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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Another weird encounter...

I was speaking with one of my uncles, my father's second younger brother, and he make a few remarks worth commenting on.
To explain a bit about this guy, he is a reformed Presbyterian(that means extremely Calvinist (look it up)). He sees everything through a prism of his religion so I wasn't surprised by what he said, it was just warped.
We were stand around talking about some old photos my grandmother had of the first church my grandfather started. It was at a Christian resort in New York back in the 1930s. The land and buildings had been purchased from a Jewish organisation that had build a hotel and casino in the 1020s. My uncle casually commented that the hotel, a 4 story confection of Victorian design had later to be condemned and torn down because it had been build by the Jews. I snapped my head around and looked at him and inquired as to just precisely why the religion of the builders mattered. He claimed that the builders had failed to put footers under the foundation causing the whole structure to flex when the ground froze and thawed and the reason for this failure was the beliefs of the particular sect. Somehow, he thought that they believed the world would end before the foundations of the building mattered.
I muttered something about theology and engineering not belonging in the same book. He took offense at this and said, "bad theology, yes". I couldn't help but laugh. Here is a man who believes the world will end soon and was pointing out the failings of another group for acting on their belifs yet couldn't see how it applied to his own beliefs...

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About Me

I am a husband and a father of two. I work as a network administrator. I am interested in religion and philosophy, though mostly from an external perspective.