Churchhoney

I swear it wasn't me!

Oh, dear. Well, it takes all kinds to make a world, as they say. Sometimes "wanting what you want" is a very valuable trait for all of us, if its owner wants the right thing. So you never know.

Why am I picturing this on a billboard with JB's face on it? ....and maybe a fuzzy shot of Michelle mowing lawn in a bikini behind him ....

Yeah, I think you're right. But it still makes no sense to me that a god that's supposed to be universal would just keep score on Rwandan genocide but intervene with Susie's lost keys! That could be the case -- but a god like that can do its intervening/non-intervening without my support. Clearly that god doesn't care for my support, anyway!

Either God is very indecisive. Or God wanted JB to be branded as a laughable failure. This is another stupid bind they get into with this micromanagement stuff. Don't know why they can't see it.

Exactly. Now, I know this is arrogant, but I think that small people are going to envision a small God. If there is some kind of person-like being behind the universe, I just can't believe that it's a being that's petty in the way a lot of religious talk strikes me as being.

Oddly, God was not responsible for canceling 19 Kids, however. I believe this is called "trying to have it both ways."

Yep. You're probably right! On the other hand, if somebody has 19 homeschooled kids with uncombed hair, years-long learning gaps and a diet consisting of tater tots and instant oatmeal, it still strikes me as perhaps a misplaced priority!

Yep, that's what I've heard, too. But it would make a lot more sense if there weren't so very many things like the Holocaust, numerous other genocides, civilian war casualties, tsunamis, wildfires, the insatiable and unturned hearts of serial killers, fogbound highway accidents involving 80 cars, cholera epidemics in poverty-stricken countries, and devastating and incurable dementia and deep depression that strike and torment little old ladies for years when they're lived good lives and really would just like to die. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. I can't get my mind around an infinite God whose priorities apparently require ignoring such massive devastation at the same time as, according to other people, he's helping them win talent contests and do well on their math tests or find nice godly boyfriends. Nobody can convince me that more heartfelt prayers have arisen from American Idol winners than from the millions who've suffered and perished in human- or natural force-caused violence. To me, there's something way off about a "supreme being" who's helping somebody out with a math test while leaving a little kid trying to clear a field of landmines so his family can garden it without a clue of where the mine is that'll blow off his legs. Seems as if the small things always get this God's attention while huge things get ignored! This is a big reason why I'm an atheist. Even if there is a God, if these are that "supreme being's" priorities, then I have no interest in endorsing him or her as particularly supreme! Anybody who appears to care to help Susie find her car keys but doesn't appear to care about rescuing tortured children dying in agony in concentration camps or of some burrowing worm disease isn't making very good use of his or her "infinite" capacities, in my opinion. It God's so infinite, why can't he or she do both? And, of course, the answer to this is -- You are arrogant! God is far wiser and larger than you! And someday you will understand! You will see the whole picture! Well, I've read dozens of books attempting to explain how all this evil and pain continue to exist in a world in which other people are supposedly being provided with God's assistance to pass their road tests or make a frigging touchdown in the NFL. And I haven't seen one book that actually manages to explain it in any other way than "God will make it all clear in time!" That being the case, I assume that that time will come when I'm dead and no longer have need of what would be awfully good information to help reconcile me to the horrors that exist all over this world, striking good people, including people who pray, while others are bragging that their prayers have brought a solution to some tiny first-world problem. If this is what God is, he or she is just a callous jerk using people as a plaything and torturing them further by spitting on their struggles to understand. .... God surpasseth our understanding and leaveth our reason in the dust -- but why would a God have given us those things in the first place if they were worthless for true understanding? And does that mean we're not supposed to rely on them for anything? I never see an answer to this either! To me, this whole thing is sort of a God in the image of a nasty powerful person. Sort of a God in the image of Jim Bob! And I'm so not interested in a God like that. (Doesn't help that a lot of the people who make this argument most strongly about God also don't believe in, say, evolution. I have a hard time believing that those people are right about an issue this profound!)

Are "tacky" and "greedy" colors? How about "transparent"?

No kidding. I hope nobody shows up. Unbelievable. I suppose they'll decorate the place with the 500 engagement photos.

Music with a beat. She really is going to hell.

Am I the only one who doesn't even understand what it means for a department store to "host" a shower? Is this a thing now? And, if so, for how long? It may be the griftiest thing I've ever heard of.

Experience speaks!

Well, that's good news for Derick, anyway.

Also a good point. I really would like to get inside her head. I guess that having both things at once might be what she'd really like. But then again, that's probably true of a lot of us -- given our druthers, we'd like to combine the benefits of big-fish-in-a-little-pond and little-fish-in-a-big-fun-pond. If you can choose, then I suppose you're somebody who's either a little more interested in the world beyond you or a little more interested in your own ego. All the selfies would suggest the latter in this case, but then again she's certainly in the selfie generation. I wonder how many will remain fans as they get older. Seems that most will fall away. But there will always be a remnant of diehards, I suppose. Probably not enough to support Ben's 21st-century e-ministry though, I would guess. I wonder how many will remain fans as they get older. Seems that most will fall away. But there will always be a remnant of diehards, I suppose. Probably not enough to support Ben's 21st-century e-ministry though, I would guess.

Post of the day. One guy in Internet commentary suggests that, for straight couples, peanuts, hot dogs or smoked salmon might be better appreciated. Not sure about King Dill. Maybe pickle would be his flavor? https://www.flickr.com/photos/sa_steve/4222259559

WTF are they going to do with all those pictures? And this is just the engagement.

Good points. I can see this as a strong possibility. If it is the case, poor Jessa. I wish we could tell her that once you're out in the world, you actually can get up to speed -- eventually -- without dying of embarrassment or being ridiculed to death. And it's well worth the early awkwardness and fears.

Now, see, this shows that she is probably the most accomplished seductress ever. She overcomes biological sexual orientation, makes the blind to see and revives the half-dead as if they were Lazarus. Damn good thing TLC always blots out her knees. Far too many gay marriages would already be broken up if Michelle were on the loose.

I wonder whether the sticking point is that guys beyond a certain age -- or even young guys with a certain amount of confidence -- hesitate to sign up for a lifetime in which they'll constantly be under pressure to be Jim Bob's bitch. Jessa has never really given the impression that she wants to move a significant distance from mommy and daddy, has she? (unlike Jill and JInger, who've said things that at least implied that they'd be willing to). And I think most guys of any perception could see that as long as you were anywhere near Jim Bob he would be trying to assert his almighty authority over you, nonstop, in various nefarious ways.

I guess this is the position you put yourself in when you make your whole life into PR. Horrible that they've raised a bunch of kids who know nothing but this "everything is a PR calculation" mentality. If you're a politician or a movie star, even, you can try to reserve the PR-is-everything approach to your career-oriented activities while at least trying to make some parts of your life private. But when you're a "reality tv star" you've made your life into your career, so there doesn't seem to be any separation between PR moves and regular living. That has to be unbelievably warping for the kids, seems to me.

Marjorie also seems bright and very active. I haven't heard her say much, but what I have heard her say is coherent and articulate, and her blog is quite decently written, logical. She also mentions a ton of activities that she does, including stuff like theater with other people outside of her house. It's possible that she really liked Josiah, but when they were "courting," they spent a ton more time with his family and she found out for sure that the rest of the Duggars are ignorant idiots who do nothing and who have no respect for people who do do something -- who in fact look down on people for doing the kinds of things she does, such as writing books and hanging out with theater kids. She would also have learned that, as a Duggar in-law, she would pretty much be expected to hang out on those waiting-room couches in the TTH, staring at her phone, for vast hours every week for the rest of her life, and that JB and M would be into her business on a constant basis. Whether or not she wanted the relationship mainly for the fame, I would think that that close-up view of the Duggars would scare the pants off her with that specter of her future if she hung around.

True that. Jim Bob might find himself going to college 12 times if that was the only way he could get the money for himself.

Huh? I never heard the debunking -- or at least if I did I promptly forgot it because the story works so well with all my prejudices! Well, so much for that theory. I still think that the Oprah staff may have only hinted but not spelled out the abuse rumor to TLC, though. Followed by TLC not following up on it because they could smell the money.