Overhead at Table 4: Wife Asks Husband a Question

Have you ever cheated on me?

No.

Are you sure?

Do erotic dreams about Salma Hayek count?

Yes.

Well, shit.

Overheard at Table 4: Machado v Maduro

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/09/venezuela-maria-corina-machado-kidnapped

Overheard at Table 4: Truth Matters

Truth Matters: Confident Faith in a Confusing World

Andrea Kostenberger, Darrell Bock, & Josh Chatraw

(c) 2014

B&H Publishing Group, Nashville TN

 

 

The premise reminds me of he first God is Not Dead Movie, in that this book is geared toward the young student entering college, who has been woefully unprepared for the rhetoric and mind-opening discourse they are about to encounter.   While the book aims at "arming" the student with better defenses against the arguments against Christian Faith, it also admits that our churches and our parenting has done a piss-poor job of raising people with any sort of true knowledge of Christ or Scripture.

Which one could argue, is the greatest problem with Christianity today: too much Sunday School Elementary-level Bible Stories for children and very little by way of true edification in the tenets of our Faith tradition.

I found the book quite helpful, and I'll highlight some of the passages that I liked, but it's best to start with the biggest critique of the book, which is that it seems to focus too much on one man, Bart Ehrman.  This professor was apparently raised in the Christian faith but left as a young man when he could not find valid answers to the apparent contradictions among different parts of the Scripture (again, a most evident demonstration of the late 20th Century's lack of coherent and logical apologetics)

Basically, this book is a direct refutation of every book Ehrman has written, which weakens the argument as a book of apologetics when it seems so petty.  It's as though these three authors all took one of Ehrman's classes and got resoundingly slapped (rhetorically) by the professor.

That said, some of the passages that seem interesting are as follows:

p 13  Paul writing that, at the time of his writing the First Letter to the Corinthians, there were still at least 500 living witnesses to Jesus's earthly ministry.   Basically, Paul was saying, "You can still go check original sources."  (I make a note of this, as this ties into a literary WIP I've been toying with)

p19 A quote from Tim Keller "The Reason for God" (2008) - a book I need to check out

    "Just because you can';t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen         doesn't mean that there can't be one.  Again we see lurking within this supposed hard-nosed                     skepticism an enormous faith in one's own cognitive faculties.  If our minds can't plumb the depths         of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can't be any!  This is blind faith of a         high order."

p34 Root Issues

    "Most of people's doubts about God in relation to suffering stem from two taproots:

        1) a refusal to see God as having divine rights over His creation, and 

        2) a minimization of the extent of human rebellion against our Creator."

This is a hard pill to swallow for most.

p113 is a section of the book in which the authors do concede that there are no original hand-written documents by the original Apostles, and they show where Ehrman uses this to cast doubt on all New Testament scripture, albeit stating that "perhaps" his agnosticism could be mollified if there were, say, an original manuscript by Mark which was 99.999999% close to the texts that we do have.   The authors make a good point that papyri do wear out.   However, they take much time to demonstrate how meticulous were the Old Testament scribes that they maintained a high level of authenticity; they also show how such scrutiny by the skeptics is not applied to other texts of the contemporary times (although this is a False Equivalence - other texts do not claim to be THE WORD OF GOD)

I wish that the authors would have taken a moment to insist that the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Triune God, if we teach ourselves that such God inspired and guided the scriptures, then the Holy Spirit can move these texts as God desires, throughout all the transcribing, and that our Bible is not the actual original ink on some papyrus, but the Word as it is spoken to humanity and accepted by the individual.

[that's a note for a future essay on the subject]

p 138 - is in a section that makes a fair point that while most skeptics think the OT was written in the 5th or 6th Centuries, that the original Gospels and Epistles were written in the 1st century, only a generation or so after Jesus's Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.

p150 "AD 33- Jesus dies and rises from the dead.  No later than AD 35, Paul is converted and adopts the church's exalted Christology and teaching on salvation."

    [NOTE: I really need to delve more into that timeline, because that does seem a bit too soon in the timeline for those events to occur.  However, I am no expert - this warrants more study on my part]

p 180 - from the Notes ... Ch 2 Note 8. Alvin Plantinga "A Christian Life Partly Lived" in Philosophers Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of 11 Leading Thinkers, ed. Kelly James Clark (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997), 72

    Alister E McGrath,
Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith (Grand Rapids, Baker, 2012), 166-67

   

Overheard at Table 4: Signing the Praise Team

At Church, the Praise Team has a sign language translator at one side of the stage, signing the lyrics of each song as the band plays.  

In between the second and third song, the translator reached down and took a drink from a water bottle.

I said to my wife, "Signing must be thirsty work!"

My wife ... was not amused.

Overheard at Table 4: Cancelled Canciones vs April Wine

Cancelled Canciones: April Wine, you're cancelled?

April Wine: Why?

CC: For "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" - "Gypsy" is a slur!

AW: You can't cancel us!  We're Canadian.

CC: What does that have to do with anything?

AW: It's harder for Canadians to break into US markets, plus we have a reputation for being SUPER-polite.  It would hurt our feelings deeply.

CC: Well, you're still WHITE Canadians, so it applies.

AW: Aw take off, eh!

#CancelledCanciones

#CancelCulture

Overheard at Table 4: Spanish Accent Marks

When people ask me if the accent marks in Spanish are really important, I always tell them that there is a world of difference between "en un año" and "en un ano."

Overheard at Table 4: Two Neighbors

Wife: That neighbor is a real stuck-up bitch?

Husband: Which neighbor?

Wife: The one you confessed was "kinda cute."

Husband: Oh.  What about the one I said was "ugly as a box of rocks"?

Wife: She's all right, I guess ... unless she starts chatting you up.

Husband: I see how it is.

Overheard at Table 4: Marriage Games "Where to Eat Tonight"

Of all the marriage games I love to play, my favorite HAS to be "Where do you want to eat tonight?"

It goes like this, let my wife and I demonstrate

Me: Where to you want to eat tonight?

Wife: You choose.

Me: Ha!  I'm not falling for that trap again, where do YOU want to eat tonight?

Wife: I am SO TIRED of your indecisiveness!  Make a choice!

Me: Ok, fine, let's go get Bar-B-Que

Wife: Ew, no!  That's too heavy for dinner.

Me: Steaks, then.

Wife: Also heavy red meat!

Me: Mexican?

Wife: I had Mexican for lunch.

Me: Italian?

Wife: I want to cut back on pasta.

Me: Thai?

Wife: Too spicy.

Me: Chinese.

Wife: Too boring.

Me: Korean?

Wife: Too expensive.

Me: Japanese.

Wife: We had that on Sunday.

Me: Indian, then.

Wife: You always complain that it burns your mouth.

Me: I'm just going to go home and make a sandwich.

Wife: Let's have Mediterranean.

Me: Ok, then, good choice!

Wife: Finally!  I have to do EVerything!

Overheard at Table 4: "I have to drive to work and I have no time for myself!"

An employer has a responsibility to provide a safe work environment, but it has ZERO responsibility to ensure that the employees have a comfortable commute.

Overheard at Table 4: Why a Husband Doesn't Cheat

Would you ever cheat on your wife?

Oh hell no!

Afraid of getting caught?

Not that. I already disappoint one woman in bed, I don't think my ego could handle disappointing another.

Overheard at Table 4: Everything Causes Cancer

Boy, I sure hope I never get cancer because then my wife will tell me that it was because I had a root canal last year or drank that one soda pop at my cousin's birthday party or bought a pack of deli meat that wasn't free of sodium nitrite.

 

Overheard at Table 4: Two Cryptoquotes

 

 

 

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance."

— Unattributed

 

 

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "

— Aristotle

Overheard at Table 4: Cryptoquotes - Upon Books by Henry C Rogers

 "Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought."
— Henry C. Rogers

puzzleme
September 26, 2013, 2:33 pm
True no longer.
wordfairy
March 28, 2015, 9:07 pm
Not sure this was ever true.
kb83
May 26, 2016, 2:52 am
Well, tweets do not transmit thought.
LLapp
July 10, 2016, 7:17 am
Astute comment, kb83, and stated in well under 140 characters!
MamaB
May 29, 2017, 2:45 am
So kb83 could have just tweeted it!
SippyGurl
August 13, 2017, 5:36 pm
tweets only transmit thoughts if the tweeterer has any
munchlet
August 14, 2017, 3:16 pm
Does that last thought apply to our Tweeterer-in-Chief?
miawallace
June 11, 2018, 11:32 pm
I pride myself in not knowing before now that tweeting has to be under 140 characters. Never tweeted and probably never will.
abra
June 29, 2018, 6:05 pm
I do not tweet eithrr.
mmfs83
September 29, 2018, 7:35 am
Nor I
eholland
November 2, 2018, 6:45 am
The failing @maiwallace claims 140 character limit for tweets! Character limit was changed to 280 in 09/2017. FAKE NEWS! SAD!
LLapp
January 5, 2019, 9:14 pm
eholland for prez in 2020!
badbob
September 23, 2019, 2:45 am
another never tweeter never facebooked don't intend to do either ever. i did however pass notes in studyhall
LLapp
June 22, 2020, 2:48 am
When we passed notes in junior high, they were at least a full page long, with drawings and jokes, and actually we wrote them during class and then exchanged them between classes, in the hallways. It was probably my favorite part of school, and I still have a big bagful of friends' long notes in my memory box.
montyb
August 31, 2020, 8:26 am
^ Oooh, I see potential for a lucrative career in extortion!

from https://cryptograms.puzzlebaron.com/

Overheard at Table 4: On Equality

You know, some may pretend we've reached equality, but every few days, I top off my the gas tank of my wife's car, so she won't ever have to be standing at a gas pump in the dark before sunrise while on her way to work.

Overheard at Table 4: Raw and Unfiltered Honey

Helen: I see you bought "Raw and Unfiltered" honey, so what's the difference between that and regular honey?

Carl: Regular honey just says, "I'm sweeeet!" but Raw and Unfiltered Honey says, "I'm sweet.  And THICK!  and RICH!  You're gonna LUUUUUUUV putting me into your body!" See the difference?

Helen: I do now, yes.

Overheard at Table 4: Are You Gonna?

Forgot where I got the idea for this.  I think I was listening to a punk song by a female punk band ... or perhaps I was hearing a similar song and just re-working it as being played by a female punk band.

Either way, this song NEEDS to be sung by a female punk band.  But until then, I suppose Armadillo Railroad will just have to do it as an alt-folk cover. 

Are You Gonna?

Are you gonna be a good boy(friend)
The last one was utter shite
They found him dead in a ditch after drinking all night
No one needs to know that we got in a fight
na na na na na na na na na na na na na

Are you gonna be a good boy(friend)
The last one was sheer Hell
Only played CD’s by that bloody Adele
Can’t confirm but I might’ve chucked ‘em both down a well 
na na na na na na na na na na na na na

Are you gonna be a good boy(friend)
The last one was such a pain
Whined when the sun shone and whined when it rained
Finally shut up when shoved in front of a runaway train
na na na na na na na na na na na na na

MR

2023-0103

Overheard at Table 4: Dental Leukemia

... guy at work got all his teeth redone and then he says he got an abscess in one of his molars and he's been going back to the dentist for the past year to try to fix it, and now he says it infected his bones and gave him leukemia.

Can you get leukemia from an abscessed tooth?

Just seems weird to me.

Overheard at Table 4: Live Your Life

LIVE

YOUR LIFE

IN SUCH A WAY

THAT

THE SCHOOL SHOOTER

LETS YOU GO

 

 

Overheard at Table 4: Amazon Logarithm

I was just looking for some shelving pegs.

I have no idea why the logarithm thought I needed any of these things (well, OK, I could use a new toothbrush)...

 

 

Overheard at Table 4: Culiacán

Heard the news that Culiacán is on fire today ... apparently last night the Mexican government captured the son of El Chapo Guzmán, and then the cartel set cars on fire on the roads in and out of the city.

There are videos of an army or navy helicopter raining bullets down on houses, and other videos showing the workers at the airport hunkering down behind their kiosks.  Seems like the Cartel also attacked the airport.  Other buildings were also set on fire.

There's some conflicting news that the government may have also released the guy to try to stop the cartel from the violence, but by midday, that didn't seem to be happening.

When I looked at some of the comments on social media, seems like most of the Americans were simply saying things like, "And now Biden wants all the Cartel members to come here" and "If they had an army like ours, this'd be over in 20 minutes"  ... further indication that Americans are so arrogant, pompous, and bellicose, that they truly have zero empathy and compassion for the people who live in that city who just want to live, love, laugh, people who go to work at their various non-Cartel jobs every day and get caught in this crossfire in this failed state.  But do American commenters even think about that?  No.  Americans are all "They can't come here" and "pew pew pew!" will save the day.

Also, here's a little inconvenient fact-line:

1) Sinaloa Cartel's main source of income: Fentanyl.

2) Main consumer of Fentanyl: White Americans.

Ergo, 

3) If White Americans weren't addicted to opioids, THEN the Cartel's income stream would dry up and so would their ability to burn down cities.

From 1440 Daily Digest

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047223109/fentanyl-is-one-reason-why-the-u-s-drug-addiction-crisis-is-roaring-back

 

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-raceethnicity/?dataView=1&currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D