Is Thinking An Art? Can It Be Taught?

I don't like the feeling of anger rising up within me. I don't like sitting at the computer, reading something which makes me feel like my blood pressure is literally rising as I sit. It is a very uncomfortable feeling and one which I should take care to avoid.

Today it happened like this. I read a statement from a man saying that sexual relations are the most important and distinguishing activity of a marriage. In other words, sexual relations are the only activities which can be performed exclusively for a husband by his wife. (Please, no comments about how sex isn't a performance, I know that and it isn't the point here. You know what I mean.) He was also making the argument that it was created by God to be so, even before the fall.

Well, the next thing I see are about 10 comments from 10 different buffoons complaining that he said "The only thing a wife is good for is sex."

The original poster never said any such thing. Nothing even remotely like it. But these people saw what they wanted to see. Then they bash the guy, not for what he actually said, but for something he didn't say and probably doesn't even believe. How can a person defend statements or beliefs that he never said or doesn't hold?

The same series of posts had a woman lambasting the King James Version for saying that Eve was "an help meet" for Adam. Her complaint? In English (according to this genius) an adjective must precede the noun. Since "help" is a noun and "meet" is an adjective, the men who translated the King James Bible were grammatical idiots and therefore we should never refer to the role of a woman as a "help meet" for her husband.

My head was nigh on exploding over that one. It makes me think that if I was a man I would be tempted to ask, "Are all women this stupid?" But I didn't ask that question, being a woman myself. I guess she would prefer "a meet help for him"? Her main complaint was that the Bible doesn't make it clear that a woman is just a "bloke" a "mate" for her man. She helps him out. She isn't "corresponding to him" in any physical way. God didn't even notice that all of the other animals had a partner with which to breed when He said that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Fellowship with God and command of the entire earth and its inhabitants was not good because Adam didn't have a woman to tell him to pick up his socks and belittle him in front of God and everybody. Sex never even entered into the picture until after the fall, right? I mean, they were naked in the garden and never noticed that they were different from each other. They only looked at each other in the face. After all, they weren't sinful, so they didn't have sex drives. That was invented by the devil, later.

Sheeesh.