Once upon a time, a lady appeared in a public forum holding a balloon between her hands.
"How do you like my red balloon," she asked. "Isn't it a pretty red balloon?"
From behind her came a bearded philosophical type who said in a voice that all could hear, "Lady, that's not a red balloon, it's a green one."
"Sir," she responded, "you are mistaken. This is a red balloon."
Said he, "You are so shallow in your understanding. Why can you not allow for another's prospective? I say it is a green balloon, and you should be open minded enough to allow that it might be."
Suddenly a lady dressed as a high class "housewife" type came up to her and exclaimed, "My! What a nice blue balloon you have."
"Ma'am," responded the balloon lady, "you are quite wrong, this is a red balloon, not a blue one."
"You goof!" cried the newcomer. "You need to see things from my point of view. Surely you would allow that it might well be a blue balloon."
"Hey! Cool yellow balloon!" It was the voice of a hippie type. "Where'd you get it?"
Feeling exasperated, Balloon Lady answered, "It's not yellow, it's red!"
"Oh, wow, dudette, you don't have to get all defensive. It won't hurt nothin' if I say it's a yellow balloon. Chill!"
A man in a three piece suit approached. "I'm a college graduate and I majored in balloon color science. I had over 12 professors who taught me all I need to know about balloon color and I say, it's a mauve balloon, and I should know...I have a college degree."
"College degree or not," exclaimed the Balloon Lady, "This is a red balloon and your snotty, high-brow attitude won't change my mind."
College Guy shot back, "You are SO narrow minded. You just can't see things the way others see them. Grow up! Get a life!"
A little child came up to the lady with the balloon.
"That sure is a pretty red balloon, lady. I sure wish I had one."
"Son," responded the Balloon Lady, "You are the only one who sees through eyes that have not yet been blinded by the twists and turns of the intellectual elites of this world. You want a red balloon? It's yours. Take it and enjoy it."
The little boy took the balloon.
"Thanks, lady," he said. "You're a real nice lady."
And he ran off with the balloon.
And the balloon was red.
And that's the truth.
27 comments:
What a crock of crap.
Substances absorb some wavelengths of light and refelect others.
The wavelength they reflect is what color they are.
It's not open to interpretation or spin.
It's a fact.
XO: I already knew that. You, sir, missed the point completely.
Either that or you are too inarticulate to express your understanding of the point, or you are too blind (color blind?) to get it.
But you are quite right about reflected color not being open to interpretation or spin.
Niether are a lot of other thngs.
As the title says, it's a parable.
Any idea what that means?
Right on cue Joe.
The story is really a parable about intelligent design, Xavier.
Ducky: Good try, but you, too, missed the point.
Not realy surprising.
(It would make a good "intelligent design" parable, though.)
Outstanding parable. Unfortunately, liberals never understand parables; truth escapes them.
If Joe say's it's true, it's true.
If Joe posts one of those idiotic Ann Barnhardt videos that states you are executed for playing music in a Muslim nation you can give him all kinds of examples of Islamic music from classical Turkish to Egyptian pop and he isn't going to listen.
Joe knows the absolute truth. It was revealed to him and his dogma is tops.
Chatty, why doesn't Joe try substituting something like laissez-faire capitalism or a rejection of evolution or a belief that the world was created in six 24 hour days.
You know, something that reasoning people can really pound on rather than his insipid example which doesn't do much except assume that everyone shares his abject ignorance (and yours) of epistemology?
Or maybe this is an example of Richard Muller's recent change of mind on climate science?
Haven't seen that one on your blog, Joe.
Chatfield probably doesn't know who I'm talking about.
Excellent parable, Joe...
some people will NEVER get it :-(
Or can't allow themselves to.
Love it! Truth and to the point. Can't get any clearer than that.
Z & Leticia: Ducky would rather just stoop to ridicule and name calling than to exercise his brain to understand a parable.
He comes equipped with pre-conceived notions that color his understanding such that, like XO, he cannot recognize the meaning of a parable.
Seriously Ducky, just what is your agenda? You scour through conservative blogs, leaving comments insulting everyone and everything and what do you get out of that?
Personally, I enjoy a reasonable debate with people who believe differently than I do, but I don't get why someone spends so much time just trolling and insulting people.
And honestly, I don't believe you believe half of what you post, I think you just get off on starting arguments that go nowhere.
But then, I guess I'm only stating the obvious.
Have fun Ducky.
I believe all of what I post, Rita.
Serious as a heart attack.
I believe evangelicals are deluded and despite being well meaning in many cases will destroy the country.
Oh and I don't cruise the web, Rita. The sites are all referened by z's blog. It's a regular rogues gallery.
Ducky: Are you certain you think your ugly, snide, snippy, condesceding attitude is what the country neds?
Your comments reveal a person who is totally demented, a fear mongerer, prejudiced, narrow minded, deceitful and absolutely depraved.
Joe let's extend the rather weak parable to a realm where you have some clout.
I read I & II Kings and take from it an admonition that militarism is a failed strategy. That is the major lesson of that rather tenuous history.
Now, have I been corrupted by the elites? What is the "red" interpretation?
Ducky,
Your take on those books has nothing to do with the context of the books. They do not teach whether war is or is not a failed strategy. War where God is not considered is certainly a failed strategy. War directed by God never failed the Israelites. But we are not directed by God so it may or may not be a bad strategy. What determines whether we should be at war is many factors - not one single factor.
Joe - Now that this post is down one - I didn't want to get incoherent on you again:)- but there is a beautiful story from France about a little boy named Pascal who had a big red magic balloon that followed him everywhere.
To make a long story short the bullies shot it down using slingshots and all the balloons in Paris came together and took him on a ride over the city. Sweet.
I even did a painting on it.
Your picure at the beginning of the post brought that to mind.
GEC: It always amazes me how liberals yell about context and then completely ignore it when it suits their agenda to do so.
Having Ducky, XO and their ilk interpret the Bible is like asking a jackass to recite Shakespear.
Joe,
I couldn't have said that better myself!
If a Liberal believes a talking point, it matters not that the talking point is completely and totally wrong.
He believes it, and that's all that matters, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.
Mark - I'm pretty sure you meant "Conservative", not "Liberal".
Because what you described is EXACTLY what occurs on every one of Jo Joe's posts and every one of the fawning, sycophantic comments that you and your ditto-head buddies leave.
It's like you are all engaged in some political perversion of a Protestant liturgy. If you close you eyes REALLY tight, bow your heads and just keep repeating the same tired old bogus talking points over and over again you can drown out reality and convince yourselves that what you want to believe might actually be true.
Occasionally we Liberals stop by like First Responders at a disaster site and present you with actual facts and evidence, but it doesn't matter. You bow your heads deeper, close your eyes tighter, and regurgitate your liturgical responses louder and more often until The Truth gets bored and goes away.
I don't know how you folks even manage to find your cars in crowded parking lots. In order to do that, you have to go to where the car actually is, not where you believe it is or want it to be.
That doesn't seem to be a skill that you actually possess.
I think the GOP should replace the elephant icon with the picture of some dufus with his index fingers jammed deeply into his ears screaming "LA LA LA LA LA LA".
I feel the same sense of guilt and shame coming here as I feel attending a circus freak show.
How do I always manage to get the last word?
XO: You don't.
Last word? I thought the last words were always, "Blame Bush", "Blame Bush", "Blame Bush", "Blame Bush".
Joe, I find your readers from the left planet hilarious. I'm thinking they write this stuff so it can be posted on The Onion.
Joe
I just noticed a spelling error you might want to fix (I was reading this aloud to my wife, and that's when I saw it). Here's the passage:
Said he, "You are so shallow in your understanding. Why can you not allow for another's prospective? I say it is a green balloon, and you should be open minded enough to allow that it might be.
"prospective" should be "perspective."
Of course you will want to delete this as a comment :oD
Post a Comment