The one class I never liked for some reason, was Cleric.

Later on, I realized why. It wasn’t because it was an unfun class, since fighter/cleric was very versatile with self buffs and party healing and tanking. No, that cleric system that gets its power from gods, was something specifically outlawed by JHVH after Genesis 6 or Deuteronomy 32 on the Tower of Babel. Also Psalms 82 had quite a lot to say about these other gods that ruled over mankind. Deut 32 in the Masorete Text/King James is corrupted, because it has “Sons of Israel”. The Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls have “Sons of God”, which means angels.

Since those other gods are real, the power which derives from them is also real. When advising some youths about what kind of ouji board experience they were looking for, I told them outright that they were dabbling in the occult and the supernatural, and that there are spirits that watching and listening to them.

The whole thing of channeling power from spirits and gods, worshiping them in return for spells, works. Hollywood has been doing it for decades, as attested to by various interviews and factual documentaries.

The knowledge was real, even if it was sold as entertainment and fantasy. Rock bands did channel spirits into their bodies, producing Death Metal that was powerful. Of course, because it didn’t come from humans. ADD magic and the pantheon, is a very accurate rendition of the Divine Counsel and the fallen angels of Genesis Six and Deuteronomy 32.

The original priesthood died out after 1st century AD.

Other than a few special prophets and other people like Jean De Arc, there were no priests of Jesus of Nazareth the High Priest of Melchizedek, because the apostolic authority was destroyed and not passed on.

The Vatican and the Protestants are in the same boat on this matter.

Trusting in humans, who say they are priests, who got it from some falsified lineage or seminary school, was never going to work.

And they didn’t need a politician to get there either.

Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen, but delusions never cease for humanity.

I had forgotten this lovely morsel from Bloom. Maybe some kids have their sensuality carefully tended into gorgeous flowers. Must be nice.

However I remember my years of shame and self-loathing as a teen because much of my “tending” was from the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile priests were hitting on my best male friends.

Rock music made more sense to me.

Reading it twenty-odd years later, even with your exposition, doesn’t help. I find it as disgraceful now as I did then. It doesn’t get fixed by softening “all” to “most.”

Bloom is intellectually dishonest. Either he knows he speaks falsely to strengthen the point he wants to make. Or he doesn’t know he is ignorant but can’t be bothered to check something easily checked.

Rock music mattered to me when I was young and still does. I listened mostly to pop rock, folk rock, prog rock, and country rock. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Jethro Tull, Yes, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Band, Cat Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson — all shelved under Rock when I went to the record store.

Bloom’s smear doesn’t apply to any of those, unless one goes the route, popular with the Christian Right back then, that anything with a strong beat is from the Devil.

There were some bluesy, Dionysian bands — Led Zeppelin, the Doors and the Stones — I listened to which could fit Bloom’s bill. But those bands weren’t all of rock. Bloom may have been prescient about disco, rap and hip-hop. But again those are not rock.

Bloom had some good points about political correctness, but as far I am concerned he is not the person to lecture anyone about being closed-minded unless he is giving lessons.

https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2017/08/31/handle-two-year-olds-tantrums/

Seriously, does anyone remember the “rape rape” and “legitimate rape” remarks from a couple of years ago, and how radically different they were treated?

The first was by a leftist (Whoopi G) defending an actual rapist, Roman Polanski: crickets from the Left, or een agreement that what he did wasn’t a problem.

The second was by a Republican candidate trying, IMO, to make a distinction between the hysterical (I use the word deliberately) accusations that turn out to be morning-after remorse (sometimes years after) or what-used-to-be-normal flirtation or petting, and violently coerced physical sexual penetration, which is by law, thus legitimately (literally so) described as rape.

The world was coming to an end! and certainly his political career did.

The Left, baying like banshees, makes sanity indefensible; and then the Right is in a lose-lose situation, whether they muster a defense (which the Left will never credit or accept), or surrender to the Narrative.

What I realized after having children, and hearing my friends talk about problems they were having with the “new” music, my reaction was basically: you let them grow up listening to bands named Sex Pistols and Black Sabbath and Grateful Dead — what did you expect them to graduate to?

(Don’t bother to remind me that many bands did innovative, lyrical, inspiring work as well; the point is, for children, they were a “gateway drug” to harder and rougher material.)