Churchhoney

Otherwise known as the Ten Thousand Stooges. Every little bit of learning is a step in the right direction.

Lots of Catholics, lots of "nones," lots of mainline Protestants, looks like. Really, there's quite a small number, comparatively, of the Protestant groups the Duggars would appeal to. Guess that tells us who's doing most of the home schooling, though. And why. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/tables/provs/albtop.cfm http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/ab.cfm

Well, I'll start the debate (but I won't continue it!). Yeah, there's truth to it. Their feet certainly don't need "support" or "protection" from anything. And being able to use a complex group of muscles flexibly is always a good idea.

I don't know but they look a) expensive and b) incredibly unsuitable for an infant.

Okay, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of describing one's personal activity as depicted on instagram using a quote about "pure religion and undefiled before God." Really, Jill? You want to tell the whole world that this thing you're doing constitutes "pure religion"? Good grief. And you think that doesn't fall under that category of "pride" that your dopey brother-in-law was railing about on his blog the other day? The only actual followers and fans that they still have must certainly be as dimwitted as they are.

Yeah, but she could call Jana over to fix it. Well, I always kind of wondered whether she was given a ballpark date or a specific date around now and then decided to say it was the nearby date of Nov. 1 so she could have the cool made-for-tv story of the baby's being due on their anniversary. She didn't necessarily do that, of course, but it would be an awfully Duggarlike thing to do, seems to me.

Wow. We're getting hard up for things these days. Is is a dieting thing? -- Like, you order it but it looks like such a mess you then refuse to eat it?

Who serves a sundae with half of what's in it running down the sides and globbed onto the saucer? Or even serves a sundae so overpiled and near melting that that happens? It's bizarre.

Maybe butterscotch?

That's because lies are hard to remember.

Oh, she's living boldly in the Confidence of the Lord. ... Just like Bin and all the rest of Duggardom. Nothing negative applies to any of them. Ever. Bin's bought into that one completely, I think. I mean, who doesn't want that to be true? And if you're dumb, thoughtless and uninformed enough, it can be!

Well, we've seen what happens when Bin tries to talk theology. I expect the rest of the family is pretty much on the same level.

Yeah, and as I recall she actually noted at one point that she was thrilled she and Ben had had so much longer than Jill and Derick did to just be a couple and enjoy that part of marriage. So that's how expansive her view of life's possibilities is.

I saw a clip from one of those Marjorie's-mom-tutoring-sessions. As I recall, it was most of the Duggars around a table with Marjorie's mom telling them some words in Spanish and them repeating them (kind of) with giggles of combined embarrassment and superiority (or maybe that's just my interpretation.) I wonder how much of that they actually did outside of filming sessions. I seem to recall that the clip I saw wasn't called their first lesson or anything, but they seemed to be incredibly unserious and it certainly wasn't any kind of immersion. They clearly didn't give a flying crap, which I suppose makes it exactly like all the rest of the Duggars' "schooling." Once you have Jesus, what else do you need to know? Really?

I guess the fear of the "pleasures of the flesh" (see, if we all write it, then you're not so much on the hook...) just goes back, once again, to what fearful people they are. The call to "pleasure of the flesh" can be awfully strong, and I can see why insecure types might find it terrifying and kind of uncanny. Too bad they aren't reflective enough to recognize greed, arrogance and lust for power as similar pleasures and run from them a little bit more, while running from sex a little bit less.

This is too good not to be repeated.

Maybe it's because it's all about Jesus Christ being your personal savior? -- and your main relationship, so you don't actually have to name him -- he's your "Him"? -- and also so important that he needs a capital letter for his pronoun, while others don't?

Yeah, I think he was, too. And with Mike Farris (of HSLDA) also being Virginia-based for a long time now, the Virginia group is kind of ground zero for anti-oversight fervor.

Well, at least maybe he has the sense or the grace or something to be embarrassed by the way their activities may look to others. He could have pulled a Ben and ranted on about exactly what's wrong with the other creeds. But he hasn't been quite as isolated as the rest of them, so maybe he feels a bit funny when he thinks about the (no doubt many) people he's met at least in passing who subscribe to other beliefs and whom he's now suspected of targeting as hellbound people who need him to save them.

Virginia homeschoolers who homeschool for religious reasons managed at some point to get a law passed declaring that if you do that, you will face no state oversight or requirements whatsoever. So clearly there is a strong group there who see things just as the Duggars do and insist that complete carte blanche to homeschool in line with your own faith -- with absolutely no state oversight whatsoever -- is integral to "religious freedom" under the Constitution.

Virginia's association had them keynote in 2013. Apparently more people than you might expect have considered them role models for their approach to homeschooling. https://www.facebook.com/HEAV.Virginia.Homeschool/posts/10151614802897908

I never said it was logical. In fact, I said that I didn't believe it and that it doesn't seem right and logical to me. However, in their defense, they don't say it's logical. It's a matter of faith and it's beyond logic. It's one of the things they consider an essential paradox of their faith, such as Christ being wholly God and wholly man at the same time, the Trinity being three but a single one at the same time, and so on. This exact stuff is all over Christian writings. Here, for example -- http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/do-not-love-the-world 1 John 2:15–17 says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. Just because we don't think it's logical and we tend to base things on logic doesn't mean that they're stupid or unclear (in their own way) or are making stuff up out of whole cloth. They're speaking out of religious tradition with faith rooted in paradox, and in this statement David's just repeating -- and trying to reformulate in what I'm sure he thinks is a cool, intriguing, well-writing way -- a lot of stuff that's very commonplace in the religious tradition out of which he speaks. I don't think he's being some kind of a foggy-headed idiot here. I think he's speaking out of a tradition that embraces paradoxical koans rather than logic.

I actually only like dry toast. So I'd say the breakfast might suggest pregnancy but is in no way conclusive evidence!

I don't know. Seems to me much more likely that this is just his attempt at an aphorism spelling out the general human condition (for Christians). All are sinners -- who have too much love for the world, cause for some reason that's what's said to make you a sinner (don't get that at all -- I think hate and negative emotions are the likely culprits in sin, but anyway) -- but all Christians also are striving after the Lord (which makes them turn away from the world -- personally, I don't get that either, because if God made the world I'd think we were supposed to love it, but anyway....). In David's warped-by-a-lifetime-of-crazies mind, I would think, this is just a cool paradoxical statement of the paradoxical nature of Christian life: We're all constant, lost and worldly sinners but we all also love the Lord and strive toward him constantly. It's a lifetime of struggle! (which they kind of want, I guess, since the presence of the endless paradoxical struggle shows what strong believers they are?) I think he probably uses Twitter to polish up his aphorisms for his speaking engagements and so on. As Clemgo 3165 said, it's a zen koan for Christians. The language of religion is pretty much always paradoxical. And these guys model themselves on the King James, where parallelisms are a big stylistic thing. There must be something wrong with me, because I don't really find the statement strange at all. I think it's just an attempt at a poetic casting of something pretty normal -- They're people but believers, so they're full of both worldly thoughts and feelings and the striving for Christ. (As I said, I personally don't really get why loving the world should be antithetical to loving God. But that's clearly a major tenet of their belief system.)

Homeschoolers Anonymous is planning a new series on escapes from controlling homes. I'd say that, when these pieces are published, someone should send them to Jana's mailsorting operation, but I expect what they'll mainly demonstrate is how difficult it is to get out. And while only too true, that's probably a message that would only further deflate the Duggar kids. They're well and truly trapped. https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/escapes-and-rescues-a-call-for-stories/ They've previously run a little series on the group of people in Colorado including Cynthia Jeub who helped Cynthia and her sister Lydia and a bunch of other people leave. The amount of emotional manipulation practiced on these kids is pretty harrowing. https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/unboxing-project-being-an-angel-with-a-shotgun/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/unboxing-project-the-trouble-with-freeing-people/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/why-the-name-unboxing-project/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/unboxing-project-racquels-story/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/the-underground-railroad-defecting-from-a-cult/