I hope we see Atheist messages and Satanic ones too. The school could have asked that all messages be secular, since they do not want it to appear that they are promoting any particular religion. But they didn’t think to do that up front. 🤔 They know the country we now live in!
Only after the Christians threaten violence against the other student (the one who put the satanic symbols in their parking space) or against the school in general.
I notice that Christians will resort to insults, harassment and violence if the Christians don’t get their way (I mean Christian privilege, that the Christians get to have/do something that no one else can have/do). Sometimes, the Christians go right to violence to get what the Christians want!
That really is what they teach on Sundays. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard some preacher talking about things like "armor or righteousness" and "weapon of God" I'd be able to retire.
During the brief time I went to a church, the idiot in the sweater vest who wrote Spiritual Warfare came to sell books during church service.
I took a bunch of books home and threw them away. No I didn't pay for them.
It wasn't too long after that I left that church after they attacked me personally during the sermon. They planned it. The acolytes took turns with their prepared remarks. Directly to my face.
Well we know at least one administrator doesn't want to allow Satanic symbolism. However after the legal letter and consultation with the school system's own lawyer, they seem to have gotten the message for now, and hopefully the school would not be that foolish.
1 One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
2 The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3 One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
4 The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
5 Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
6 People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
7 Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
The basic Pride flag is also a Christian symbol. I think they would have to allow it as a plain rainbow, but would object to anything more. Also unconstitutional.
Probably not. They would likely call the very existence of such symbols "purposely offensive". They 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 support a Buddhist symbol so they can pretend that they support everyone's religious freedom, but given their track record probably not.
The school administration, however, was obviously trying to police approved religions. They didn't want religious expressions they disapprove of, so they thought that if they stopped all of them, or at least allowed them under certain conditions (wink, wink), they could get away with promoting Christianity. That's why they ultimately approved a Christian design that they felt was subtle enough.
I might try to give First Liberty a call and ask them if they would support a Satanic symbol on the parking space...
I suspect that, once First Liberty was done choking on their own vomit, they would say absolutely not... of course. Religious liberty to them means religious Christian Liberty, everyone else can go to the back of the bus.
Personally, I'd love to see this challenged by The Satanic Temple, but I'm making no bets on that.
I just called, spoke to a guy on their media team. He mentioned that they had worked with Muslim, Jewish, and Christian clients, and would not commit to supporting a Satanist. He gave a generic "we support religious liberty" statement, and suggested I go to the website to see what kind of clients they work with.
Duck and dodge, avoid the question. What I expected from them.
Talk about territory marking! You don't get any more blatant an example then what's going on in the parking lot of Grand Island Senior High School. Frankly I think it's a neat concept for students to be able to personalize their parking places, but once religion enters the equation, things get complicated in a hurry, as evinced here.
Frankly I'm waiting for someone associated with The Satanic Temple to make a similar request, and see how the faculty at Grand Island respond. Somehow I get the feeling that said student won't get the same treatment as the Christian would.
That was from his debate with William Dembski, and as brilliant as the Hitch was, his closing statement in that discussion still stands as among the best and most inspiring words he ever uttered.
How about a replica of a Slayer album 'God hates us all.' with 4 crosses on it? I'd go for that design personally. Or that pic you sometimes see of the Ark and its inhabitants watching the many humans of all ages, kids included, drowning around them and 'God is Love.'
A new favourite, thanks. I go occasionally to a relative's fundy church when I visit, I won't say why for personal reasons, Last time, the preacher did (well, shouted) what he thought was a clever acronym for the kids talk:
S - Shove off God
I - I do things my way
N - Not going to obey your rules.
He then said you don't get to heaven by keeping the rules, but by coming-to-jesus. Guess he couldn't think of another clever acronym for that contradiction.
I passed the time designing a teeshirt in my head with the S-I-N words but prefaced by something like 'Proud to say, this is how I live my life, you're a rubbish deity.' But I'm not clever enough with words tomake it 'zing'.
It’s “rules for thee and not for me, protection for me and not for thee.” Christians have always lived as though religion is for controlling others’ lives but not theirs, when it should be the opposite.
This student should have been able to paint her original design without issue. And even if the school doesn’t want a satanic symbol, they still have to allow it. Besides, it wasn’t a satanic symbol they were necessarily worried about, but any other religious symbolism, they’re just too spineless to say it out loud. They’ll couch it in the scariest thing they can think of that is acceptable to bash with minimal backlash, and even the other religions would back them up not realizing the other religions are enabling their own oppression.
I'm guessing that if it came to it, the school would simply shut the program down entirely, making the legal point moot in order to avoid having to go to court.
To which my rebuttal would be, "Offensive to WHOM and WHY? A torture device (one guess on that!) is offensive to others, and yet it is tolerated on a national scale, even on some public property. If those of us who find a cross problematic can nonetheless tolerate it, those who embrace the cross can learn to tolerate symbols they find untoward."
As a former art teacher, this seems like it would fall under student work, which have a fewer restrictions regarding what can be presented. Pretty much what was listed in the article, no gang symbols or cursing or offensive images. Generally, the offensive stuff is sexually explicit or violent imagery. It could be directed attacks on groups of people, and it is subjective. I would not censor a student for their religious imagery, unless it was threatening toward an out-group (LGBTQ). But I might encourage them to think more about a piece of art and what they are trying to say, as I consider blatant religious imagery trite and facile. Even satanist stuff. This parking spot stuff wasn’t passed through the art department for suggestions, and only considered by administration (which usually have little to no understanding of the art department goals regarding self expression) and therefore only viewed through a “how can this affect the school” lens and not an expressive aspect. I would have approved it as a parking spot, but as an art piece I would have given it a C-. It’s derivative, it isn’t creative, it’s just a copy of so much other trite nonsense. From the photo I’m not even seeing much in the way of craftsmanship either.
I got off track. Since this is student driven, there is less need to censor religious content, but more need to allow even wider expression of beliefs, including what might be offensive to the majority religion. Which that is exactly what the school was trying not to do.
Years ago, a friend and I went to see Kansas opening up for Styx. Before the show, I told my friend I know 3 Kansas songs well. He insisted I know 5. After Kansas performed I turned to him and told him I know 3 Kansas songs well.
“ When a bone grows, our bodies’ proteins help provide the structure. When a muscle tears, proteins help rebuild it. When we fight an infection, transport oxygen in our blood or send messages to a cell, proteins often step up to the plate. But how did these skilled molecules first form on Earth and help give rise to life?
The mystery, which has evaded scientists for more than five decades, can be explained with rather simple chemistry, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature.
In lab experiments, scientists have successfully shown how two basic ingredients of life — ribonucleic acid (RNA) and amino acids — can combine to start protein synthesis.
I can’t follow the chemistry at all. Chem was my worst subject in high school and that was almost 40 years ago. I haven’t learned any since then. But I do like to follow the bootstrapping of how “stuff” evolved. As I understood this article, protein synthesis as we see it always involves an existing protein. So the chicken and egg problem: how did the first protein get synthesized? And this article shows an entirely plausible pathway.
I read a book once about the chemical evolution of planet earth over the billions of years. Don’t remember the name. (Might have been something like A History of Earth.) But it was fascinating to me that there were very few elements “in the beginning” and all the elements we have now essentially evolved from those few.
Since I totally support church state separation, and the public schools are sub-divisions of government, a simple rule banning religious symbolism would seem to have prevented this problem. That said, an unfortunate number of Christians appear to thrive on persecution, both real and imaginary.
This is a combination of the Christian desire for persecution, combined with their Great Commission inprimitur to spread the gospel. Ultimately what we're dealing with here is yet another collision between State and Church, and frankly, I think all this case is doing is confusing the issue.
The problem with that is that the government cannot prohibit speech based on viewpoint. Banning religious symbolism while allowing other expression prohibits an entire category of viewpoints. The school should either allow the parking spot decoration including religious symbols from any and all religions, or prohibit parking spot decoration entirely.
This entire “paint your parking space” idea is just fucking stoopid. How about sending those yay-hoo’s out into the forest and teach ‘em something worthwhile?
At least some of the high schools around here do it. It’s optional for the seniors. It’s a fundraiser for I don’t know what but can easily raise $10,000 or more. It allegedly promotes class spirit. And it can reduce jockeying for parking spaces by inexperienced drivers in a crowded lot where almost everyone arrives and leaves at the same time. A kid just drives to his or her spot.
IMO this is not very different from a student picking what t-shirt they want to wear, so nope, I would not be okay with a no-religion restriction. Unless the school has some empirical and independent reason to think that will be disruptive, which seems really unlikely here.
Ironically, they make it a bigger church/state problem by adding more rules because that creates more state control over the content. The less they interfere with the student designs, the better.
I started keeping a list of life lesson aphorisms many years ago - Brady's Laws. There is one which has been rising in the ranks, lately: 'Humans will push any system to its breaking point.' It could be the overarching lesson of the tRump Era.
I think the most egregious part of the story are the school officials trying to collude with a student to discriminate against a hypothetical non-Christian religion.
I don't get the purpose of the program. When all the kids are at school, they won't be able to see your god bothering, because there will be a fucking car parked over it.
Kids who are gonna give the school cash and then buy paint, get dirty, think they're special, then park over their work are the same kids who have the best night of their lives at prom.
Getting more money. I hope it's for useful things like nutritious meals, material for classes and textbooks.
A program like this would have been useful at my high school to get some paint that doesn't look like vomit and windows that could be opened without killing you.
When the Christian Post covered this story, another commenter and I kept making the point that this student was fighting for the religious freedom of Satanists as much as she was Christians. That idea was not well-received.
I have zero doubt that this school would determine a Satanic symbol to be offensive and against the rules.
They can't now. The FFRF would hand the school their lunch if that school tried to discriminate.
I hope we see Atheist messages and Satanic ones too. The school could have asked that all messages be secular, since they do not want it to appear that they are promoting any particular religion. But they didn’t think to do that up front. 🤔 They know the country we now live in!
I'd only want to see that if it truly meant something to the student.
Creating a design just to poke at another student seems kinda dickish.
Teenagers! Assholiness is their thing.
Which design? They should just say no painting, no graffiti of any type.
Only after the Christians threaten violence against the other student (the one who put the satanic symbols in their parking space) or against the school in general.
I notice that Christians will resort to insults, harassment and violence if the Christians don’t get their way (I mean Christian privilege, that the Christians get to have/do something that no one else can have/do). Sometimes, the Christians go right to violence to get what the Christians want!
That really is what they teach on Sundays. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard some preacher talking about things like "armor or righteousness" and "weapon of God" I'd be able to retire.
Spiritual Warfare!
Weird, my autocorrect spit that out.
Isn't spiritual warfare one of dumbest, most contradictory phrases to ever come down the pike?
During the brief time I went to a church, the idiot in the sweater vest who wrote Spiritual Warfare came to sell books during church service.
I took a bunch of books home and threw them away. No I didn't pay for them.
It wasn't too long after that I left that church after they attacked me personally during the sermon. They planned it. The acolytes took turns with their prepared remarks. Directly to my face.
Assholes of the purest ray serene, as Stephen King once put it.
*coughs*crusades*coughs*
Sorry, caught a cold last week and the resulting cough is threatening to stay for a whole month.
Some Christians still think they (Christians) are fighting the crusades!
Hey, Christians! The crusades are over you lost, get over it!
Twice!
Twice, I thought there were more than four different crusades?
Safe bet. 😝
Well we know at least one administrator doesn't want to allow Satanic symbolism. However after the legal letter and consultation with the school system's own lawyer, they seem to have gotten the message for now, and hopefully the school would not be that foolish.
*insert Tommy Lee Jones “are you serious” newspaper stare*
“If we had to approve your cross, we’d have to approve a Satanic symbol,” adding that students “wouldn’t want to attend a school like that.”
This statement says it all. It’s not about freedom at all. It’s about control.
“wouldn’t want to attend a school like that.” Has this yutz never heard of, say, punk rock, or goth?
Decorate a parking space with the 7 Fundamental Tenets of TST. Easy breezy, if a lot of work.
Let's see how long it would last before some xtian defaced it. Bet First Liberty wouldn't rush to condemn THAT.
OK, I'll bite - what is 'TST'?
The Satanic Temple has seven fundamental tenets
1 One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
2 The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3 One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
4 The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
5 Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
6 People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
7 Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
My vows with my spouse were the same, just simpler.
Don't be an asshole.
If you are an asshole apologize.
The Satanic Temple, and organization that promotes equality by pointing out the hypocrisy of Christian privilege!
They must work 24/7/365 if pointing out xtian hypocrisy is their mandate.
Thanks!
The Satanic Temple
I am a little distracted this morning! Thanks!
TST is The Satanic Temple.
The Satanic Temple.
Thanks - I can't think this morning - I am having the house pressure-cleaned and the noise is driving me nuts.
Sorry to hear. Unless it’s a concert, sustained loud noise gets under my skin as well.
I'd like to see what the school would do if a student painted their parking space to look like a pride flag.
Or a trans flag.
See my comment about Christians using violence!
The basic Pride flag is also a Christian symbol. I think they would have to allow it as a plain rainbow, but would object to anything more. Also unconstitutional.
𝑆𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑟: 𝐼𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑤𝑠 𝑎 𝑆𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑦𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑙 𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡’𝑠 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑜 𝑠𝑜?
Probably not. They would likely call the very existence of such symbols "purposely offensive". They 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 support a Buddhist symbol so they can pretend that they support everyone's religious freedom, but given their track record probably not.
The school administration, however, was obviously trying to police approved religions. They didn't want religious expressions they disapprove of, so they thought that if they stopped all of them, or at least allowed them under certain conditions (wink, wink), they could get away with promoting Christianity. That's why they ultimately approved a Christian design that they felt was subtle enough.
I might try to give First Liberty a call and ask them if they would support a Satanic symbol on the parking space...
I suspect that, once First Liberty was done choking on their own vomit, they would say absolutely not... of course. Religious liberty to them means religious Christian Liberty, everyone else can go to the back of the bus.
Personally, I'd love to see this challenged by The Satanic Temple, but I'm making no bets on that.
I just called, spoke to a guy on their media team. He mentioned that they had worked with Muslim, Jewish, and Christian clients, and would not commit to supporting a Satanist. He gave a generic "we support religious liberty" statement, and suggested I go to the website to see what kind of clients they work with.
Duck and dodge, avoid the question. What I expected from them.
And once again, we have another day that ends in "Y."
Donnerstag?
Jueves?
Juedi?
Yeah, yeah, I know, us English-speaking peeps have this thing about days that end in "Y." So sue me! 😝
Just feeling more and more contrarian lately. Can't imagine why.
Dimanche.
Gesundheit! 😏
No hablo proto Inglés.
Joe King, #1 correspondent!
Talk about territory marking! You don't get any more blatant an example then what's going on in the parking lot of Grand Island Senior High School. Frankly I think it's a neat concept for students to be able to personalize their parking places, but once religion enters the equation, things get complicated in a hurry, as evinced here.
Frankly I'm waiting for someone associated with The Satanic Temple to make a similar request, and see how the faculty at Grand Island respond. Somehow I get the feeling that said student won't get the same treatment as the Christian would.
Or to paint a non controversial quote from a famous Atheist.
𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒, 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑘 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑦𝑒𝑡...
-- Christopher Hitchens
That was from his debate with William Dembski, and as brilliant as the Hitch was, his closing statement in that discussion still stands as among the best and most inspiring words he ever uttered.
I was thinking more about Karl Sagan ☺️
𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑝 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛, ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
One among MANY...
"Fuck the motherfucking pope" - Tim Minchin
Oh, you WOULD say that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjJ_b8isMzc
How about a replica of a Slayer album 'God hates us all.' with 4 crosses on it? I'd go for that design personally. Or that pic you sometimes see of the Ark and its inhabitants watching the many humans of all ages, kids included, drowning around them and 'God is Love.'
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c24a0d95567828687fcf00dc1fc2432e7a6c46f9990e32ad7e8ae44a3faf36a.jpg
A new favourite, thanks. I go occasionally to a relative's fundy church when I visit, I won't say why for personal reasons, Last time, the preacher did (well, shouted) what he thought was a clever acronym for the kids talk:
S - Shove off God
I - I do things my way
N - Not going to obey your rules.
He then said you don't get to heaven by keeping the rules, but by coming-to-jesus. Guess he couldn't think of another clever acronym for that contradiction.
I passed the time designing a teeshirt in my head with the S-I-N words but prefaced by something like 'Proud to say, this is how I live my life, you're a rubbish deity.' But I'm not clever enough with words tomake it 'zing'.
Would something like that works ?
Sworn off all god(esse)s
I am a free woman
Never felt better
*Spanish sin.
Science-oriented
Independent thinker
NO GODS
I thought that was spelled NOGODZ20
I believe there are multiple accepted spellings in the Friendly Atheist Dictionary and Recipe Book...
Wonderful - better with the english language than this native speaker!
☺️
Science; showing
Inquisitiveness about
Nature
Or how about:
Self-determined
Independent
Nonjudgmental
Brill!
Only one door. Poor planning/constuction. But what can one expect from a 600-year-old vintner with no experience in boat building?
He could have just made a giant barrel and drove in the bung after all the animals climbed in.
Though Utnapishtim did build a boat in the older version of the story.
To be pedant and more precise, he built a coracle.
Precision can be important.
Noah and his sons basically built a tub. No engine, no sail and no rudder.
Two lost ships
On a stormy sea
One with no sail
And one with no rudder
But ain't it just great
Ain't it just grand
We've got each other?
♫♪ Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale / A tale of a fateful trip... ♪♫
😁
"drove in the bung"
I think that happened after they landed.
😂
Perfect!
I like you and the way you think!
It’s “rules for thee and not for me, protection for me and not for thee.” Christians have always lived as though religion is for controlling others’ lives but not theirs, when it should be the opposite.
This student should have been able to paint her original design without issue. And even if the school doesn’t want a satanic symbol, they still have to allow it. Besides, it wasn’t a satanic symbol they were necessarily worried about, but any other religious symbolism, they’re just too spineless to say it out loud. They’ll couch it in the scariest thing they can think of that is acceptable to bash with minimal backlash, and even the other religions would back them up not realizing the other religions are enabling their own oppression.
I think any court case regarding a Satanic display would hinge on one word. Offensive.
As in, is the definition of offensive being used constitutional?
I'm guessing that if it came to it, the school would simply shut the program down entirely, making the legal point moot in order to avoid having to go to court.
To which my rebuttal would be, "Offensive to WHOM and WHY? A torture device (one guess on that!) is offensive to others, and yet it is tolerated on a national scale, even on some public property. If those of us who find a cross problematic can nonetheless tolerate it, those who embrace the cross can learn to tolerate symbols they find untoward."
Constitutional is a null word in the US of A-holes now.
As a former art teacher, this seems like it would fall under student work, which have a fewer restrictions regarding what can be presented. Pretty much what was listed in the article, no gang symbols or cursing or offensive images. Generally, the offensive stuff is sexually explicit or violent imagery. It could be directed attacks on groups of people, and it is subjective. I would not censor a student for their religious imagery, unless it was threatening toward an out-group (LGBTQ). But I might encourage them to think more about a piece of art and what they are trying to say, as I consider blatant religious imagery trite and facile. Even satanist stuff. This parking spot stuff wasn’t passed through the art department for suggestions, and only considered by administration (which usually have little to no understanding of the art department goals regarding self expression) and therefore only viewed through a “how can this affect the school” lens and not an expressive aspect. I would have approved it as a parking spot, but as an art piece I would have given it a C-. It’s derivative, it isn’t creative, it’s just a copy of so much other trite nonsense. From the photo I’m not even seeing much in the way of craftsmanship either.
I got off track. Since this is student driven, there is less need to censor religious content, but more need to allow even wider expression of beliefs, including what might be offensive to the majority religion. Which that is exactly what the school was trying not to do.
OT - All they are is dust in the wind
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250828.html
Does this dust end in Kansas ?
Is a violin involved?
And several hairy men :)
I love this song.
Years ago, a friend and I went to see Kansas opening up for Styx. Before the show, I told my friend I know 3 Kansas songs well. He insisted I know 5. After Kansas performed I turned to him and told him I know 3 Kansas songs well.
I don't know if it was the same tour, but I saw them (in Kansas appropriately enough) in the late 90's. One of the top concerts I've seen.
You know 2 more than me.
I know 3.
Dust in the Wind
Carry on Wayward Son
Point of Know Return.
Kansas is where dust starts. (We get a lot of Nebraska dust too.)
Because Iowa sucks?
This is gonna mess up my sinuses, I just know it.
A very tantalizing OT about abiogenesis.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/08/27/origin-of-life-proteins/
As it is behind a paywall, I’ll copy some of it.
“ When a bone grows, our bodies’ proteins help provide the structure. When a muscle tears, proteins help rebuild it. When we fight an infection, transport oxygen in our blood or send messages to a cell, proteins often step up to the plate. But how did these skilled molecules first form on Earth and help give rise to life?
The mystery, which has evaded scientists for more than five decades, can be explained with rather simple chemistry, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature.
In lab experiments, scientists have successfully shown how two basic ingredients of life — ribonucleic acid (RNA) and amino acids — can combine to start protein synthesis.
Here’s the link to Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09388-y
I live for this stuff!
I can’t follow the chemistry at all. Chem was my worst subject in high school and that was almost 40 years ago. I haven’t learned any since then. But I do like to follow the bootstrapping of how “stuff” evolved. As I understood this article, protein synthesis as we see it always involves an existing protein. So the chicken and egg problem: how did the first protein get synthesized? And this article shows an entirely plausible pathway.
I read a book once about the chemical evolution of planet earth over the billions of years. Don’t remember the name. (Might have been something like A History of Earth.) But it was fascinating to me that there were very few elements “in the beginning” and all the elements we have now essentially evolved from those few.
I ditched chem. Took some hippie replacement.
But I fell in love with cosmology (theoretical then) in college. I stupidly gave it up for a liberal education.
I couldn't do the chem or the physics today, but the articles for us peasants still make me smile.
Since I totally support church state separation, and the public schools are sub-divisions of government, a simple rule banning religious symbolism would seem to have prevented this problem. That said, an unfortunate number of Christians appear to thrive on persecution, both real and imaginary.
This is a combination of the Christian desire for persecution, combined with their Great Commission inprimitur to spread the gospel. Ultimately what we're dealing with here is yet another collision between State and Church, and frankly, I think all this case is doing is confusing the issue.
Collision or Collusion, Troublesh00ter?
Yes.
The problem with that is that the government cannot prohibit speech based on viewpoint. Banning religious symbolism while allowing other expression prohibits an entire category of viewpoints. The school should either allow the parking spot decoration including religious symbols from any and all religions, or prohibit parking spot decoration entirely.
This entire “paint your parking space” idea is just fucking stoopid. How about sending those yay-hoo’s out into the forest and teach ‘em something worthwhile?
At least some of the high schools around here do it. It’s optional for the seniors. It’s a fundraiser for I don’t know what but can easily raise $10,000 or more. It allegedly promotes class spirit. And it can reduce jockeying for parking spaces by inexperienced drivers in a crowded lot where almost everyone arrives and leaves at the same time. A kid just drives to his or her spot.
Paint your iPhone screen with epoxy paint would make the world a better place.
IMO this is not very different from a student picking what t-shirt they want to wear, so nope, I would not be okay with a no-religion restriction. Unless the school has some empirical and independent reason to think that will be disruptive, which seems really unlikely here.
Ironically, they make it a bigger church/state problem by adding more rules because that creates more state control over the content. The less they interfere with the student designs, the better.
I started keeping a list of life lesson aphorisms many years ago - Brady's Laws. There is one which has been rising in the ranks, lately: 'Humans will push any system to its breaking point.' It could be the overarching lesson of the tRump Era.
It would look good on a parking spot too.
I think the most egregious part of the story are the school officials trying to collude with a student to discriminate against a hypothetical non-Christian religion.
👏
Thy fear Satan more than a cage.
God is so hotsy-totsy, yet he can't defeat Satan.
How many xtians are afraid to even think about that?
The world is devoid of supernatural beings controlling the universe. The Devil is us. Good grief, how long must the fantasy go on?
Until the human race grows up. Or destroys itself.
𝐼𝑓 𝑤𝑒’𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤 𝑢𝑝 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝑤𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑢𝑠.
-- TheraminTrees
Meanwhile Allah can't do shit against Yahweh to help his Hamas crusaders in Gaza.
The Gods need to battle it out until the One True God stands.
I hate to break it to you, but there is no.....
I don't get the purpose of the program. When all the kids are at school, they won't be able to see your god bothering, because there will be a fucking car parked over it.
Highschool students, car, parking, fucking. Yep.
You don't get the purpose of a $50/decoration program? Seems kinda obvious.
You have to raise the money for the whiskey in the teachers' lounge somehow.
Kids who are gonna give the school cash and then buy paint, get dirty, think they're special, then park over their work are the same kids who have the best night of their lives at prom.
Someone has to buy the decorations for the gym
Getting more money. I hope it's for useful things like nutritious meals, material for classes and textbooks.
A program like this would have been useful at my high school to get some paint that doesn't look like vomit and windows that could be opened without killing you.
It’s like a dog pissing on a hydrant.
Sense fron Christians? If they had any of that, they wouldn't BE Christians.
When I was in high school, the parking lot was gravel!
Horses don't need asphalt.
Betting they’ll figure some way to rule Satanic (or atheist) messages “intentionally provocative” and not allowed in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Too late. Various organizations like the FFRF, Americans United, etc. would be on them like white on rice.
Those organizations should have a template set up so all they have to do is fill in names and click send.
I'm sure they do.
When the Christian Post covered this story, another commenter and I kept making the point that this student was fighting for the religious freedom of Satanists as much as she was Christians. That idea was not well-received.
It would be more credible to hear HER say that.
I don’t disagree but my purpose was to troll the CP commentariat.