Recent Comments

1. about 3 hours ago on Andertoons

   Godzilla just doesn’t want to foot the bill.

2. about 3 hours ago on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

   I think that’s largely a back-reading of modern views. Sometimes the pantheon of one group didn’t quite jibe with that of another group, and they would basically say, “Okay, so our god X is your goddess Y,” but I doubt that happened very often. For that matter, the sex of a given deity might derive from the gender of the key concept involved (Love, War, Death, etc.) , which could vary by dialect.

   I would expect deities to stick with a given sex, as these were generally honor/shame cultures, and it would have been shameful to manifest as the other sex. Thus the only such case I can think of is the clearly comical one where Loki manifests as a mare in order to lure a stallion away and cause an opponent to lose a bet. Loki was clearly shamed by this, and he didn’t admit what he had done, though it was obvious.

   But perhaps there are other counterexamples (mythology is a broad topic), and I am simply too ignorant or tired to think of them.

3. about 4 hours ago on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

   There is an feminine aspect to God; otherwise women wouldn’t be in his image, and they clearly are. But God is not wholly masculine or feminine, though God the Son incarnated deliberately as a male. (Nothing about male superiority, which is a myth; it’s about where the buck stops.)

   Trivia note: historically, English has pretty much always used the “masculine pronoun” generically. In fact, I deny that Indo-European and Semitic languages generally have a “masculine” gender as such: they have a “non-feminine” gender. That really simplifies writing generative rules for personal pronouns, etc.

   As to race, that’s completely irrelevant. Again, God the Son deliberately incarnated as a Jew, so in a sense, if you must attach a race tag to God, that’s as close as you get. And that only applies to the incarnate Son.

4. about 16 hours ago on Ten Cats

   Collecting rocks is too strenuous. I collect dust. That’s really small rocks.

5. about 16 hours ago on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

   If the woman valued skepticism, she wouldn’t encourage belief in Santa. She would also demand that the man prove his assertion. Skepticism is good, so long as it’s rational. But refusing to believe regardless of evidence is cynicism or simple denial.

6. about 16 hours ago on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

   He is indeed. You’re smarter than your avatar looks.

7. about 16 hours ago on Real Life Adventures

   “Reach out! Reach out and tush someone!”

8. about 16 hours ago on In the Bleachers

   “My javelin won’t come back!”

9. 1 day ago on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

   I thought Kierkegaard was more of an Impala than a Taurus. Different brand, but more or less American.

   Wait, what? Dang furiners, takin’ over Philosophy! I’ll up Twitter!

10. 3 days ago on Real Life Adventures

    And the good-night kiss was awkward.