Althouse: Sunrise.

July 5, 2026

Sunrise.

14 comments:

Narr said...: So, anybody watching the World Cup?; 7/5/26, 8:44 PM
Big Mike said...: @Narr, Tomorrow night; 7/5/26, 9:44 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I just dropped off a passenger who was listening via his phone. He was a Mexican expressing shock and disbelief.

Saying our goodbyes I said “Si se puede!”. Secretly I think I said that mockingly? I don’t know; I’m not a kickball fanatic. Besides, I don’t want to get political.; 7/5/26, 9:44 PM
Jupiter said...: This evenings sermon is based upon Highway 61 Revisited, Side 2, Track 2, "Highway 61";
"Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”

In this reframing of the Book of Genesis, Dylan explores the Deity as Gangster motif, implying that the Creator of the Universe was motivated largely by a desire to have sentient creatures that he might dominate by torture and terrorism. Forcing Abraham to agree to participate in the murder of his own son was God's way of crushing Abraham's will between his God-given desire to have progeny and his craven terror in the face of God's complete control of the circumstances of his existence. In Dylan's telling, God created Abraham in order to toy with him.

Extra credit; In the New Testament, God creates a Son of his own, and sacrifices Him. While He released Abraham from the demand that he kill his son, He showed no such mercy to his own Son.
1 - Does this indicate that the Universe was created by a sadomasochistic monster?
2 - Why would an immortal and omnipotent Deity require the ability to reproduce?
3 - Does the ability to reproduce somehow entail psychosexual perversion? Is there something innate in the idea of an entity that is both a reproduction of the self, but also other than the self, that necessarily drives any seemingly rational mind down an irrational rabbithole?
4 - To put it another way, is reproduction incompatible with rationality? Is it simply impossible, for straightforward reasons, that an entity that "reproduces" might remain "rational"?; 7/5/26, 10:08 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: The NYT is giving the World Cup more coverage than Iran and Ukraine combined. The Illuminati are determined to cram soccer down our throats. And we WILL like it.; 7/5/26, 10:28 PM
Jupiter said...: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16

OK .... but ... before God, the omnipotent Creator of the Universe, could make this wrenching personal sacrifice, He would have had to somehow decide to even have an only "begotten" Son. And also, he would have needed to decide, for reasons not in evidence, that only the death of that Son could save the rest of his creation from the doom He had decreed for it, in His Articles of Incorporation.
He seems like more than a little bit of a Drama Queen. With a whim of iron.; 7/5/26, 10:30 PM
Jupiter said...: From the standpoint of physical science, the idea of an omnipotent Deity is deeply problematic. In the Western tradition, we suppose that there exists a "normal course of affairs", which is what physical science attempts to identify, and then there are those occurrences that are "miraculous", meaning, contrary to that normal course of affairs. But if we assume that God is omnipotent, then it is simply impossible that anything might occur that was contrary to His Will.

Islam is more rational about this, although Islam is entirely irrational. At least some "Islamic scholars" maintain that every single thing that occurs -- each slight deflection of a grasshopper's wing -- occurs because Allah wills it. And while this seems quite absurd, or at least quite inexplicable, it makes more sense than the idea that an omnipotent God arranges things to suit Himself -- except for when He can't be bothered, and allows some other agency to determine what comes next. What, He's busy that day?; 7/5/26, 10:47 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Before you get all judgy, remember what you did to Saturn.; 7/5/26, 10:48 PM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: @Jupiter : what would be different between God of Abraham and Allah of Mohammed?; 7/5/26, 10:59 PM
Saint Croix said...: I personally think that God did not call on Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham misunderstood the call. I do believe God stopped the sacrifice before it could happen.

God sacrificing his own son for us, flips the Old Testament narrative on its head. We don’t have to make blood sacrifice to God, the powerful one. He, far more powerful than we are, made a blood sacrifice for us. This radically reshaped our understanding of God. He loves us.

And of course the story doesn’t stop with the blood sacrifice (Good Friday). God resurrected Jesus from the dead (Easter Sunday). This radically reshaped our understanding of death. We no longer had to be afraid of God. We no longer had to be afraid of dying.

I suppose God had to do it this way because humanity is so messed up. Jesus brought back Lazarus from the dead, and humanity barely noticed.

The disciples were shocked when God killed Jesus. They were even more shocked when God brought him back to life.; 7/5/26, 11:06 PM
Jupiter said...: On a distinct, but not unrelated topic:
"Time will tell
Just who has fell,
And who's been left behind
When you go your way and I go mine".

A brilliant lyric. An iconic line. I hear it ringing in my mind, like a tolling bell, each phrase following upon the last as necessarily it must. Except.

It should be "who fell", or else "who has fallen". Just from a grammatical point of view.

I have to say, I'm inclined to give him this one. The cadence lands upon the ear as a striding inevitability. The rhyme is necessary to that cadence. Is it even possible that the thought might be expressed in some other way? I think he has gotten away with it. Like a bank-robber, he pulled it off. And no one got hurt, so his crime is forgiven.; 7/5/26, 11:07 PM
bagoh20 said...: I've mentioned before my recurring fantasy while driving of having people from the past suddenly appear in my passenger seat and having a discussion with them while showing them the sights of the modern world.
I realized I could kind of do it with A.I., so I have Grok filling in for Benjamin Franklin, and we are having an ongoing conversation. It's fun. It may become a hobby.; 7/5/26, 11:20 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: “The disciples were shocked when God killed Jesus. They were even more shocked when God brought him back to life.”

I don’t think it should count as dying if you just come back to life a couple of days later. That’s more like oversleeping. And I suppose crucifixion is unpleasant, but God has inflicted much worse on good people I have known, and they didn’t get to come back.; 7/5/26, 11:38 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: "If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing" so goes an online opinion that appears to be gaining traction with gamers.

Video of a very animated proponent.; 7/5/26, 11:41 PM