LIFE REFLECTIONS BY GEORGE CARLIN:
1. Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.
2. I’m not into working out. My philosophy is no pain, no pain.
3. I’m in shape. Round is a shape.
4. I’m desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
5. Do illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?
6. I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
7. Ask people why they have deer heads on their walls and they tell you
it’s because they’re such beautiful animals. I think my wife is
beautiful, but I only have photographs of her on the wall.
From the same site as below (http://www.lightandlife.com/humor.htm)
GEORGE CARLIN ON VALUES
Comic philosopher Carlin, who recently lost his wife, felt especially poignant when he wrote this gem
about his longstanding serio-comic complaints with society & where true value lies.
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers,
wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more,
but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment,
more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast,
get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, & pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years.
We’ve been all the way to the moon & back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.
We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.
We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.
We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less & less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men & small character, steep profits & shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips,
disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, & pills that do everything from cheer,
to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window & nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology
can bring this letter to you, & a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones,
because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe,
because that little person soon will grow up & leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only
treasure you can give with your heart & it doesn’t cost a cent.
Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it.
A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for
someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to
share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don’t send this to at least 8 people….Who cares?
- George Carlin
Found at this website: http://www.lightandlife.com/humor.htm
I am not a Christian. Black Xanthus is, in fact he is hoping to join the clergy. So how can a ‘non-Christian’ and a Christian work together in a balanced relationship? According to some sites I’ve fond they can’t. Full stop, no exceptions. They quote;
2 Corinthians 6:14 says, ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers,’
http://net-burst.net/singles/mix.htm
Yet no mention of the passage that says it is OK to take a non-believer as a partner:
1 Corinthians 7: 14, ‘For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.’
I find that most of the sites that come up when you look for advice on Christians dating non-Christians are Christian dating sites, which obviously have no interest in promoting spiritually mixed marriages. How can these people condemn a relationship they don’t even try to understand?
Working round different faiths is accomplished everyday. So long as we respect one another and accept things like getting up on a Sunday (even if I don’t go to Church, how hard is it for him to get out of a bed when I’m there to curl up with?) or that occasionally one of us might want to be alone for an hour or two to pray or contemplate. It’s a case of compromise, as with all relationships. I know that God comes first for BX, but I trust that HE is taking care of a side of BX that I can’t. Just as my faith and beliefs hold me up in areas BX can’t. Everyone needs faith of one kind or another, whether it’s a spiritual faith, a faith in humanity or a faith in a political system. Faith is personal.
There is no reason faith should be an obstacle. It does mean compromises. We’re getting married in a Church because I know how important that is to him. We’re also having a quite ceremony for me as well, later in the year. I think the hard part will come with things like having the children baptized, I don’t think I can say the vows that are asked of the parents;
Their parents, godparents and sponsors
In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.
Therefore I ask:
Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God? I reject them.
Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil? I renounce them.
Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour? I repent of them.
Do you turn to Christ as Saviour? I turn to Christ.
Do you submit to Christ as Lord? I submit to Christ.
Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life? I come to Christ.
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/initiation/baptism.html
I can’t, in good faith, say these words. I’m also uncomfortable with;
The president or another minister makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of each candidate, saying
Christ claims you for his own.
Receive the sign of his cross.
I think I’m uncomfortably with the idea that they are then marked, for life, with no choice and no way out… I want my children to have a naming ceremony, but I don’t think I can be involved in a religious ceremony that demands they are raised this way or that, and condemns any other way.
Having said that, I know it is important to BX and though i don’t think i could be involved, I think I would allow them to be baptised, so long as they are given all the choices as they grow up and have a full awareness of all other faiths and beliefs, including atheism. On that i know we agree.
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html
This guy had a head on his shoulders, i do like the this quote;
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
and i like this idea;
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
This one i think BX would like;
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
And for a couple of mathematicians i know =)
“God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
This is the main page of the Quakers : http://www.quaker.org.uk/HomePage.asp?NodeID=89723
They have some really good Sunday School ideas 
As seen below:
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/index.html
Huh? I was raised an atheist, its not that hard so long as your open and honest with your child, of course we ask difficult questions, children are explorers, but answer them to the best of your ability or find someone who can. If they’re asking you hard questions you’ve done something right because if you find someone else for them to talk to, ie. a vicar they will ask them hard questions and if you really want to keep them atheist, send them to a fundementalist church and watch how they treat your child. some church’s will throw you out for asking difficult questions!
However thats not my view, if they’re interested then i’m not going to deny my child faith. It’s a basic human want, to explain the unexplanable and though i have my way and BX has his, my parents have another and i want my children to explore all the possibilities. These people seem as bad as the Christian fundamentalists.
Megz
P.S. I’m ranting about their Atheist parenting page.
http://www.lpboulder.com/quotes/
Quotes from libertarions, quite interesting.
SK and I are engaged!
Since September 4th at around 9pm. He took me to the place we had our 1st date, for some spurious reason, the purple heather was blooming (I love Purple heather) and we walked around the lake (its a nature reserve) and he told me a story about how there used to be silver deposits in the lake and if you dip some items in there they come out silver. He picked up a blade of grass and started knotting it and he made a ring then whispered, shall we see if it turns to silver? He knelt by the water and when he turned around he was holding the ring. It’s a beautiful thin silver ring in the design of a piece of string tied in a bow, just like the grass ring had been. I always told him it wasn’t the ring that mattered but the act and that he could ask me with a piece of string for all i cared, so he did and it is beautiful!
Back home, it’s been a rollercoaster.
I got back from Cyprus last Friday and haven’t really had time to write since. In Cyprus i did some amazing things, I went Bungee jumping for the fist time (hopefully not the last, what a rush!), i went parasending (flying up in a parachute behind a boat, fantastic fun, really peaceful), i stood in an Amphitheatre and gave a rendition from Euripides Trojan Women (that was an incredible feeling!).
On my return i got a phone call from a place i’d applied for work, a nursery. They asked if i could start on Tuesday, straight after the Bank Holiday Monday :) I’ve been working 9 till 6 with the 3+ years They are quite a bunch of characters!
As for the rest, getting back has been a bit strange, lots of conversations and a strange kind of slow down, my fault, but now i’m not sure if it was the right thing. I suppose that’s the problem, i’m so used to be sensible and i just don’t seem to able to be sensible about this! Then again, when have i ever been sensible when it comes to this.
Megz
I’m currently sitting in the national Library of Wales waiting for Robin to collect her things from the South Reading room. She just gave me a lovely neck massage and the odd click i usually have has gone
I’ve been having an odd day. Last night me and SK were up at the local Church clearing the graveyard. It needs doing. There are graves that have not seen the light of day for YEARS! And i don’t just mean bramble covered graves, i mean graves that were either laid flat or have fallen over now COMPLETELY covered by earth. The big problem i suppose is that the whole graveyard is on a steep hill, so anything lying flat is easily lost if any earth above it shifts. I just found it rather sad to see graves not just forgotten, but buried and lost. At least the ones still standing can be seen and acknowledged, these ones have been walked over and forgotten. So last night i was very restless, i kept thinking about the grave of Elizabeth, it wasn’t only lost under an inch of earth, but had had nettles and brambles growing wild over it. So this morning when there was a break in the weather i went up to start clearing them. I managed to get 3 uncovered before the rain got too bad.
Whats strange i suppose is the idea that these people have been here, there graves lost or hidden. I started to wonder if i would mind, if as a spirit i returned to my grave site to find it lost. I don’t think i would. I can understand those who would, the idea of the lasting monument, or memorial, but for me i have no problem with being forgotten. i want to live my LIFE and be remembered for that, by those i shared it with, and once those people are gone, i don’t mind being forgotten. I will leave a legacy, there will be those who come after me. i often think of all the family with out whom i would not exist, yet who died century’s ago.
Robin wrote me out a beautiful charm that was recorded by Rudyard Kipling, that i think sums it up beautifully;
Take of British earth as much as either hand may rightly clutch,
In the taking of it breath a prayer for those who lie beneath,
Not the great or well bespoke,
But poor unaccounted folk,
Of whose birth or death is none report or lamentation,
Lay this earth upon thy heart
And thy sickness shall depart.
I want to be one of the unaccounted folk, i don’t think i have any great desire to be remembered, except by those who truly knew me and can therefore remember what i was truly like (warts and all!)
Megz
The full poem can be found here: http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p2/charm.html