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Blue

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  1. "Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?" or "May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?" Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every amiable quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word.

    The word gentleman originally meant something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone "a gentleman" you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not "a gentleman" you were not insulting him, but giving information. There was no contradiction in saying that John was a liar and a gentleman; any more than there now is in saying that James is a fool and a Doctor. But then there came people who said -so rightly, charitably, spiritually, sensitively, so anything but usefully-"Ah, but surely the important thing about a gentleman is not the coat of arms and the land, but the behaviour? Surely he is the true gentleman who behaves as a gentleman should? Surely in that sense Edward is far more truly a gentleman than John?"

    They meant well.

    To be honourable and courteous and brave is of course a far better thing than to have a coat of arms. But it is not the same thing. Worse still, it is not a thing everyone will agree about. To call a man "a gentleman" in this new, 'refined sense', becomes, in fact, not a way of giving information about him, but a way of praising him: to deny that he is "a gentleman" becomes simply a way of insulting him. When a word ceases to be a term of description and becomes merely a term of praise, it no longer tells you facts about the object: it only tells you about the speaker's attitude to that object. (A "nice" meal only means a meal the speaker likes.)

    A gentleman, once it has been spiritualised and refined out of its old coarse, objective sense, means hardly more than a man whom the speaker likes. As a result, gentleman is now a useless word. We had lots of terms of approval already, so it was not needed for that use; on the other hand if anyone (say, in a historical work) wants to use it in its old sense, he cannot do so without explanations. It has been spoiled for that purpose.

    Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as they might say "deepening," the sense of the word Christian, it too will speedily become a useless word.

     

    C.S. Lewis on the subject of words. (Regarding which, he was a very intelligent person)

  2. It appears that for me, this thread will be entirely related to the new episode every saturday for several months, and thus in all likelihood I won't care about this thread until monday next (ad mense until maybe some time next year).

    This is also to reiterate I am not going to be watching any of season 2 until a nominal amount of episodes have been released.

  3. I lifted 15 tons of boxes today (well over 300 boxes, each 40 lbs). Some of the other warehouse guys were kind of surprised at how capable I was even though I've only been working at this new warehouse for a week.

    I got 'runner's high' on that somehow I guess. It's also very delightful I've been blessed with the physical health of being able to do that even though I don't work-out and haven't exercised any need for that kind of arm strength for a very long time.

  4. Seriously though, here's a more recent picture of me.

    d7k4995.jpg

    Me not having shaved in five days and looking at my cousin's camera, walking down an alleyway near 1st Street.

    The chapeau hides my handsome-as-Prince-Charles face.

    Also, I don't wear that particular hat as much anymore, since the dye is starting to be bleached by sun exposure, and it's turning reddish. The shirt reads "Grow For It"

     

    Hats? Okay guys no more photos of me, I like to wear lot of headwear.

    I almost laughed when I thought I misread "headwear" as "underwear".

  5. I am Professor Blue. I am logic. Sense and reason are the ground on which ideas' foundations are lain.

    If ideas are bulletproof, what harm can possibly be done to rationality itself?

    Humble yourselves, for I am indestructible.

  6. I'd rather be a smartass by way of detailing a tangent than recognizing a reference (or inferrments thereof) which would leave me with a guilty conscience or sullen memory.

     

    And while I'm still thinking about it, yard saws are exactly as cool as you imagine them to be, since they're about the same size as the blades in the TF2 map Sawmill. Also, it would take an incredible amount of effort to cause a cut injury with a concrete saw. Moving on

     

    How many members are there in the Wonderbolts?

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