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Meanwhile, back at the Monastery...

Started by fencerowphil (Phil L.), June 24, 2008, 07:04:37 PM

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fencerowphil (Phil L.)

I knew that title would getcha.

I had a call recently from a monastery.  Storm/tornado damage has prompted
them to consider not only some cleanup logging, but also some selective logging
and sawmilling.  The brothers will be producing some products from the resulting
lumber.  We would lodge at the monastery for those few days.

This could be interesting indeed:  Days of sawing with the brothers and evenings of
discussion.  During the last 14 months I have written about twenty brief titles.
Most of these booklets/essays are on this topic:  How modern science is selling
a package of beliefs about science as if it is proven science and how this makes
the debate between evolution and creationism really a debate between two belief
systems
.  One belief system is a government backed and funded monopoly.  The
other is taboo and can not be mentioned.   I am looking forward to the sawing,
but maybe even more so to the lively discussion and debates in the evenings.

If this goes through, I will definitely keep you posted with pics.  We will have to set
them up with drying stacks, etc.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Left Coast Chris

I have a friend that I used to try to drag to Church.  He would not come since it would contradict his life style.  When he finally had to come due to a wedding, he jokingly asked for us to call ahead and have the timbers shored up. :) :)

It sounds like the visit to the monistary will be interesting from a fellowship AND wood sawing standpoint........ great oportunity!

Home built cantilever head, 24 HP honda mill, Case 580D, MF 135 and one Squirel Dog Jack Russel Mix -- Crickett

Don P

Sounds like an interesting job.
I was googling on Draper and White just a few minutes ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis

TexasTimbers

Hey Phil this sounds like a great gig. I like discussing mathematical impossibilities too. ;D

The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

OneWithWood

Some would say that neither of the belief systems you mentioned have a leg to stand on, so to speak.  ;)

I would like to meet you in person someday.  I think we could have some entertaining discussions  :)
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

DanG

It never occurred to me that there might be a monastery in the middle of Georgia.  I'll be looking forward to the reports. :)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

WDH

Quote from: OneWithWood on June 25, 2008, 11:17:24 AM

I would like to meet you in person someday.  I think we could have some entertaining discussions  :)

I want to sit in!!!
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

We wrapped up a job in the other tornado damage area today. (mentioned in
another thread)  Last log was a 30" log all 1X6s and a lot of them.  By lunch I
had sweated all the way down to my knees!  I changed shirts for lunch, but I
could have changed clothes entirely.  Coulda squeezed water out of the shirt.

The monastery says they will need a little longer to gather and stage their stuff,
so I sent a pic and a drawing by e-mail today to help out ( I hope).
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

bigmillman

Phil,

I am south of you in Bulloch County (Statesboro).  I have been up I-16 a couple times since the tornadoes in that area and from the interstate it looks like a lot of trees down.  That same storm system brought trees down in our neck of the woods too.

The monastery work sounds good.  Our youth minister (I am Southern Baptist) spent a week in a monastery on a sabatical in North Georgia.  He seemed to really enjoy the experience.

Stacey Freeman
Freeman's Mill

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Welcome, bigmill.  Yes, no telling how many trees go to waste.
Loggers were going crazy trying to get what they cold, but so
many areas are still untouched, as far as salvaging the damaged stuff.

I almost forgot to ask LeftCoast whether he sold any timbers
to shore up that church.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Greg Cook

Phil, I'm sure I am not the only one who would be interested in reading these essays you've written.  Do you have them posted anywhere, or do we have to wait 'till the book comes out?  ;)

Greg
"Ain't it GOOD to be alive and be in TENNESSEE!" Charlie Daniels

Don P

I normally try to stay away from religion, and I would ask you to do the same in future threads. There is a wide range of beliefs and much room for controversy that I'm sure is not of the type desired by the admins of a forestry site.

Actually evolution is a theory, much like gravitation is a theory, it is a set of facts we can lay our hands on and teach. It might help to define theory: "the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another". Properly a theory, contrary to common usage, is not a hypothesis or a guess, it is an ordered series of facts. This would be the use of the term in Pope John Paul's encyclical on evolution in 1996 (JP was a philosopher, he used the term theory correctly and with full knowledge of its meaning in his letter). This is when he moved Pius XII's encyclical of roughly 50 years prior, referring to evolution as a hypothesis into the league of theory. Noted Baptist theologian AH Strong wrote around the turn of that century  "Neither evolution nor the higher criticism has any terrors to one who regards them as part of Christ's creating and education process." A fact is a bit of knowledge, a theory combines facts into a functional scientific framework. The theory of gravity explains the motion of the heavens, the arc of projectiles, and the descent of an apple. If we call religion a belief system, that works. A belief can be factual, it can also be based on faith. I believe in God, I can prove nothing, I'm comfortable with that. To call evolution a belief system is not untrue but it is not wholly true either.

Evolution has been debated in the church since before Darwin and actually before and after him there were more clergy lined up in favor of His plan through evolution than against (Darwin did not invent the theory of evolution, natural selection, or survival of the fittest nor did he state that we descended from apes). St Augustine was a naturalist and a prolific writer, he studied nature to discover the hand of the maker. Augustine looked for that one common thread, he was probably one of the first to recognize these patterns in nature. Remember that the church has been the seat of higher learning since ancient times, one learned to write so that he may scribe the scriptures; reason, intellect, and the sciences were for the understanding of and glory of God. If I recall correctly Cornell was the first secular college. Early scientists were almost always men of the cloth, the monk Gregor Mendel immediately comes to mind. St Augustine and his studies of nature, Copernicus was a church canon, Galileo was a friend of pope Urban (who by the way gave his blessing to Galileo's heliocentric hypothesis but debated his reasoning that the tides were caused by the motion of the Earth, Urban was right when he told his friend there may be another unseen cause for the tides). Thousands of church scientists working through history make me think your suppositions about science and religion are very deeply flawed. Science does not desire to make the church or its teachings taboo, science wishes to find the common laws of nature. Who made these laws, who started the wheels in motion, that is up to you and your beliefs. Science supposes there is a beginning and goes from there, it has not to my knowledge found that beginning any more than you have, that is faith.

The debate you wish is between supernaturalism and the theory of evolution. It is one for a sect of believers who may worship and debate theories as they desire, unmolested. It might also interest you to note that when polled the vast majority of the scientific community believe in God. One does not exclude the other. The debate is one for each persons mind. Science is not a religion, nor is it atheism. These false notions are spread by small men within both communities.

Theology is the study of God and his relation to the world. Creationism falls under the heading of theology. There is really no debate, science reads from God's book of natural laws, creationism reads from your theology. There is no taboo, we do not teach religion in school because we are a nation founded on the premise of religious freedom and tolerance. Religious education is your job outside of state supported institutions, remember we as a people have decided to tolerate all religions by seperating the church from the state. To try to force one religious view of creation on the public would be wrong. Suppose I believe in the Polynesian sea turtle story of creation or the native american blood spot story, should we teach every story of creation? I suspect we are of the same religion yet have very different beliefs. Who decides which religious belief to teach... you feel qualified to decide I take it. Most of us (democracies work on the principle of rule by the majority) view evolution and creationism as irrelevent to one another.

The real issue to me is that some members of our population wish to force all members of the population to believe as they do, this is not a credit to man or God.




fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Quote from: Don P on June 26, 2008, 11:20:40 PM
I normally try to stay away from religion, and I would ask you to do the same in future threads. There is a wide range of beliefs and much room for controversy that I'm sure is not of the type desired by the admins of a forestry site.


Thousands of church scientists working through history make me think your suppositions about science and religion are very deeply flawed. Science does not desire to make the church or its teachings taboo, science wishes to find the common laws of nature.


Wow, Don.  Guess I could mumble something about "taking one's own medicine."
I chose to not get into my suppositions about science and religion, but I am glad
you chose otherwise.   Your statements are very good.  Good to get to know you a bit.
What little I did say was a conclusion based upon many unstated suppositions and
five years of research of dozens of theories.  Any detailed discussion of that would be out
of place and ineffective. 

Perhaps it is the total ban of creation teaching which makes me use the word, taboo:
The educational systems of the world only teach the naturalistic interpretation of the hard evidence.
I won't get into my particulars in the Forestry Forum, but they are available to anyone who
is curious.  Thanks, however, for what you shared.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

It seems that the monastery will be a while getting their wood together.
It has been weeks since the storm damage, so depending on what species they
have, they may lose some value.  I proposed a start this coming Monday or the next.
They replied back suggesting early August.

Oh, well....
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Riles

Don, that's got to be the best synopsis of the issue I've ever read. Man, I wish I could write like that. I'm putting you in the hall of fame right next to Tom.

Thanks.
Knowledge is good -- Faber College

sawmilllawyer

Gee, Don P, I think you just abot worked all the cattle in the corral with that last post. Well said, probably enough said.
Stihl MS-361, MS-460 mag, Poulan 2150, 2375 Wildthing.

ljmathias

DonP did us all a favor and we owe him our thanks for the perspective.  I'm a scientist who believes in God and evolution- no conflict for me as I don't feel qualified to tell God how he runs his universe.  I just try to understand it.

More to the point, I think this discussion should end quickly so as not to get us all sidetracked.  I read the forums for what their subject areas offer, and I attend church, read the bible and pray for different reasons- the two don't really interact even though I'm still the same person involved in both.  Separation of church and state might have a corollary of separation of church and forums...  :)

There's off topic and there's way, way off topic: can we talk about trees and such?   :)

Lj
LT40, Long tractor with FEL and backhoe, lots of TF tools, beautiful wife of 50 years plus 4 kids, 5 grandsons AND TWO GRANDDAUGHTERS all healthy plus too many ideas and plans and not enough time and energy

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

I don't think the brothers will have trouble waiting on sawing some of the trees.
Larger diameter hardwoods with the roots and tops still on will hang in there.
The problem with them might be splitting.  Georgia is not getting a great deal of
rain.  If we were, repeated wetting could prevent this problem.

It is the pine which they will lose.  Summer heat is bad for staining pine within a short
time.  In addition, the bark borers will quickly make their mark, if you will.  It could be
that a "distressed look" on the pine won't be a problem.  They plan to use the lumber
themselves.

I wish I could get up there to see what they really have.  That gasoline issue arises.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

brdmkr

Quote from: fencerowphil  (Phil L.) on June 28, 2008, 09:24:47 AM


Summer heat is bad for staining pine within a short time.  In addition, the bark borers will quickly make their mark, if you will.  It could be that a "distressed look" on the pine won't be a problem.  They plan to use the lumber themselves.

I wish I could get up there to see what they really have.  That gasoline issue arises.

I would imagine the bugs would be more of an issue than the stain.  I use stain pine all the time... I'm too slow milling to have many without stain :(
Lucas 618  Mahindra 4110, FEL and pallet forks, some cant hooks, and a dose of want-to

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