expressed a desire to change many times, but he is not capable. It's time people recognize the reality of the situation. Feeding kids fast food and soda should be just as socially unacceptable as giving them cigarettes and liquor.

Now you're acting like I'm helpless.  That's clearly not the case.  No one controls the strings of my life except me.  No one else is to blame.  My parents "coddling me" is not to blame so keep them out of it.  I have the best friends on Facebook that anyone could ever ask for, so keep them out of it.  My life is my responsibility and I am fully capable of handling myself well.

That's manifestly untrue.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does she approve of The President?

We haven't discussed it at length, but I would assume no.  Same with me.  Of course, she may be more liberal, but she voted for Romney, whereas I voted for Obama.

In what ways is she more liberal?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does she approve of The President?

We haven't discussed it at length, but I would assume no.  Same with me.  Of course, she may be more liberal, but she voted for Romney, whereas I voted for Obama.

In what ways is she more liberal?

More open to gay marriage and more accepting of medical marijuana.

How much more?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Does she approve of The President?

We haven't discussed it at length, but I would assume no.  Same with me.  Of course, she may be more liberal, but she voted for Romney, whereas I voted for Obama.

In what ways is she more liberal?

More open to gay marriage and more accepting of medical marijuana.

I'm pretty sure marijuana is healthier than 95% of what you eat.

That's not it for me.  I just have a personal, religious objection to the use of marijuana.

That means that you live a healthier life than most of the forum.

No, it really doesn't. How many cheeseburgers have you had in the past calendar week, Bushie? How about since this time last month? I've been mostly occasional and basically unconcerned in my interactions with this series of threads and whole little forum subculture in the past, but I'm getting really worried about you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well the perseverance of the saints sure has done a number on Bushie psychologically. I'd ask him if he's ever considered the possibility that in his continuing not only to sin, but to live a life that makes or at the very least ought to make him an object of scandal to his family and community, he's becoming the sort of 'believer' 1 John 2.19 was meant to warn us about.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think you're going to Hell because you're fat, Bushie. I have no way of knowing whether or not you're currently Hellbound at all.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

They can be absolutely sure of their own situation,

Man, your soteriology is really alien to me.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I have a hard time envisioning Bushie without religion. It's such an integral part of his character. It'd be like trying to tease out what one of Dickens' orphans would be like if he had grown up with middle class parents.

Yeah, I have to say I agree with this, even though Al is of course correct in principle. I have a hard time envisioning him as anything other than conservative Evangelical, even. Catholic Bushie or Jewish Bushie or Hindu or Buddhist or even mainline-Lutheran Bushie is just such a weird concept.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As evidenced here, "grace alone" can truly be made a sick and dangerous concept.

Yes, Protestantism truly is a horror.

But what about my type of Protestantism? And Nathan's too which is also extremely difference from what Bushie talks about.

In fairness my type of Protestantism is only really Protestant in that it's not RC or Orthodox. 'Reformed but not Protestant, Catholic but not Roman' is, along with various variants in wording, a High Church Anglican catchphrase of long standing.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not a strict Calvinist, rather I adhere to the Reformed Theology.  I have a lot in common with Calvinism, but I still have some Armenianism in me.  I believe that God knows everything that's ever going to happen and He knows who will be saved and who won't.  Nothing comes as a surprise to God.  Now, evangelism is still very important because we do not know who is on God's "list", if you will.

But since God knows, what is there for evangelism to accomplish? Is it to prove your own bona fides? If so, why would this count as the sort of works God would care about while things like abstaining from embezzling from your parents to buy pornography or from constantly telling obvious half-truths about your educational record to an online forum that includes at least some people who genuinely care about you wouldn't?

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Can't the Holy Ghost do that on Its own? Are people for whom the Holy Ghost tries to do that but who haven't been evangelized just SOL? If so, doesn't this contradict the idea that God knows who will be saved and who won't in the first place anyway?

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God is supposed to save us from our rebellion and lawlessness, not function as a fig leaf to excuse it.

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Okay, yeah, I don't have as much reason to dispute this as I do the other parts.

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It's not a lot to take in. I understand it, I just find it...worrying and kind of repulsive at the same time. Alarming, I'd say.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I want to point out that I am not mocking your faith, Bushie, or at least I'm not trying to. I share your faith. I just think that the attitude of glib, can't-touch-this certainty and invincibility with which you think about and discuss our shared faith is not a feature of the faith itself at all so much as it is one of your psychology and cultural background, and that it's not an attitude that is serving you well.