Androscoggin Valley Council of Government (AVCOG)

Wealth of information for municipalities and businesses in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. Community development grants, small business resources, services and tourist promotions.

Center for Business and Economic Research

University of Southern Maine. Center specializes in economic modeling, technical assistance, and the health of Maine's economy.

Coastal Enterprises, Inc.

A private, non-profit community development corporation founded to create social and economic opportunities for people, businesses and communities of Maine. Financing, advice and technical assistance provided.

Eastern Maine Development Corporation

Business resource for the greater Bangor area with links to market development Center and international markets.

Maine Business Works

Provides information to interested individuals and businesses regarding economic development resources available throughout the state of Maine.

Maine Development Foundation

Maine's Executive Branch foundation which works toward development for Maine.

Maine Development Foundation

Goal is to promote long term economic growth in Maine by advocating new approaches to solving problems, and providing a common ground for public and private leaders.

Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Supports small business and manufacturing businesses with solutions, plans, marketing, and advertising.

Maine Merchants Association

Political action association will act quickly on the bills that affect retailers large and small. Lists members, mission statement, and agenda.

Maine Small Business Development Centers

University of Southern Maine. Provides assistance and information services to the small business community throughout Maine.

I love the humor Bob has injected into this increasingly ugly thread!

The nastiness and hatefulness I've seen in this thread demonstrates
eloquently the consequences of mixing politics and theology. The
concept of heresy is essentially political (not theological) because it
is all about human authority. Dirk Hartog's quote is highly relevant
here.

>It is not morally acceptable to say ... our story is truth but yours is
>myth; ours is history but yours is a lie. It is even less morally
>acceptable to ... manufactur[e] defensive or protective strategies that
>apply only to one's own story.
>[John Crossan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, pg 28 - 29]

I would go even further and say the terms "true" and "false simply do
not apply to stories: rather, saying "X is true" means "X is consistent
with or part of the stories which are foundational to my worldview. If
I say a story is untrue, it simply means that I subscribe to a
different story (or set of stories, mythos, world view,
"weltanschauung", or paradigm. I am using the term "story" broadly
here, as: any well-formed set of symbols connected via a narrative
flow. As such, mathematical equations qualify as stories equally with
stories in Hebrew or English.

This does not mean that truth is relative; rather, it means that the
word "truth" can only be used meaningfully within a given paradigm.
Within a given paradigm, e.g. the scientific worldview, there are
indeed absolute truths; but to assert on the basis of scientific
evidence that another paradigm, e.g. Christianity is true or false, is
to make a categorical error - like saying that a carrot is four
o'clock. Likewise, to assert on the basis of the Christian paradigm
that the Buddhist worldview is wrong is like saying that the English
language can disprove the French language.

To assert, as I am, that religions are essentially languages is not to
deny that there are absolute truths; rather, I'm saying that that any
religious symbol system can express both truth and falsehood. Further,
as French is the language of love and English is the language of
technology, a particular religious symbol system may have a genius for
expressing a certain type of truth.

All of this will be extremely troubling to anyone who is clinging
desperately to a religious framework as an island of certainty amidst a
sea of doubt and relativism. To those people I say: the Word of YHWH
is true, and real, and absolute. It is not like human words, which
stand apart from that which they represent. The vibration of the Name
of God is not separate from YHWH the Creator, the ground of all
being, who revealed this Name to Moses as a "memorial for all
generations."

To enter into the Word, which is YHWH, we must let go of attachment to
language - to the dualism of symbols/reality.