"... who relied on hunting and fishing for his livelihood. But I was living in the twentieth century, and everything was constantly changing around me.... I’ve always believed that if we did what was morally and ethically right, while continuing to steadfastly believe in what we were doing, we’d end up okay in the end.... Now, I’m not a man of great intellectual depth, but it sounds to me like God Almighty has said we can pretty much rack and stack anything that swims, flies, or walks, which I consider orders from headquarters.... After studying several political parties to find out what they believe and stand for, I decided my political ideology was more in line with the Republicans. I definitely was no Democrat—that’s for sure—but I don’t really consider myself one or the other. I’m more of a Christocrat, someone who honors our founding fathers and pays them homage for being godly men at a time when wickedness was all over the world. Our founding fathers started this country and built it on God and His Word, and this country sure would be a better place to live and raise our children if we still followed their ideals and beliefs."
Highlights I selected from a book I read and blogged 11 years ago, retrieved this morning on seeing the obituary of the author. Do you recognize the voice?
Here is the obituary: "Phil Robertson, ‘Duck Dynasty’ Patriarch, Dies at 79/He founded the duck-call business that became the foundation of his family’s reality television empire" (NYT).Mr. Robertson was initially opposed to the idea of a television show, his son Willie told The New York Times in 2013. “He said, ‘I’m already as famous as I want to be.’” Willie said. “I explained to him: ‘Phil, this can expand your platform to talk about the things you like to talk about,’” including his Christian faith.
“Duck Dynasty,” which ran over 11 seasons from 2012 to 2017, once ranked among the most popular shows on cable and had as many as 12 million viewers. It is loosely centered on the Duck Commander business, headed by Willie, Mr. Robertson’s third son with his wife, Kay. It drew fans for its idiosyncratic humor, the characters’ offbeat antics and the way the family was able to mine self-deprecating wisdom from the redneck caricature.
The family was also notably one of the first in the reality television industry to openly admit that their show was staged, describing it as “guided reality” in which producers would often sketch out the parameters of a situation and have the family live it. That helped the show solidify the idea that distinguishing between real and fake isn’t really important in reality television.
Without the Bible as a blueprint for living our lives, I’m not surprised to see our country struggling so mightily. Romans 1:28–32 says:
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents, they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
The apostle Paul was writing about the Roman Empire, but he might as well have been talking about present-day America.
Speaking of the notion that distinguishing between real and fake isn’t really important, I have already processed the information — here — that Robertson reportedly said he's never even read that book.
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28 comments:
He was starting QB at LA Tech ahead of Terry Bradshaw.
"distinguishing between real and fake isn’t really important"
My money was on Phil Roberts or Ted Nugent. I was trying to think who was really into hunting and Christianity in the late 20th century.
You don't need a Duck Commander to spot the quackery that has almost ruined this country.
Paul a learned man, a Pharisee of the Gamaliel school, who knew Greek and Latin as well as Hebrew, admitted he knew nothing in the big scheme of things when he was awakened to the Lord,
in fact because of his blindness, long before Damascus, he had persecuted Jesus's followers to Death,
one might make some parallel with these petty bureaucrats who held the lives of men and women, in their hands in the last four years, because their Gospel was the Washington Post or the Times, it doesn't rightly matter,
“ Now, I’m not a man of great intellectual depth, but it sounds to me like God Almighty has said we can pretty much rack and stack anything that swims, flies, or walks, which I consider orders from headquarter…”
“ One afternoon while preparing to pitch his tent Joseph [Smith] and others discovered three rattlesnakes. As the men prepared to kill them, the Prophet said, “Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation.” The snakes were carefully carried across a creek on sticks and released. Joseph instructed the camp to refrain from killing any animal unless it was necessary to avoid starvation. (History of the Church, 2:71–72.)
Althouse writes, "If Robertson isn't responsible for the text, he's a party to a scam, which doesn't seem too godly."
One could say that that about much of the Bible, staring with the Torah a proceeding through every book one may choose in both Testaments. According to most scholars only the four canonical gospels are the work of individual writers, but probably not the personages tradition ascribes. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were common names in the Roman Empire, particularly among the Hellenized Jews of the First and Second centuries. Rest of it -- ghostwritten and never read by its alleged authors. And don't get me started on the Koran... fifty percent stolen from the Jews, the Samaritans, the early Christians, and even a Zoroastrian or two, the rest invented in the Eighth century to justify the caliphate.
Every holy book ever circulated seems to have worked to cement and advance the societies that created them, at least for a while. The Koran and the Hadith apparently works for the Muslims (at any rate, that's what they claim) though much of Islamic science and architecture is rooted in the pagan thought of the Greeks. The Torah and the Analects of Confucius have kept the Jews and the Chinese intact and prosperous for a while, going on three millennia now, though hardly a patch on the Zoroastrians. The point is, wisdom is wise, whether there's a divine being involved or not, and there's not much wisdom prevailing anywhere on the planet today. But there's a plethora of ideology, most of it really stupid. The Duck Commander's ideology is much less stupid than most.
Maybe the reports Althouse cited are true, but how scammy does that make Happy, Happy, Happy? And if there is an objectionable degree of scammerocity, how does Althouse deal with earning a commission on its sale?
Your post makes it seem like he said he never read the Bible - the sentence "I have already processed the information — here — that Robertson reportedly said he's never even read that book" - immediately follows the quoted passage from the Bible (albeit one that was quoted in his autobiography). To be clear, it is the autobiography itself that he allegedly never read.
...the Prophet said, “Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it?
And like every other prophet, Joseph Smith didn't grasp evolution. Perhaps that works in favor of the LDS folks?
clearly when he went into the greater world, he learned what passes for wisdom, which is nothing of the kind, then
still you quibble over minor things,
I read somewhere that in urban areas in the southwest, there are strains of rattlers whose rattles don't work; they are more dangerous because they don't warn people, dogs, etc. of their presence. The theory is that the snakes with defective rattlers have evolved because the ones with working rattles get killed.
May be an urban myth.
What is says about the teachings of Joseph Smith is beyond me.
“ Now, I’m not a man of great intellectual depth, but it sounds to me like God Almighty has said we can pretty much rack and stack anything that swims, flies, or walks, which I consider orders from headquarters.”
All the member species of Homo are predators, killers and eaters of flesh, that's just a biological fact that derives from the physiology inherited from our pre-human ancestors. Vegans foolishly deny this, which is to be expected when foolish denial is foolishly fashionable. If you want to ascribe the machinery of Nature to the command of a divine being, have at it. Just don't make it a matter of obligatory education.
An urban myth, apparently.
https://rattlesnakesolutions.com/snakeblog/science-and-education/are-rattlesnakes-evolving-to-rattle-less-or-losing-their-rattles/#:~:text=These%20rattlesnakes%2C%20most%20famously%20the,them%20hunt%20birds%20more%20effectively.
Get thee to a Church, woman.
Stop seeking Him in reality tv show pioneers.
...Robertson reportedly said he's never even read that book.
I'd like to see the exact quotation that report cites. Perhaps Robertson read portions of the manuscript, the more interpretive bits for example, and ignored the drier begats and proceedings. I would never say I have read Anna Karenina, though I have started it many times. Other interests intruded, leaving that book shelved with an index card shoved between pages 224 and 225.
Buffaloes, horses, and cattle weigh a lot. Rattlesnakes not so much. A timely rattle would help to forestall that problem.....To meta the metaphor, it should be noted that rattles are not effective during stampedes.
The Duck Commander has gone to that last great blind in the sky. Duckdom breathes a collective sigh of relief.
What a sad day that we will never enjoy another live performance by ZZ top.
Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don't know where I am goin' to
Silk suit, black tie (black tie)
I don't need a reason why
… They come runnin' just as fast as they can
'Cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man
Can we please start arguing about Bitcoin again? That was fun …
"Althouse writes, "If Robertson isn't responsible for the text, he's a party to a scam, which doesn't seem too godly.""
"Responsible" is a carefully chosen word. Read the whole passage: "Assuming Robertson really said [he didn't write and hadn't read the text] and wasn't lying, I'd guess that it means that Robertson mostly did interviews and provided scraps of writing to the person who put the book text together and that Robertson has never taken the trouble to sit down and read it through. So am I wasting my time taking the text seriously? If Robertson isn't responsible for the text, he's a party to a scam, which doesn't seem too godly."
What I said I "guessed" would make him "responsible" for the text, though not completely. And it might be a complete concoction, which would be bad.
Virtually every 'reality' show is a 'scam' in that sense. The vast majority of people and what they do just aren't very interesting.
"Buffaloes, horses, and cattle weigh a lot."
It fairly certain that rattlesnakes didn't evolve their ability to rattle in response to such heavy-bodied herbivores (assuming in response to even make sense in evolutionary terms) given the epicenter of rattlesnake diversity is the vast arid region that links the American southwest to the Mexican northwest. Where their diversity is greatest, the vegetation is too often sparse to support those grazing animals.
My own experience with horses hasn't lent much support either. I've never owned or trained a horse that was ever snakebitten, though I once encountered an eastern diamondback coiled up in the aisle way of my stable. Though it rattled momentarily, the horses didn't panic. Instead, they were suspiciously curious. The ability to rattle is defensive, that's as certain as anything can be in evolutionary biology, but defensive against what? Again being accidently trampled by a ungulate or ruminant? I'm doubtful. Equids and bovines really vibrate the ground when they move, enough to alert snakes at quite a distance. I think rattling, whether it originated in the colubids or the pit vipers, functions as a deterrent to the small-bodied stealthy predators of snakes such as the kit fox, the coati, and numerous hawks and owls.
The evolution of rattlesnakes is an interesting and probably insolutable subject because behavior generally leaves no trace in the fossil record. There are many snakes that rattle, but not all of them are rattlesnake or even members of the Viperidae. Many colubrids vibrate their tails when under stress and can convincingly imitate a rattlesnake's rattle. But which of these very distantly related cousins (the Suborder Serpentes may be paraphyletic) is the imitator and which is the imitated?
Venom is physiologically expensive and often required for the digestion of the pit viper's prey. Whereas a pit viper may inflict a dry bite defensively, they always inject venom into their prey, even something as small and defenseless as a frog. Rattles may have evolved by helping to conserve venom for more profitable use than defense. (Not for, mind you, evolutionary developments may provide a beneficial function, but they don't have a purpose.) The most curious aspect of tail rattles is why only the rattlesnake tribe have them and not the entire Crotalinae subfamily. Cottonmouths deter interference effectively by displaying that well-armed white maw. Copperheads and bushmasters, however, don't have any defense other than retreating or biting, and the bushmasters don't do much of the former and too much of the latter, making them increasingly rare in the habitats they share with humans.
(reposted with clarifications and typo fixes)
I know a rancher who swears that the rattlers she encounters near the house never rattle, but the ones out in the brush do.
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