Scrapbook
This is a catch-all category. This is a good place for stuff you may have written, notices of family news, humor, wise sayings, really stupid sayings, whatever...

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Theism Distilled t = ad
by Eric Clise

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"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."

Meister Eckhardt
A Medieval Christian Mystic

A sermon (don't laugh) on my favorite holiday, thanksgiving...

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"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

-Groucho Marx

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."

-Blaise Pascal

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Religious Tolerance Axiom
By Eric Clise

Every religious belief that cannot be disproved is possible unless that belief specifically holds that another religious belief that cannot be disproved is impossible.  (More)

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From Agnostic to Atheist
By Marion Winik
Commentary to NPR June 6, 2004

Until recently, I wouldn't have called myself an atheist because it sounds more certain than I feel. But lately I've found the word agnostic is not strong enough to convey my opposition to the ripple affect of various people's belief in God.   (More)

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Phil Albert Duryee loved boating in Northwest waters
By Frank Vinluan
Seattle Times staff reporter

At one time, Phil Duryee's technical handiwork with radio communication was commonplace on everything from airplanes to taxi cabs. But the man who built a career with communication equipment was happiest working on boats. (More)

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"Reality is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose."

-J.D.S. Haldane 1927

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"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along and sticking things in it."

-Opus the Penguin

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"Man I was just amazed at how much I could learn simply by paying attention..."

-Keanu Reeves

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People see their own nature in others, whether present or not

-Eric Clise

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-a paraphrase of Occam's Razor often attributed to Albert Einstein

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Once you get past ethics, the rest is easy

-J. R. Ewing (Character on TV show Dallas)

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Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.

-Hub's lecture on "What Every Boy Needs to Know About Being a Man"

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Make Peace with Hell

-Heretical musings by Eric Clise

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Personal Memoirs 1855 -1935 James William Clise

My brother William came across the Personal Memoirs (are there any other kind?) of JW Clise and forwarded a copy of them to all family members. Having read them, I'm thinking that it was probably a lot more fun to be JW than to be around him. His memoirs read like a series of congratulatory essays to himself on a life well lead. He apparently felt he was surrounded by lesser men, who lead lesser lives, and who occasionally needed saving from their own foolishness. JW actually did live a fascinating and very successful life. If the memoirs are any indication, he was also insufferably arrogant. The memoirs are not very interesting owing almost entirely to JW's  very modest writing skills. It's too bad because I'm sure a lot of his adventures would have made for fascinating reading in the hands of a more talented author. I have included one particularly telling story from his Memoir called "Cattle." JW must have had a good chuckle at his own razor wit when he wrote this one. Like I said, it was probably a lot more fun to be JW than to be around him...

For those of you who slept through American History, the "New Deal" JW refers to in his story is the legacy of FDR's reaction to the Great Depression. The New Deal  was a nation-wide program of government sponsored projects designed to provide employment for those who could not find work in the private sector. In many ways, the "New Deal" is the grandfather of the modern welfare system and derided by most conservatives as typical and terrible governance from bleeding heart liberals.

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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and  wrong.

-H L Mencken

This sentiment has been expressed in many ways. The physician, poet , and humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. expressed the same philosophy like this: 'I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.'

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Education is the membrane that separates the classes, and it's permeable.

-Reverend Scott from the comic strip Doonesbury by Gary Trudeau

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Man's mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions

-Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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Few, if any, personal discoveries are first announced with the exclamation "Eureka!"
Quite a few are, however,  preceded with the words, "Hmm, that's odd."

-Anonymous

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Basket Case

The Oxford English Dictionary reads: basket case slang (orig. U.S.),
(a) person (esp. a soldier) who has lost all four limbs; (b) transf., one
who is emotionally or mentally unable to cope; something that is no longer
functional.

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Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

-Desmond Tutu reminiscing about things his father told him as a young man

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Sea Change

Used to describe a fundamental change as in policy or paradigm

Original source is quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest

Full fathoms five thy father lies
Of his bones are corals made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange

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The people have spoken. The bastards.

-Morris Udall on losing an election

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Extremely Short Joke

A man walks into a bar. Says, "Ouch!"

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Dad's Favorite Joke

A man has a reoccurring dream that is as vivid as it is bizarre. Finally this strange dream drives him to see a psychiatrist. "Doc," the clearly agitated man says, "You've got to help me make sense of this weird dream. It's driving me nuts!"

"Tell me about this dream," the psychiatrist says in calm reassuring tones.

"Well, its like this," the distraught man begins. "Every night it's the same thing. I no sooner drop off to sleep when I have this strange experience where my body is physically transformed into a teepee or sometimes a wigwam.  What does it mean, What DOES it mean?" the man practically shouts.

"Hmmm,"  the psychiatrist says quietly while thoughtfully stroking his beard, "I do understand this dream."

"Yes, yes?" The distraught man implores him.

"It's quite simple really," the psychiatrist replies, "your too tense!"

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Advice

At fifteen the child rejects his parents advice
At twenty the child will listen to but not follow his parents advice
At twenty-five the child will listen to and occasionally follow his parents advice
At thirty the child will ask his parents for advice

-Anonymous

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The best thing about writing is that it allows any idiot to edit himself into some semblance of intelligence.

-Kurt Vonnegut

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Big Rocks

Imagine a a bucket that is a metaphor for everything that you can fit into a day. You have four kinds of things:

1) Big rocks which represent things you have determined are the most important things in your life. They are things like time with your loved ones, time spent pursuing your passions, taking care of your health. They are different for everyone and only you can decide what they are for you.

2) Gravel represents things that you must do. These may include grocery shopping, brushing your teeth and sleeping.

3) Sand is trivial stuff that tends to take up your time. Watching a sitcom on TV or reading a trashy magazine might qualify.

4) Water is the wasted time you spend talking to a telemarketer or watching a TV commercial.

You fill the bucket with big rocks but find that you can still put a lot of gravel in the bucket because it fits in the crevices made by the big rocks. Likewise you find you can add quite a lot of sand after you add the gravel because it seeps into the smaller crevices made by the gravel. Finally you can still add water which flows around everything until the bucket is truly full.

The lesson from this analogy is that you must put the big rocks in first or they will never fit into the bucket. You accomplish this by scheduling the most important things in your life in advance of each week so that they are not pushed aside by less important things.

-Stephan Covey
Author of First Things First and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

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Clise Family Word games

Crick Crick
Two words that are spelled identically but pronounced differently and have different meanings. Examples are wind (the blowy stuff) and wind (the curvy thing) and lead (the metal) and lead (to take charge).

Hink Hink Hink
At least three words pronounced the same but with different spellings and meanings. Pronunciation and eligibility subject to verification in any standard English dictionary. Examples are to, two, too and rain, rein, reign.