#ph4wg Original

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

When eating out with kids, ask the waitstaff to bring half-full glasses for your kids.

The center of gravity is much lower and it will be so much harder to tip over. Only fill halfway because those glasses are so tall with narrower bottoms.

All that weight up top from that soda tips that cup over at the slightest bump or misplacement.

You will enjoy your dinner so much more without spill maintenance. (that is a real job during dinner time you and your partner will take turns doing while the other can eat if you ever have kids no matter how well-behaved and careful they are.)

Children are just too clumsy and weak to handle full-sized glasses.

Bonus! Your kids will drink less soda and get less hyper on sugar. They still get free refills but waiting for the waitstaff will encourage them to nurse their drinks more.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #soda #parenting hacks

[drowningworms]

A response on a friend's Facebook page to a fundie trying to pick a flight over a single verse because he has a gotcha lined up.

I'm pretty sure you would walk out of my talk too. And a lot sooner.

I don't read the Bible the same way you do. I used to. I used to be a very good fundamentalist and 6 day anti-evolutionist. So I understand where you are coming from. And I empathize with your position. So I’m warning you that what I believe is going to offend you and probably make you think some uncharitable things about me, my relationship with God, and my salvation.

I have no expectation of changing your mind, I’m just sharing what I believe and we are going to have to agree to disagree and live as good neighbors as best we can and discuss things nicely till God sets us both straight in a few decades after you and I have both kicked the bucket.

I am not a gap theorist. I believe, much like CS Lewis seemed to based on some things he said in "The Problem of Pain" that creation stories are meant to communicate deep spiritual truths and they were not meant to communicate historical accuracy or scientific understandings.

Unlike fundamentalist Muslims, I don't believe God dictated the scriptures to a prophet. Unlike fundamentalist Mormons, I don't believe prophets copied scriptures off of golden plates.

I believe that the Jewish scriptures are far more of a team effort.

The Jewish scriptures are the result of imperfect humans trying to hear Holy Spirit's whispers. Being human, they could not hear perfectly and were understanding Holy Spirit through their own cultural lenses and personal experiences/lenses. There is a huge subjective element to the Jewish scriptures as Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets did their best to write/tell their understandings within their very small and isolated worlds.

Genesis did not have Genesis chapter 1 when first put down by Moses.

It only had the Garden creation story that came from Noah.

The creation Week story was written during or soon after Babylon. It does not plagiarize the Babylonian myths as some like to snidely accuse. It uses them like a meme. The meaning is in the differences. Everyone knew the Babylonian myths because they were the main superpower and had been for centuries and would be for centuries more. Using the Babylonian myths seemed a good way to keep their own creation story relevant and understandable for a very long time. The Jews include a huge amount of snide swipes at the Babylonian’s mythology/religion while also communicating the beauty and goodness of God and the goodness and beauty of God’s Creation. Mel Brooks carries on that tradition.

So for most of events in the Bible, the Jewish people only knew the Garden story of how it was all perfect till the snake tempted the woman to sin and the woman then tempted the man to sin too and then God cursed not only the snake and those two humans, but all of their descendants, the animals, the planet and the whole universe to death and suffering. And the sin stories that followed showed how sin ruined everything and that even wiping out all of humanity and starting over didn’t work so God chose Abram and the Jewish people to be God’s special project and that God was a patriarchal suzerain king who demanded perfection to God’s every demand even when it came to murdering your own children. (Or other people’s children who were living in the land God told you you could have.)

What followed was a learning experience lead by the prophets and opposed by the priests/aristocracy to learn how God was different from that and that God really really wanted people to treat each other and even the animals and the land fairly and that caring for the poor and oppressed was the most important thing. While the priests and the rest of the aristocracy and fundamentalists were convinced it was primarily about perfect obedience and worshipping God correctly and within their religion and justice, kindness, and mercy were secondary.

It was not until the priests and aristocracy had their power and wealth stripped from them and were exiled into Babylon that they began to question their understandings without their “promised” land or temple or sacrifices.

When several generations later they were returned to the land their ancestors had lived in, they were a different kind of people. The priests and other aristocrats had lost so much of their wealth and power and pride and were a new people with a better understanding of God. And they wrote a new creation story that focused, not on sin, but on Creation and God’s goodness and generosity. That they lived in a good creation. And that the things other people thought controlled everything were lights and calendars to help them. That the world was full of order and beauty. Even if it wasn’t safe, it was good.

And humans were no longer sinners. They were very good.

And they put this new piece of scripture, not in its own book as you or I might have, but instead they put it at the very beginning of their most important scripture to change the way they read and understood all of their scriptures.

That argument between the Priests/Aristocrats/Fundamentalists vs the Prophets was still going on at the time of Jesus and is still going on today.

I think that if we can let go of our fundamentalist reading and interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis, and reinterpret things in light of Genesis One as being it’s own little section from a different place/time/context, we will have a much truer understanding of God and, more importantly, God’s heart and the purpose of Jesus and the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And furthermore we will have a better relationship with God and our neighbors and God’s good Creation.

Sorry not sorry to write so much. But it is a complicated question and a complicated answer and I still only gave you a barebones outline.

#ph4wg original #Christian #apostate #answers in Genesis #Creation #evolution

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

Y'all are my heroes as you pour your lives and souls and blood sweat and tears and trauma into art to express it and get it out.

I'm trying to be more like you!

And it is Easter!

So hear my story, tell me what you think, and feel free to share with friends.

Remember, I'm not trying to make new Christians. This is not some new tricky form of evangelism. I'm telling a story for Christians. But you can enjoy it too.

Most Christians who've been through the Sunday School System and read the Bible a bit will recognize the references I make. But we do live in a Christian Hegemony, so the rest of you might be able to follow along pretty well.

This story has been in progress for a very long time. My whole life. I grew up in the Lancaster County Mennonite Church. And I believed Genesis 2 hard core.

This thing burned the fundamentalism out of me and then the capitalism and Colonialism and Whiteness.

Genesis 2 is the Garden Story where sin is introduced into God's newly created perfect universe when the first two humans on this particular planet fucked it all up for the entire universe by wanting to know more and eating a magic fruit.

That super ancient fundie understanding of the Garden Story is used to explain why Jesus's death was a necessary sacrifice and not simply a lynching by Empire, money, power, and fundamentalism.

It is powerful stuff to a fundamentalist like me. Genesis 2 is the key. If you can let go of the God of the Garden, if you can lose the idea that God is a perfectionist who will send you to hell for the least little sin, you can escape. And that is just the first escape. The Garden Story is the lynch pin of fundamentalism house of cards.

Losing Genesis 2 can set Christians free.

or maybe it just set me free

And if that's all this story did, it was worth it. But I think it can free others too. So share it around.

But it's art, so you might just enjoy listening to a story hour by yours truly.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #apostate #christian #civilization #heaven #capitalism #easter #creation #garden of eden

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

I discovered an analog Boop at the thrift store!

#ph4wg original #boop

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

I found that my students are so kind and considerate and loving. It works so much better just to be up front and vulnerable with them.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #civilization #heaven

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

Something I wrote to a student today. And I thought it might be handy for others who realized that

You shouldn't stop learning just because there is no teacher or obvious consequences.

____________

If I find out in 10 years you are managing an Olive Garden, I won’t be the least disappointed in you. But I think you will do something different and I’m excited to see what you do with your gifts, the skills you’ve collected and honed, and the mind you’ve built.

Partly because you won the genetic lottery with that amazing brain of yours, but mostly because you put that brain to work and built a mind.

Keep building your mind. You are never done with that.

• Watch Nova. Watch Spongebob. Learn useless stuff. Read novels. Build something. Learn to read novels, listen to music, and watch movies like an artist and you will get so much more out of them. Art & creativity of all sorts is so important to developing your mind. Get on Tumblr and follow a bunch of weirdos to be inspired by and to just get different perspectives on life and this world. Hug a sequoia and listen to the water rushing up inside. Make a LOT of mistakes. Keep trying new things.

• Your mind will follow your heart. Don’t let the money, comfort, and insulation of academic life harden your heart or make you apathetic. Don’t look away from the lines of broken down RVs. Don’t look away from the working conditions of the staff in your institution. Don’t look away from Palestine. God is love and God loves by being present with us in the mess and not looking away from it. God never looked away from Jesus on the cross. That is antithetical to who God is. Notice the unhoused person hiding outside the Starbucks. If it is safe, give them some money for drugs and keep your heart.

• Find scientists, other experts, nerds, and peers on social media and just be yourself (so many of them are super friendly and kind people, but not all so watch your back).

• And stay away from drugs until after your prefrontal cortex is done developing sometime after 25. Go to parties and have fun of course, but your brain is still building itself and the pathways you make now will be very difficult to change. You will need your executive function for grad/medical school and for your calling. So take it easy at the parties and don’t fall into habitual use of ethanol, THC, etc until that brain is done developing.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #academia #brain and mind are not the same #intelligence is kinda wasted if you don't do anything with it #talents aren't supposed to be buried

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

Friends of ours lost their 22yo son to suicide recently. He was struggling, but kept the depth of it hidden. There are no words of comfort to give, only grieving alongside those who have lost one that they love.

A good friend pointed out that in the midst of this weeping, while it does not diminish the grief, perhaps something good might come out in that those who are similarly struggling with thoughts of suicide might get some perspective that their lives matter beyond the tiny world mental illness traps you in. Your life matters and is worth living.

Our brains are a precariously balanced mix of meat, electricity, and chemicals. Sometimes because of our experiences and/or biology our brains begin to lie to us. It withholds joy and pleasure. "It’s like trying to laugh at a joke that isn’t funny. Trying to smile for a photo you don’t want to be in. It’s like waking up in the morning and hating that you actually woke up. It feels like someone is just draining the energy out of you all the time, every moment you are awake." Doing anything requires immense willpower. Just plain old staying alive becomes a conscious choice made over and over again. You are just so tired and everything is just too much to deal with. The constant state of suffering leads one to try various ways to feel something positive, feel anything, or just escape the emptiness. It's why depressed people try so hard to bring joy to others and help others- they want to prevent others from suffering too and it allows them to feel some happiness vicariously.

The inevitable diminishing returns on the attempts to feel better, feel anything, or just escape eventually lead to the conclusion that there is only one way out of this hell. And depression shrinks our awareness of our own meaningfulness and inner world. The void is all we can perceive. The knowledge that we are loved, cared for, or important is lost. We can sincerely believe that our loss will not so drastically affect our loved ones and escape through death is a viable option.

These are all false of course. Falsehoods our sick brain tells us with honesty, because suicide is quite reasonable given what we are perceiving.

If you are feeling like you don't want to be here, wishing you would not wake up, desiring an accident, imagining about killing yourself, drugging yourself into oblivion, or seriously thinking about if or how you might kill yourself, you need to talk to someone. I got lucky. Someone who loves me more than I love myself saw me spiraling into self-destruction and made me get help and continues to support me in spite of myself. I spent years where my full-time job was not research or teaching, but just keeping myself alive. It's still my job now and then. But the difference now is that after many years of therapy and prescriptions I know that feeling is temporary and false.

I'm sorry it hurts so much right now. When you have some distance from these feelings (I hope that you will give yourself the chance to), I hope you can see that your life is worthwhile and important because you are.

But the only way out is through and that requires talking. I hope you have people nearby who love you you can talk to. If you do, talk to them. If you don't, this will be harder. Either way, you should also get into counseling. A good counselor will help you find ways to survive, build better mental pathways, & develop tools for processing emotions.

Brutal honesty- American mental health treatment system is shit and difficult to navigate. We have far too few professionals in many areas and online is often the only option. But you are a fighter. Look at you all alive and shit when depression has been trying to kill you 24-7. Live a little bit longer. You can do it. And if you are going to live a little bit longer, counseling can help you live it a little bit better.

#mental health #tw suicidal ideation #depression #anxiety #suicide #ph4wg #ph4wg original

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

the rule should be e before i because i only comes before e in a few of the words we write all the time and the except before c or in neighbors and weigh exception list is huge.

A few examples:

Unexhaustive list:

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #I'm no expert or anything #what do I know about the English language? #But this is a huge pet peeve. #What do they teach in these schools the spelling teachers all went to?

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

I get it. I'm quite the catch. I'm flattered, but I'm hopelessly in love with my wife who can't get enough of me. I'm a lost cause. You're gonna have to find your own fucked up White boy and fix him for yourself.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #I don't get it either #hottest real women I've ever seen mooning at me? #checking me out? #showing down blouse on purpose and watching me #i feel like I'm taking crazy pills #actually i think they are just silly young women still figuring out the world and happy to get the one semi good looking Prof #and I'm charming and funny #and strangely manly #fatherly #and sensitive. #probably the first sensitive and emotionally in tune man she's met #who exhibits deep empathy #and acts on it #it's like catnip for women #even the gay guys? #you're sounded by student athletes! #hottest women outside of my wife mind you #😅🍳🍳🤕 #and I really do keep my eyes up #and I really do distance the moony or flirty ones #you made your choice to act and actions have real consequences including losing out on my best jokes #I adore my wife. #And I work really hard to head off any advances and keep things congenial and professional #it's best for everyone #and I hate awkward interactions #imagine working with someone for years after they tried to sleep with you #so fucking awkward and how the hell do we even talk in meetings #that is why I guard my marriage so proactively

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

There should be zoos of the little things that treats the little things like we do the big things with feature exhibit staging and nice habitats with good vantage points to observe them closely.

They could show all the give variety of little things around them that they missed only paying attention to the big "important" animals instead of the myriad of little things that make this world go round and support all those big things.

People need to see all the variety and complex communities nature contains.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

A national strike will never work.

We'll all just end up homeless after we miss a few paychecks.

What we need is a national slowdown.

#Slacktavism

A slowdown lets people come to work and keep getting paid. And keep their health insurance.

A slowdown is a lot more frustrating. And it invites more sabotage

Slacktivism and subtle sabotage will cause headaches for the higher ups more than it will for us.

Lower productivity is unacceptable to the board or the shareholders.

We can say happy slaves are productive slaves. Raise minimum wage to 30/hr or whatever is above the welfare limit because if your company can't survive without taxpayers subsidies you just suck at budgeting or suck at capitalism. Plus real health insurance. And retirement.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #capitalism #civilization

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

"The younger generation is morally better than us. They are kinder and more empathetic. They do work hard. But they far more clearly see where their work is worthwhile vs where it isn't and they don't waste their efforts on busy work or helping the rich get richer."

i sure asf am experiencing this empathy when i try to debate feminism on this site. feminists who prioritize their own sex def. don't get piled on by a bunch of jerks who cannot tolerate people with different priorities. the rape and death threats women get on here scream moral.

What you have experienced on Tumblr is horrific and evil. It is some of our worst parts of our culture that are wrapped up in our toxic male culture of misogyny and patriarchy combined with a bunch of might makes right and alpha male/sigma male bullshit.

I'm sorry for how you have been treated. It is wrong and every guy who has been part of that should have to read their texts aloud to their mother while Mom has her chancla. And then they should have to pay you a millions of dollars in damages in court for the damage to your quality of life and the terrorism that they inflicted upon you.

Partly it is because Tumblr is run by the same set of Aristocrats, techbros, and Muskrat fanbois as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and health insurance companies. I'm sure Tumblr's board of directors go skinny dipping with the Sacklers on Epstein Island. They all hate women and minorities and any kind of real diversity.

So they allow all the bullying and give terrorists freedom to keep you quieter or at least keep you angry, hurt, scared, anxious, and distracted to keep you from burning shit down.

All of that #MeToo stuff was just a peek behind our own curtain of boys-will-be-boys, bro culture that protects really bad guys and teaches all the rest of us to be more misogynistic and downright mean. And a huge portion of men (and their right-wing female allies) rejected the very idea and lampooned it to death.

And I know so many female scientists and professors who should be protected by their position in society, their well-connected colleagues, and universities/labs. They are harassed online mercilessly in the most ugly ways. And then they get it from some students and colleagues too. And their institutions sweep it under the rug or fire the woman because they are all run by Aristocrats and conservatives and Capitalists.

It is horrible and evil.

When ya'll get to burning shit down, I'll help.

But sadly, today is the best time in history to be a woman in our culture.

And for the vast majority of other cultures on Earth.

I've only been around for 45ish years. Up until 3 years before I was born, my mother could not get a bank account in her name. Not without either her father or husband as primary account holders on it. Timeline of some of the financial things here

Sexual harassment was a way of life for a huge contingent of guys when I was in my teens and early 20's. Most of the other guys just thought it was funny. It was only just beginning to get better in the 90s. By "better" I mean it became less socially acceptable to do in public and more guys would speak up in defense. But there were no real consequences and harassment in private never stopped.

Because kind of like racism and "diversity" and such, the people in charge of shit and a large contingent of the population refuse to change their hearts. They just want to stay out of trouble without ever changing themselves or allowing the culture to really change.

So, yes, this is the kindest generation we have ever had in America. Even if we aren't very kind compared to almost anyone else. We are generous, helpful, pleasant, friendly, and hopeful people, but we are not kind.

We are so far behind all the Brown nations in kindness and love, but look at our history. We started way behind thanks to the Aristocrats and their colonizing bullshit we got into bed with them on. But it really is kinder today.

That is sad, but perfection is a human invention. It is always about direction of growth or decline that any judgement of a people ought be made. That and how do they treat women. And how do they treat the poor, oppressed, and sick.

What direction are we moving and how do we treat the people who don't have the power to stop us or really just need some food and a place to live in safety?

That is what defines a good culture and a good people in my book.

So what does that say about us, that people like Anonymous are treated so horrendously on a regular basis and they are just a drop in the ocean? What does that say about us when we are the best people we've ever been in America (or Europe) and we are still this terrible?

#God weeps #civilization #ph4wg original #ph4wg #feminism #Anonymous asks

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

So how are you feeling about your coworkers today?

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #bless your heart

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

When I am anxious and having panic attacks, watching my chickens and concentrating on them rather than the ruminations inside my head is calming

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #back yard chickens #chickens #birds are dinosaurs #you might find it soothing as well #Youtube

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

Pay attention to the texture and temperature of food.

We miss a lot when we focus exclusively on taste.

Hot is one kind of texture and temperature and smells. Cold is a whole different kind of temperature and smells. Have you ever eaten cold hot wings? Or cold pizza? Or Peruvian causa?

Lukewarm food is neither hot nor cold and is just not very pleasant to eat.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #food #foodie

[prettyhighforawhiteguyblog]

I have a bad habit of engaging trolls in the replies.

Partly it is a performance. The conversation is not for the troll, but for the people the troll was there to infect with their White supremacy talking points. I can show how hollow the logic is and how history makes clear White supremacy's lies. And I give people good, well-grounded arguments to internalize. And maybe I hope they spread those arguments/history around.

Partly it is to keep a troll busy with me. If they are busy with me and putting all their creative energy into trying to argue with me, they aren't able to lead others astray or spread their poison for a little while. That's one starfish!

I got them so turned around and made to look silly trying to push White supremacist propaganda in the replies, that they deleted all their replies. And it's little things like that that make me smile.

#ph4wg #ph4wg original #you can do this too #fuck with the pricks and keep them distracted