{"id":345,"date":"2005-01-02T17:55:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-02T17:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=345"},"modified":"2005-01-02T17:55:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-02T17:55:00","slug":"345","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Moab is not yet destroyed<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the guys whose rants are collected under the name of the prophet Isaiah once ranted,” \u201cOn the night when Ar is sacked, Moab meets her doom\/ on the night when Kir is sacked, Moab meets her doom” (Isaiah 15:1).<\/p>\n

I can say that Moab is still here. I am, however, in Moab, Utah<\/a>, whereas the prophet was ranting about biblical Moab, the area east of the Dead Sea–now part of Jordan. “Ar” and “Kir” were its so-called capitals.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, when you read those guys ranting (“Damascus shall be a city no longer!”–When was it destroyed?), the more they all sound like Osama Bin Ladin.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, here in the other Moab, it’s a good time for visiting places like Arches National Park<\/a> without the March-through-October crowds. <\/p>\n

What annoys me about places like Arches–and many other places–is that the most amazing geological formations are named for the Christian devil. Here it’s “Devil’s Garden,” which has the largest collection of natural arches in the park. Or think of Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, to name one prominent example. Or Devil’s Hole, a steep side valley off the Arkansas River canyon above Cotopaxi, Colorado.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if Pagans had settled this area in historic times, there would be hundreds of rock formations with names like “Penis of [fill in name of fertility deity].” It would be almost boring.<\/p>\n

Internet access here courtesy of the Mondo Cafe<\/a> and the Red Rock Bakery<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moab is not yet destroyed One of the guys whose rants are collected under the name of the prophet Isaiah once ranted,” \u201cOn the night when Ar is sacked, Moab meets her doom\/ on the night when Kir is sacked, Moab meets her doom” (Isaiah 15:1). I can say that Moab is still here. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-345","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1257,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1257","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":0},"title":"Blogging Hermits","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What is it with blogging hermits\u2014or quasi-hermits?Would Henry David Thoreau have had a blog? I am sure of it. Anyone who would edit his autobiography so that two years of experience fit neatly into one literary year has demonstrated the capability of self-romanticizing that blogging requires.Sunday's Denver Post had a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1164,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1164","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":1},"title":"Off to CESNUR","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"After the better part of two days on the road, M. and I arrived this afternoon at a Homestead Suites hotel in Salt Lake City, where I will be attending the CESNUR conference.The trip started off on a sour note, because my previously trusty-if-aging G4 PowerBook laptop developed a series\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"CESNUR\"","block_context":{"text":"CESNUR","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=cesnur"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1230,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1230","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":2},"title":"Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Me","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday M. pointed out to me a small AP story in Sunday's Denver Post that I had overlooked: the death of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, head of the Church Universal and Triumphant, one of the chief motivators of the \"cults scare\" of the 1970s-1980s.(\"Suffered from dementia for years\" -- there may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":159,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=159","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":3},"title":"Tropic of Night If I\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Tropic of Night If I had to describe Michael Gruber's new novel Tropic of Night in Hollywoodese, I would say that it's \"(Miami crime writer) Edna Buchanan meets (ethnobotanist) Wade Davis.\" Detectives, sorcerers, preschoolers, santeros, this world, the otherworld, all handled deadpan: \"I read threat in the way they were\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2521,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2521","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":4},"title":"Aphrodite Smiles","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Back when this blog was young, I wrote a post called \"Aphrodite will not be Denied\"\u00a0 about the botheration caused to some Muslim clerics by the sultry Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe. If there is anything that drives the mullahs and imams mad, it is female sexuality. The bloom is off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Aphrodite\"","block_context":{"text":"Aphrodite","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=aphrodite"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.hotair.com\/greenroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Veena_Malik_300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6253,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6253","url_meta":{"origin":345,"position":5},"title":"Back to Blogging, Short Version. Also Ghosts.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Short version: I was real busy and then I picked up a nasty cold. Savor the irony: I think that I got it at a National Outdoor Leadership School Wilderness First Aid class (two intensive eight-hour days). I have all these links to comment on and books to review and,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Buddhism\"","block_context":{"text":"Buddhism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=buddhism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}