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Teskas
Feb 12, 2008 21:28:50 GMT -5
Post by Kristen on Feb 12, 2008 21:28:50 GMT -5
Sheesh. I'm a copy editor, you'd think I'd look for these things. (And I didn't even mention my favorite poet, Emily Thingyenson.)
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Teskas
Mar 2, 2008 22:58:18 GMT -5
Post by Teskas on Mar 2, 2008 22:58:18 GMT -5
I have been tinkering with a character in a story. She is mathematician and astronomer, who studies problems with mapping ephemeris in space. I struggle with her as a character, and don't have any real story for her, but that's not what this post is about. I'm always on the look out for comments from people with a mathematical viewpoint--in order to develop this female character. I came across this today, and I thought I would share it with Anomaly readers. It might help with a sci fi story someone is writing now or may write in the future, or it might contribute to a moment of ordinary reflection. in-step.blogspot.com/2004/10/equations-of-love.html
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Teskas
Mar 3, 2008 0:43:01 GMT -5
Post by Spokane Flyboy on Mar 3, 2008 0:43:01 GMT -5
I have been tinkering with a character in a story. She is mathematician and astronomer, who studies problems with mapping ephemeris in space. I struggle with her as a character, and don't have any real story for her, but that's not what this post is about. I'm always on the look out for comments from people with a mathematical viewpoint--in order to develop this female character. I came across this today, and I thought I would share it with Anomaly readers. It might help with a sci fi story someone is writing now or may write in the future, or it might contribute to a moment of ordinary reflection. in-step.blogspot.com/2004/10/equations-of-love.htmlTeh page maked mai hed meets bleed.
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Teskas
Mar 3, 2008 22:59:21 GMT -5
Post by Teskas on Mar 3, 2008 22:59:21 GMT -5
Too many cheezburgers!
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Teskas
Apr 13, 2008 18:26:50 GMT -5
Post by Teskas on Apr 13, 2008 18:26:50 GMT -5
Pet Peeve Department
It was hard to decide whether to put this here, or in Image Gallery. In the end I decided it might deflect from the purpose of the Image Gallery topic, so I decided to put it here.
I have a pet peeve. In fact, it is probably my biggest all-time pet peeve, guaranteed to send me into orbit--appropriate for a Christian sci-fi buff you may say--and it boils down to this: I do not like the way most modern visual artists portray angels.
I read descriptions in Holy Scripture of angels, creatures with swords, beings scary enough to send The Terminator packing. Remember the angel with Balaam's ass, or the Angel of Death? Not the type to mess with if you ask me. Or these descriptions: "beautiful young men", messengers with better-than-Hollywood good looks (probably to keep their interlocutors from running away) talking good news and hard sense.
Together these conjure up for me images of powerful, breath-taking males, oozing integrity, strength, and--having just come from the Divine Presence--holiness. So, on the strength of these descriptions what do artists serve up?
What seems to me fey, goody-two shoe females. Most of the angels I see illustrated nowadays remind me of simpering Valley girls looking as though they hope some guy will ask them out on a date. Why is it artists are compelled to create this stuff?
Maybe I've missed a passage or two, but as far as I know there is only one description of angel-like beings which could pass as female in the Bible: Two winged women holding a basket. (Zachariah 5:9).
What we are getting in the image department is flower-fairies for Christians, not angels. It winds me up. Not because I have a problem with delicately drawn female figures, or the idea of female angels, but because this is now the common presentation of all angelic being.
As I say, it is my pet peeve, and I guess I needed to let off steam about it. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for listening.
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Teskas
Apr 14, 2008 3:31:59 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Apr 14, 2008 3:31:59 GMT -5
A description of one of the "angels" in my novel when it finally shows up:
She heard the rustling of wings, and saw the glow, and smiled even before she looked up. A bright figure stood before her, shimmering hazily. Huge dark eyes blinked in the midst of a brilliance that she could scarcely look at. [...] The glowing visitor gave the impression of raised eyebrows, though of course [it] had none to raiseāas far as Valasand could tell, anyway. The Vigilant were so nebulous, so mercurial. Visits from them apart from the Temple were rare, and when they did make an appearance, they seemed to swirl in and out of reality like fiery sheets drifting in water.
(Chapter 49 of Bid the Gods Arise)
As you can see, I don't care for wimpy cherubs, either, though I tried to steer away from the Frank Peretti vision, too.
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Teskas
Apr 14, 2008 9:45:06 GMT -5
Post by rwley on Apr 14, 2008 9:45:06 GMT -5
I empahtize, Teskas, I don't particularly like the common presentation of angels either. While I like Raphael's cherubs from an artistic persepective, I doubt that we will actually see anything resembling those when we get the heaven. All the accounts in the Bible of meetings with angels involve fear and trembling. Like you, I picture male, beautiful beyond words, and just plain scary with power. And, if people felt that way when faced with a mere angel, how are they going to feel when face to face with God Himself?
Michael and Gabriel I think are probably the scariest and also the most amazing to look at. But the cherubim are rather intense as well.
Yeah, I just don't see our God having flimsy little flower fairy types to carry out the war in the heavenlies. And of course, since He created them, they are beautiful.
Robi
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Teskas
Apr 14, 2008 14:16:17 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Apr 14, 2008 14:16:17 GMT -5
Have you ever read A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle? That cherub that was all eyes and wings was fascinating. (Of course, I'm guessing the cherubim probably looked a lot like those winged leonine forms you see on ancient babylonian statuary. The Seraphim probably looked a bit like the winged serpents in Egyptian lore.)
The Touched by an Angel "fear not" showed that they really had no idea what an angel was, or why it should say that first thing upon appearing to man. I think it's quite revealing that John was rebuked for starting to fall down and worship the angel in Revelation; they must be divine in appearance enough for people to want to worship them. As a matter of fact, "angel" worship is exactly the sort of thing that has been warned against almost since the beginning of time. People were always falling away to worship the wrong things, and usually because they are both awesome and tangible.
Deuteronomy 32:8 sheds a bit of light on how all that might have started.
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Teskas
Apr 15, 2008 14:24:01 GMT -5
Post by torainfor on Apr 15, 2008 14:24:01 GMT -5
I shall tell a story and leave the interpretation to you.
Late August, 1999. Friends of ours from Montana had flown their Piper Cub down to visit us in Colorado Springs. The plan was to fly us all to Jackson Hole, WY, up to Montana, back down to CS, and then they would return home.
We set off for the small airport at around 6 am. Due to a dead battery, we didn't actually take off until noon. We only used half the runway to get airborne, but, noticing we were on a level with the power lines, I remembered another pilot-friend's warning about the trees that separated the runway from the highway beyond.
The official cause was listed as windshear, although, having four people on a warm day at a high elevation didn't help. We cleared the trees, zipped in front of the semi, dove under the low powerlines, landed (believe it or not), and smashed into the abandoned railroad berm.
S, in the co-pilot's seat, was knocked out cold. To keep herself from grabbing the yoke, she had decided to sit on her hands. Since the plane didn't have shoulder belts, she smashed her face into control panel and broke the steering wheel off the yoke with her chest. My husband, behind her, whacked his head on the roof and lost his glasses. B, the pilot, was later discovered to have injured both ankles. I developed technicolor bruises along the seat-belt line but was otherwise fine.
Alas, about five minutes after "landing," the plane went "POOF!". All that remained was the tail and wingtips.
B turns around to us and tells us to get out. Since the only door is right by S, I failed to see how this was possible. He reached up and opened the door.
Immediately, a brunette woman stuck her head in the door. I remember thinking, "Dang, I wish my face was that clear." B jumped over S and asked the woman what he should do. She told him he had to get S out of the plane. I thought, Hmm, you're not supposed to move an accident victim unless there's a fire. At that point, I looked out the front window and thought, Oh. Look, a fire.
B asked the woman how to get S out. She said he'd have to take off the door. Which he promptly did. He dragged her out and laid her on the ground. I hopped over the seat and exited the plane to see a dirty-blonde woman pulling one of S's arms. I turned around to make sure my husband got out of the plane but the blonde woman told me to help her move S to safety, so I grabbed the other arm. Everything happened just that quickly.
We were sent to different hospitals. My husband and I were released that night with bumps and bruises. S stayed about a week with a broken femur. B turned out to be the most injured of all--while learning how to maneuver crutches for his sprained and cracked ankles, he fell and broke his thumb.
The blonde woman and her husband visited B & S at the hospital that day. After comparing notes, it was revealed that as fast as the blonde woman reached the plane, her husband was there before her. And he would swear on the stack of Bibles he believed in that the brunette woman did not exist. B and I saw her. B talked to her. S was out cold and my husband was dazed and mostly blind. We don't know where she came from, where she went, or who she was.
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Teskas
Apr 15, 2008 15:10:25 GMT -5
Post by rwley on Apr 15, 2008 15:10:25 GMT -5
I hear the rustle of angel's wings.
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Teskas
Apr 21, 2008 7:53:21 GMT -5
Post by Jeff Gerke on Apr 21, 2008 7:53:21 GMT -5
Awesome. Wow, what a story.
So I guess we can agree that angels can appear in female form. Certainly the Bible depicts them almost always as male, but we're also told to be kind to strangers (of both genders, we assume) because we might be entertaining angels unaware.
It brings up the question of whether angels have gender at all. What would be the point? Maybe they have maleness and femaleness in them at all times and the biblical authors used "he" just as a generic alternative to "it"?
Jeff
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Teskas
Apr 21, 2008 13:23:01 GMT -5
Post by scintor on Apr 21, 2008 13:23:01 GMT -5
From what I understand, Angels predate the concept of male and female and so do not have a gender as such. Same thing with the Trinity. The masculine was attributed to them as a sign of respect, not identification.
Scincerely,
Scintor@aol.com
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Teskas
Apr 21, 2008 18:50:07 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Apr 21, 2008 18:50:07 GMT -5
Having only one gender would be nonsense. Having no gender would make a certain amount of sense, but then one has to question the meaning of Genesis 6. (Incidentally, I may have mentioned before that I believe the "sons of God" to be something other than--or higher than--angels, but I suspect that most would still classify them as such.) I really wish that there were some more specific translations out there. I think that people think of angel as a certain kind of being, which is probably generally true, but the word malak meant messenger (as does the Greek equivalent, angelos). It was usually a supernatural being, but not always. On the other hand, the bene elohim, or sons of God, were always viewed as divine beings. Interesting articles on that subject: www.thedivinecouncil.com/
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Teskas
Apr 22, 2008 20:37:32 GMT -5
Post by scintor on Apr 22, 2008 20:37:32 GMT -5
Genesis 6 is really problematic for me for one main reason: lack of context.
I can put a cultural context on every other section of the Bible except for the pre-flood society. There are 2000+ years of culture and history that we know nothing about except for a list of names.
We do know that nearly everything was different than what we have now. Trying to interpret a few isolated paragraphs without knowing a lot more about the people who they are talking about strikes me as just guessing.
That peroid of our history is a black void, and I think it is somewhat deliberate considering their fate.
Scincerely,
Scintor@aol.com
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Teskas
Apr 23, 2008 2:05:45 GMT -5
Post by Divides the Waters on Apr 23, 2008 2:05:45 GMT -5
The only context one can provide is 1) other scripture and 2) historical references to similar events. The Genesis 6 passage is consistent in terminology with other scriptural accounts of the "sons of God," and it also rings true with Greek, Mayan, Aztec, Native American, Norse, accounts of divine beings coming down and siring unnatural offspring with human women. Interestingly, some of the giants referred to in scripture had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. I saw a carving of a Mayan emperor with the same features, supposedly carved that way to "denote his divine parentage." Huh.
Incidentally, while I do think it's possible that certain "divine" beings may have gender (or the ability to take on gender), I agree fully that God does not, or at least has aspects of both. The spirit of God hovering over the waters at the creation of the world is the literary equivalent of a mother bird roosting over her young. And El Shaddai means "the many-breasted one," so I'd say that one could make the case that God the Father could also be called God the Mother (without going into Goddess worship--not remotely suggesting that--perhaps God the Parent would be more accurate?). I'm guessing that the pre-incarnate Word (Christ) would have been the same, though ironically, Wisdom is feminine in aspect and personification, and billed as co-creator. One thing I do find interesting is that whatever the nature of the aspects of God, when it was time to create humankind in God's image, it was "male and female."
I fully agree that the pre-Flood world is probably deliberately opaque in some ways. If the earth was so filled with violence and evil that God saw no other option than to wipe it out, it probably wasn't something he wanted us dwelling on. However, we do have testimony all around us to the fact of the Flood, so I'd say He continues to make His point to this day!
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