Augustine's Confessions (abridged)
R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before
Christopher West's The Theology of the Body Explained
Joe Dever and John Grant's The Eclipse of the Kai
It's a bit onerous. I'm usually happiest reading one book at a time. Naturally, some of these books are going pret-ty slowly....
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Do you have postmodern progressive colorblindness?
There's a simple test for literal colorblindness. A man (usually it's men) is shown a picture, usually a collection of dots, some of them green, the rest of them red (usually it's green and red). If he can see normally, he'll recognize that the green dots trace out some numeral, the red ones comprising the background. If he's color deficient, he'll see something else, probably just a uniform array of grayish dots.
Similar political tests are also possible. I present one below. I might have presented more, but I personally came across this one early in the week and don't feel like waiting to find or writing tests that distinguish other political antipodes.
Definition: Terrorism works to no small degree on the fear of uncertainty, of not knowing where or when or how a strike will take place.
Assertion: The United States is a terrorist state.
Crux of the argument: Compare the following two statements.
1. Hand over Osama bin Laden by the end of October or we will come get him.
2. We will destroy your civilization! You will not know which business, which school, which courthouse, which train station we will destroy next! Perhaps it will be a dirty bomb! Perhaps it will be anthrax! You do not know, so you will cower before us, and your civilization will fall!
In both cases, we have an ultimatum (#2's really an ultimatum; pretend I didn't leave out the conditional) that includes violence and regime change as the only alternative to compliance.
In the first case, we have a statement that implies or comes with expectable military goals, from a power that endeavors to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage and intends to help get a nation back on its feet, allowing large and recently repressed segments of its population to go out in public unchaperoned and unbeaten.
In the second case, we have a statement that threatens widespread, low-level, random destruction of civilly strategic but militarily unimportant targets, solely for the sake of keeping the population off balance and disrupting society as a whole. Rebuilding, if it is done at all, would result in something rather despotic, maintained by little more than brute force.
If the difference between these two positions is substantial and important, then you are not blind.
If you cannot see that a concrete deadline, an explicit warning, and the intent of causing minimal damage are different from the promise of explicitly random and widespread violence, then you need to cut back on the New York Times and MoveOn.
Similar political tests are also possible. I present one below. I might have presented more, but I personally came across this one early in the week and don't feel like waiting to find or writing tests that distinguish other political antipodes.
Definition: Terrorism works to no small degree on the fear of uncertainty, of not knowing where or when or how a strike will take place.
Assertion: The United States is a terrorist state.
Crux of the argument: Compare the following two statements.
1. Hand over Osama bin Laden by the end of October or we will come get him.
2. We will destroy your civilization! You will not know which business, which school, which courthouse, which train station we will destroy next! Perhaps it will be a dirty bomb! Perhaps it will be anthrax! You do not know, so you will cower before us, and your civilization will fall!
In both cases, we have an ultimatum (#2's really an ultimatum; pretend I didn't leave out the conditional) that includes violence and regime change as the only alternative to compliance.
In the first case, we have a statement that implies or comes with expectable military goals, from a power that endeavors to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage and intends to help get a nation back on its feet, allowing large and recently repressed segments of its population to go out in public unchaperoned and unbeaten.
In the second case, we have a statement that threatens widespread, low-level, random destruction of civilly strategic but militarily unimportant targets, solely for the sake of keeping the population off balance and disrupting society as a whole. Rebuilding, if it is done at all, would result in something rather despotic, maintained by little more than brute force.
If the difference between these two positions is substantial and important, then you are not blind.
If you cannot see that a concrete deadline, an explicit warning, and the intent of causing minimal damage are different from the promise of explicitly random and widespread violence, then you need to cut back on the New York Times and MoveOn.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Why I'm less than entertained by contemporary entertainment
I have a sister. When she was a teenager, she occasionally would bring home magazines like Seventeen and Teen. I wasn't exactly compelled to pick them up when she was done, but occasionally she'd point out an article, or a quiz, or something, that might make me chuckle.
When I was in college, I had a summer job where I basically went camping all the time. Sometimes I'd be staying alone or with small groups at rustic campsites with nothing but a tent or the promise of warm, dry weather for shelter, and other times I'd be staying at staffed camps that had interactive local history programs.
When I was visiting one of the latter camps, I was informed about a latrine that was supposed to have the best selection of reading material in the entire region. Since I do at times have to use a latrine or plumbed toilet, I thought I'd see what they had to offer.
In the reading rack, amongst other things, was a copy of Vogue. Never having read a bona fide women's magazine before, I thumbed through it.
I'm not sure it should be called disappointment or dismay, but I was mightily unimpressed to learn that American women everywhere were taking as a lifestyle standard a magazine that was no different from what American teenage girls everywhere were taking as a lifestyle standard, except for the fact that articles were about sex instead of prom and quizzes were about men instead of boys.
Yes, it sounded a little more sophisticated; add sex and career to a discussion on makeup and relationships and you've easily doubled its complexity, and even immature adults will develop or appear to develop more mature attitudes through observation and repetition. Children play house. College students drink and make merry with all the gluttony they can muster. In between, we have kids making biological jokes of increasing sophistication as they age (if we can speak of sophisticated jokes about poop or sex at all).
What I don't see much of these days is a graduation beyond obscene material in today's television shows and whatnot. I'm not talking about slapstick comedies or other gross-out shows like Blue Collar TV or America's Funniest whatever. Some of those shows, while crass, are not vulgar or prurient. I'm talking about the ones that pretend to be above it all, and so think they're not subject to the usual guidelines for good taste. After all, a documentary can discuss and display bodily functions, so why can't an entertainment program if it's equally frank and clinical?
For one thing, it's entertainment, so it's supposed to stir up subjective feelings rather than coldly convey knowledge. Whether these two can be safely divorced but remain in the same program is something I don't care to get into at this time.
Maybe they just can't; I was originally only going to answer "why not" with "I don't know, maybe it could, but it hasn't worked so far." Apparently Sex and the City, which seemed to focus on the prurient experiences and preferences of four urban women as much as it did on their careers, on their shoes, and on their actual fulfillment as human beings, appeals to someone. Apparently Grey's Anatomy, which has doctors getting more STDs than a college freshman and also focuses on how, in a nutshell, emotionally dysfunctional the physical relationships (to which I can only say "Duh!"), which the doctors are having with each other, always seem to do so.
Fine, fine, harmony makes for bad drama. So does stupidity. The show Going to Extremes went off the air precisely because the main characters were intolerably angsty and whiny. Angst can be funny with the right wit behind the pen and with an actor with the right sensibilities, but usually it just looks like a Generation X high school melodrama. Maybe Going to Extremes was just badly timed, people having appreciated but tired of thirtysomething but not yet having recovered enough to appreciate, well, the stuff that's put out today.
I'm not saying we should sweep tawdry and sensitive stuff under the rug, pretend it's not there. If we learned one good thing from Free Love, it's that abject fear and superstition about the Physical is not the same thing as healthy respect for it, even if healthy respect requires some comprehension of the sacredness of the Physical, the special reservation with which it should be handled. Not that it absolves would-be factual shows from the same lurid ratings hooks. Important things do deserve to be treated frankly, if the only alternative is tentative vagueness, but it's not the same thing as being casual.
What I am saying is that we're not proving our enlightened maturity by just doing things we weren't allowed to do as children. "Hey, I'm an adult, it's time for me to put away childish things, like Not Smoking and Not Talking About Genitalia." So many of us, when we were young, tried so hard to seem mature beyond their years. How many actually grew up?
When I was in college, I had a summer job where I basically went camping all the time. Sometimes I'd be staying alone or with small groups at rustic campsites with nothing but a tent or the promise of warm, dry weather for shelter, and other times I'd be staying at staffed camps that had interactive local history programs.
When I was visiting one of the latter camps, I was informed about a latrine that was supposed to have the best selection of reading material in the entire region. Since I do at times have to use a latrine or plumbed toilet, I thought I'd see what they had to offer.
In the reading rack, amongst other things, was a copy of Vogue. Never having read a bona fide women's magazine before, I thumbed through it.
I'm not sure it should be called disappointment or dismay, but I was mightily unimpressed to learn that American women everywhere were taking as a lifestyle standard a magazine that was no different from what American teenage girls everywhere were taking as a lifestyle standard, except for the fact that articles were about sex instead of prom and quizzes were about men instead of boys.
Yes, it sounded a little more sophisticated; add sex and career to a discussion on makeup and relationships and you've easily doubled its complexity, and even immature adults will develop or appear to develop more mature attitudes through observation and repetition. Children play house. College students drink and make merry with all the gluttony they can muster. In between, we have kids making biological jokes of increasing sophistication as they age (if we can speak of sophisticated jokes about poop or sex at all).
What I don't see much of these days is a graduation beyond obscene material in today's television shows and whatnot. I'm not talking about slapstick comedies or other gross-out shows like Blue Collar TV or America's Funniest whatever. Some of those shows, while crass, are not vulgar or prurient. I'm talking about the ones that pretend to be above it all, and so think they're not subject to the usual guidelines for good taste. After all, a documentary can discuss and display bodily functions, so why can't an entertainment program if it's equally frank and clinical?
For one thing, it's entertainment, so it's supposed to stir up subjective feelings rather than coldly convey knowledge. Whether these two can be safely divorced but remain in the same program is something I don't care to get into at this time.
Maybe they just can't; I was originally only going to answer "why not" with "I don't know, maybe it could, but it hasn't worked so far." Apparently Sex and the City, which seemed to focus on the prurient experiences and preferences of four urban women as much as it did on their careers, on their shoes, and on their actual fulfillment as human beings, appeals to someone. Apparently Grey's Anatomy, which has doctors getting more STDs than a college freshman and also focuses on how, in a nutshell, emotionally dysfunctional the physical relationships (to which I can only say "Duh!"), which the doctors are having with each other, always seem to do so.
Fine, fine, harmony makes for bad drama. So does stupidity. The show Going to Extremes went off the air precisely because the main characters were intolerably angsty and whiny. Angst can be funny with the right wit behind the pen and with an actor with the right sensibilities, but usually it just looks like a Generation X high school melodrama. Maybe Going to Extremes was just badly timed, people having appreciated but tired of thirtysomething but not yet having recovered enough to appreciate, well, the stuff that's put out today.
I'm not saying we should sweep tawdry and sensitive stuff under the rug, pretend it's not there. If we learned one good thing from Free Love, it's that abject fear and superstition about the Physical is not the same thing as healthy respect for it, even if healthy respect requires some comprehension of the sacredness of the Physical, the special reservation with which it should be handled. Not that it absolves would-be factual shows from the same lurid ratings hooks. Important things do deserve to be treated frankly, if the only alternative is tentative vagueness, but it's not the same thing as being casual.
What I am saying is that we're not proving our enlightened maturity by just doing things we weren't allowed to do as children. "Hey, I'm an adult, it's time for me to put away childish things, like Not Smoking and Not Talking About Genitalia." So many of us, when we were young, tried so hard to seem mature beyond their years. How many actually grew up?
Friday, May 19, 2006
Criticism of the critique of The DaVinci Code:
Responses:
It's just the old lies dressed up in old clothes that happen to have been dry-cleaned and pressed. You can't be free, free from the truth, by trying to live a lie. Look at the more radical branches of feminism: women cannot adequately self-actualize until they overcome what makes them women and they stop having kids, start taking traditionally male jobs, and so on (not that childless independent women are bad; they're just untraditional, although a woman specifically trying to become more masculine isn't what I'd call healthy), except when what makes a woman obviously different from a man--her primary sex characteristics--are what makes her special, which basically means the glorification of her primary sex characteristics all by themselves, instead of her self or her Inner Man.
Maybe learning not to be ashamed of part of what makes you unique is the first step in developing a healthy, holistic self image.
- Dan Brown put a "Facts" page at the beginning of the novel....
- It's only fiction!
- People bought into made up stories two thousand years ago, and they're going to do so today, too.
- The male apostles covered it all up; there's no written evidence, just clues left in artwork
- I like the unearthing of a woman-respecting strand in Christian history
Responses:
- The only thing that is true on that page is that Opus Dei has a building in New York.
- Yes, it's fiction, but it doesn't stop people from believing it, and instructing the ignorant is a spiritual work of mercy. Whitley Strieber gets to couch alleged nonfiction in fiction, but at least he admits that he might just be psychotic.
- If it's all fiction to you, why do you care that we care if people can keep their stories straight?
- There's not even artistic evidence. You've got a youthful looking John, and what else? There's nothing at that English chapel from the end of the book. Where would be the sense in reading the canonical gospels and assuming they're strictly disinformation because of Dan Brown's bald assertions? It'd be like saying a crime suspect's claim to innocence is just what a guilty person would say, never mind that an innocent person would also claim to be innocent.
- Yeah, and it goes all the way back, from Dan Brown writing a Sophie who spends more time getting schooled by old white men than saving the day, to the Gnostic gospels where Jesus spent so much time with Mary Magdalene because she was even less fit for heaven than the male apostles were. Equal-time lip service is not the same thing as equality.
It's just the old lies dressed up in old clothes that happen to have been dry-cleaned and pressed. You can't be free, free from the truth, by trying to live a lie. Look at the more radical branches of feminism: women cannot adequately self-actualize until they overcome what makes them women and they stop having kids, start taking traditionally male jobs, and so on (not that childless independent women are bad; they're just untraditional, although a woman specifically trying to become more masculine isn't what I'd call healthy), except when what makes a woman obviously different from a man--her primary sex characteristics--are what makes her special, which basically means the glorification of her primary sex characteristics all by themselves, instead of her self or her Inner Man.
Maybe learning not to be ashamed of part of what makes you unique is the first step in developing a healthy, holistic self image.
Note to self:
Try bringing the average sentence length down, and add some whimsy.
Readers are welcome to encourage, guide, and remind me.
Readers are welcome to encourage, guide, and remind me.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Early Christian Cacophony
From Amy Welborn's combox:
The emphasis is mine.
I think "Everything was in dispute" is overstating the case a bit. Some people did actually doubt Christ's divinity, for example, but I think most of the people of greatest historical significance--not just to us today, but the ones closest to the "Jesus Event" itself--were wrestling with problems that today we describe as Trinitarian in scope more than problems with describing the nature of Jesus.
No, I'm not assuming the "winners write the history" position, either. I was just saving it. (:
Let's look at the bold sentence, the one with "...ending a golden age of diversity and tolerance." Which alternate Earth did Ehrman study? Sure, there was "diversity," if you want to call the wide speculations of the Gnostics and other sects denounced from the beginning by the Apostles and other patristic figures a legitimate diversity, then for the sake of the argument I suppose you can, but it's this wedding of diversity to tolerance that catches my eye like a screen door hook latch.
There was little to no tolerance for, let alone acceptance of or respect of, heterodoxy in the early days. I think "respect" and "acceptance" might be closer to what contemporary progressives have in mind when they say "tolerance," which tends to have more of a reluctant quality, and reluctance is not something I'd expect to be a regular part of the practice of something that is supposed to be a good end in itself.
Well, I would, what with our tendency to backslide, but someone who disbelieved original sin might be less expectant.
My use of "denounced" three paragraphs up was not by accident or premisconception. (By the way, "premisconception" is a word now. Like a preconception, it's made prematurely, but like a misconception, it's inexcusably incorrect.) This repressive powerful cleric claptrap did not suddenly occur a hundred years after the Council of Jerusalem. Peter had words against this "diversity," and even more of Paul's are widely available today. The only thing that fits any Constantinian conspiracy is that the Church in the fourth century had temporal power to rely on as well as rhetoric and, most importantly, grace.
If there was a golden age at all, it wasn't when or because there existed a variety of belief as well as worship, all of which was happily accepted as being legitimate or as much within the margin of error of the decades-old Church documents as any other denomination's (if we can call Peter and Paul's sect a denomination) manifestation. Christ Himself said that parents and children would turn against each other because of Him.
Just because there was some variety, because there were fringe elements that were congruently documented by the fringe elements and by the core elements, does not mean that there was legitimate diversity or harmonious acceptance.
Legitimate diversity isn't just difference for difference's sake. Legitimate diversity is what keeps unity from becoming stale uniformity. Maybe a little gratuitous variety is all it takes to create a complementarity that becomes a dynamic unity, but some differences do contain inherent incompatibilities.
Try taking your American electronic devices to Europe to see if I'm wrong. There's nothing wrong with American electrical power standards, and nothing wrong with German electrical power standards, but they won't work together. It just doesn't happen. You can keep them in the same room and be safe as long as you're not trying to make one "tolerate" the other, but once you do, you get smoke and fire and maybe worse. If you bring an adaptor, bully for you, but the presence and function of an adaptor to unify American battery charges with European power outlets do not arise naturally from the juxtaposition of the two technologies.
Is this golden age of variety supposed to integrate with or compete with the single, global Gaia worship that men replaced with all those different pagan systems? Now there is a diversity of belief that contained nearly interchangeable parts, if I may paint with such broad strokes.
Of course, there was still religious conflict, but whatever.
Burge's Protestantism eeks out in this paragraph:
"Ehrman's more important effort appears in the companion volume, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford). Here Ehrman says that early Christianity witnessed remarkable theological chaos. Everything was in dispute: monotheism, Jesus' divinity, creation. Then, Ehrman says, in the second and third centuries, powerful clerics imposed their views on rivals, ending a golden age of diversity and tolerance. The vanquished rivals supposedly were reformed, suppressed, or forgotten. Other religions and other Christian voices, those outside the mainstream, were crushed. And it is only now, Ehrman says, with the discovery of their lost scriptures, that these long-silenced voices are being heard once again."
The emphasis is mine.
I think "Everything was in dispute" is overstating the case a bit. Some people did actually doubt Christ's divinity, for example, but I think most of the people of greatest historical significance--not just to us today, but the ones closest to the "Jesus Event" itself--were wrestling with problems that today we describe as Trinitarian in scope more than problems with describing the nature of Jesus.
No, I'm not assuming the "winners write the history" position, either. I was just saving it. (:
Let's look at the bold sentence, the one with "...ending a golden age of diversity and tolerance." Which alternate Earth did Ehrman study? Sure, there was "diversity," if you want to call the wide speculations of the Gnostics and other sects denounced from the beginning by the Apostles and other patristic figures a legitimate diversity, then for the sake of the argument I suppose you can, but it's this wedding of diversity to tolerance that catches my eye like a screen door hook latch.
There was little to no tolerance for, let alone acceptance of or respect of, heterodoxy in the early days. I think "respect" and "acceptance" might be closer to what contemporary progressives have in mind when they say "tolerance," which tends to have more of a reluctant quality, and reluctance is not something I'd expect to be a regular part of the practice of something that is supposed to be a good end in itself.
Well, I would, what with our tendency to backslide, but someone who disbelieved original sin might be less expectant.
My use of "denounced" three paragraphs up was not by accident or premisconception. (By the way, "premisconception" is a word now. Like a preconception, it's made prematurely, but like a misconception, it's inexcusably incorrect.) This repressive powerful cleric claptrap did not suddenly occur a hundred years after the Council of Jerusalem. Peter had words against this "diversity," and even more of Paul's are widely available today. The only thing that fits any Constantinian conspiracy is that the Church in the fourth century had temporal power to rely on as well as rhetoric and, most importantly, grace.
If there was a golden age at all, it wasn't when or because there existed a variety of belief as well as worship, all of which was happily accepted as being legitimate or as much within the margin of error of the decades-old Church documents as any other denomination's (if we can call Peter and Paul's sect a denomination) manifestation. Christ Himself said that parents and children would turn against each other because of Him.
Just because there was some variety, because there were fringe elements that were congruently documented by the fringe elements and by the core elements, does not mean that there was legitimate diversity or harmonious acceptance.
Legitimate diversity isn't just difference for difference's sake. Legitimate diversity is what keeps unity from becoming stale uniformity. Maybe a little gratuitous variety is all it takes to create a complementarity that becomes a dynamic unity, but some differences do contain inherent incompatibilities.
Try taking your American electronic devices to Europe to see if I'm wrong. There's nothing wrong with American electrical power standards, and nothing wrong with German electrical power standards, but they won't work together. It just doesn't happen. You can keep them in the same room and be safe as long as you're not trying to make one "tolerate" the other, but once you do, you get smoke and fire and maybe worse. If you bring an adaptor, bully for you, but the presence and function of an adaptor to unify American battery charges with European power outlets do not arise naturally from the juxtaposition of the two technologies.
Is this golden age of variety supposed to integrate with or compete with the single, global Gaia worship that men replaced with all those different pagan systems? Now there is a diversity of belief that contained nearly interchangeable parts, if I may paint with such broad strokes.
Of course, there was still religious conflict, but whatever.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Should we call it "Mercy Eugenics" or "Mercy Genocide?"
Via Amy Welborn:
UK euthanasia legislation fails to gain the support of the people it's intended to help.
I think it's telling that this kind of "help" is not wanted. Question is, is anyone listening?
I imagine something like the liver donation scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," only darker and more obnoxious:
UK euthanasia legislation fails to gain the support of the people it's intended to help.
I think it's telling that this kind of "help" is not wanted. Question is, is anyone listening?
I imagine something like the liver donation scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," only darker and more obnoxious:
"Hi, we're from the government, and we're here to help."
"No, actually, I'm fine."
"Of course not."
"What! Wait!"
"Oh, do relax. Here, Mr. Griffiths will just run upstairs and fill the tub, and after you get to know me a little I'll hold you down in it."
"No!"
"Please come off it, sir. Your neighbor across the street, Mr. Foster, didn't complain."
"No--wha? He was only diabetic!"
"Yes! You may as well give up trying to roll yourself out of here; it won't work. Foster was much more mobile than you, and we ended up shivving him on the way home from the pub last Thursday."
"'E couldn't very well have complained, then, could he?"
"I don't think he would have."
"Right, and even if he did, it would have just shown he wasn't lucid enough to agree with you, wouldn't it?"
"Now you're getting it!"
"Yet somehow I still have a problem with this arrangement."
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Wool or plastic?
My brown scapular is plastic.
Well, it's actually brown wool, like the scapular traditionally is, but the two pieces are encased in plastic.
Apparently, some folks think that a "plastic scapular" is invalid. If they mean all plastic and no fabric, then I could understand, and if they meant a synthetic fabric instead of wool, then I might even be convinced.
I would hope that they would not think ill of a scapular with the same material configuration as mine, though. It does have the legitimate material, and for me at least, the sharp edges and corners of the casing are more painful when I lie down, roll over, or anything that requires sitting or standing, than the bare wool would be uncomfortable in an entire day of scratchiness.
Shouldn't this point appeal to some of the more reactionary types?
Well, it's actually brown wool, like the scapular traditionally is, but the two pieces are encased in plastic.
Apparently, some folks think that a "plastic scapular" is invalid. If they mean all plastic and no fabric, then I could understand, and if they meant a synthetic fabric instead of wool, then I might even be convinced.
I would hope that they would not think ill of a scapular with the same material configuration as mine, though. It does have the legitimate material, and for me at least, the sharp edges and corners of the casing are more painful when I lie down, roll over, or anything that requires sitting or standing, than the bare wool would be uncomfortable in an entire day of scratchiness.
Shouldn't this point appeal to some of the more reactionary types?
Monday, April 17, 2006
Hand Holding & Rubrics
There's an interesting (at least if you're into the finer points of the laity's role during the liturgy) thread at Jimmy Akin's blog about, well, holding hands during the liturgy. Why we shouldn't, why doing so isn't bad, how to defuse people who let no social barrier prevent them from making physical contact with you, and such.
I grew up in a parish that was really hand-holdy, so it's not a big deal to me. I've moved away, as have my parents, so I don't even get back there during holidays; it's a little different where I am now. Sometimes a stranger will reach out and I'll comply, but I won't try to get someone else to hold hands with me. I can always shake his or her hand during the sign of peace, if I'm jonesing for some kind of human contact or whatever.
I might have a solution. It's not realistic, and it might not even suffice where it's possible, but why should I constrain myself?
Find yourself a parish, most or all of whose congregation is of recent east Asian descent. If it's like the Korean Catholic church a mile or so from my office, hand-holding is diminishingly rare and the sign of peace is a bow, so there's little to no physical contact, and with any luck the Our Father will be written phonetically inside the cover of your missal or Worship book.
I grew up in a parish that was really hand-holdy, so it's not a big deal to me. I've moved away, as have my parents, so I don't even get back there during holidays; it's a little different where I am now. Sometimes a stranger will reach out and I'll comply, but I won't try to get someone else to hold hands with me. I can always shake his or her hand during the sign of peace, if I'm jonesing for some kind of human contact or whatever.
I might have a solution. It's not realistic, and it might not even suffice where it's possible, but why should I constrain myself?
Find yourself a parish, most or all of whose congregation is of recent east Asian descent. If it's like the Korean Catholic church a mile or so from my office, hand-holding is diminishingly rare and the sign of peace is a bow, so there's little to no physical contact, and with any luck the Our Father will be written phonetically inside the cover of your missal or Worship book.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
A new Biblical narrative of our Lord!
Late in the second millennium, an ancient document was discovered and widely disseminated in cinematic format. It describes the life and times of a messiah--but not the one you expect.
Jesus of Nazareth does appear in the narrative, but this document, which has been largely forgotten except in a few isolated circles around the English-speaking world, reveals a competing belief of the time: that the savior the Jews of Palestine were expecting was to be a philosopher-soldier who would rout the Roman occupiers, and did in fact appear at exactly the same time, in the same town of Bethlehem, as Jesus.
Learn about contemporaries of Jesus that early "Christians" didn't want you to know about! Discover long-forgotten truths about what the Jews of two thousand years ago really believed! Find out what they really taught!
Do it. Watch the Gospel of Brian. Why do things halfway and limit yourself to Gnostic heresies?
Jesus of Nazareth does appear in the narrative, but this document, which has been largely forgotten except in a few isolated circles around the English-speaking world, reveals a competing belief of the time: that the savior the Jews of Palestine were expecting was to be a philosopher-soldier who would rout the Roman occupiers, and did in fact appear at exactly the same time, in the same town of Bethlehem, as Jesus.
Learn about contemporaries of Jesus that early "Christians" didn't want you to know about! Discover long-forgotten truths about what the Jews of two thousand years ago really believed! Find out what they really taught!
Do it. Watch the Gospel of Brian. Why do things halfway and limit yourself to Gnostic heresies?
Monday, April 10, 2006
Sometimes I say the Jesus Prayer.
Recently, as I was saying it, I got an uncomfortably impersonal feeling whenever I got to "me, a sinner." I was not so much bristling at the notion of my recidivism, but at being anonymous, at the idea that my unique identity was utterly unimportant, especially next to my recidivism.
I kept saying with it and wrestling with this new and distasteful sensation. Then I went to confession.
I didn't think to bring it up in the confessional, but afterwards, I felt a lot better praying it. The proper perspective was restored to me.
Go figure.
I kept saying with it and wrestling with this new and distasteful sensation. Then I went to confession.
I didn't think to bring it up in the confessional, but afterwards, I felt a lot better praying it. The proper perspective was restored to me.
Go figure.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Speeding, even a little, is a sin.
Is it as bad as murder or armed robbery? No, not normally. Doing 72 in a 70 mph zone is not going to be more dangerous than doing an even 70, by any reasonable metric. However, Caesar has set concrete limits, because limits of some sort do help to minimize injury and damage from vehicular incidents, and while it enables arguments about how taking traffic laws as strong suggestions can be sufficient, it also stops people from wasting the court's time with arguments like "I'm smart and fast enough to safely drive at 55 in school zones."
Declining to render unto Caesar by driving 72 in a 70 zone would only constitute a venial sin, of course. I've written about arguments I've had with people who would assert things like being momentarily inattentive to the speedometer whilst passing someone is morally identical to genocide, and how I think it's silly because whether or not marginal speeding is enough of a sin to warrant hell, refusing to distinguish between extinguishing numerous human lives and abstractly defying the social order in a trivial way is rather dismissive of the numerous humans and not at all helpful to the people who are, respectively, struggling with the particular sins and/or temptations to kill massively or drive quickly.
I suspect that this philosophy is also responsible for stimulating the opposite attitude, that certain things that are a little bad aren't really sins at all. I admit, it's the first rationalization that comes to mind when I'm sorely tempted to commit a venial sin (and sometimes mortal ones, but many of them are harder to rationalize), to save me from the fear of despair at having damned myself by succumbing to weakness and habit, but I do remember it's not that simple. I brought up speeding as an example because the first time I remember someone who still believed in sin write off minor things as not being sinful at all used speeding as his example.
I agree it's not very bad; most cops wouldn't pull you over for exceeding the limit by two miles per hour on a highway, and if one did, the penalty would be relatively light. Further, the limits are to an extent arbitrary; if we had sufficient mathematical models, we might find that 73 might be an optimal highway speed, after all, and 17 in a certain residential zone. However, we usually use round numbers because easy to remember and standard values make it easier for us to keep our eyes on the road instead of glued to the instrument panel.
I'm getting sidetracked. If bad sins get us into hell, then it does not follow that minor infractions aren't sins only because they shouldn't get us into hell. If driving two miles per hour over the limit increases accident rates by 0.000043%, and an increase in annual insurance rates of $0.00000079 per driver, then it's not really worth it to Caesar to pursue the matter. However, it is something we can choose to do or not to do. If it's not a morally neutral choice (and if Caesar is legitimately, reasonably, exercising his authority in proscribing one option, it isn't), and you actively choose wrong, you've got the elementary school textbook definition of sin on your hands.
It might not always be that simple, but it is that plain.
Declining to render unto Caesar by driving 72 in a 70 zone would only constitute a venial sin, of course. I've written about arguments I've had with people who would assert things like being momentarily inattentive to the speedometer whilst passing someone is morally identical to genocide, and how I think it's silly because whether or not marginal speeding is enough of a sin to warrant hell, refusing to distinguish between extinguishing numerous human lives and abstractly defying the social order in a trivial way is rather dismissive of the numerous humans and not at all helpful to the people who are, respectively, struggling with the particular sins and/or temptations to kill massively or drive quickly.
I suspect that this philosophy is also responsible for stimulating the opposite attitude, that certain things that are a little bad aren't really sins at all. I admit, it's the first rationalization that comes to mind when I'm sorely tempted to commit a venial sin (and sometimes mortal ones, but many of them are harder to rationalize), to save me from the fear of despair at having damned myself by succumbing to weakness and habit, but I do remember it's not that simple. I brought up speeding as an example because the first time I remember someone who still believed in sin write off minor things as not being sinful at all used speeding as his example.
I agree it's not very bad; most cops wouldn't pull you over for exceeding the limit by two miles per hour on a highway, and if one did, the penalty would be relatively light. Further, the limits are to an extent arbitrary; if we had sufficient mathematical models, we might find that 73 might be an optimal highway speed, after all, and 17 in a certain residential zone. However, we usually use round numbers because easy to remember and standard values make it easier for us to keep our eyes on the road instead of glued to the instrument panel.
I'm getting sidetracked. If bad sins get us into hell, then it does not follow that minor infractions aren't sins only because they shouldn't get us into hell. If driving two miles per hour over the limit increases accident rates by 0.000043%, and an increase in annual insurance rates of $0.00000079 per driver, then it's not really worth it to Caesar to pursue the matter. However, it is something we can choose to do or not to do. If it's not a morally neutral choice (and if Caesar is legitimately, reasonably, exercising his authority in proscribing one option, it isn't), and you actively choose wrong, you've got the elementary school textbook definition of sin on your hands.
It might not always be that simple, but it is that plain.
Monday, April 03, 2006
This Holy Week, don't just observe the Passion.
Supersize your Easter with The McPassion.
Now, is this little ditty offensive, or just tasteless?
Not the meal. The meal looks about as tasty as fast food can get.
Now, is this little ditty offensive, or just tasteless?
Not the meal. The meal looks about as tasty as fast food can get.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Saturday, April 01, 2006
"I'm a person. I have ten toes and ten fingers. I'm also a woman, so I don't have a penis, although twice, for nine months, I had twenty toes and twenty fingers and a penis."
The first time I heard someone talk this way, several years ago, it seemed like a cutesy acknowledgement of the humanity of a pregnant woman's prenatal son. The next time I heard it, which was just a few months back, was after the "my arbitrary threshold for the humanity of a fetus is correct" rhetoric really got fleshed out in the public eye, or maybe just in my own mind and I'm not quite up to date on the propaganda.
Yes, the second time I heard the "twenty fingers and a penis" routine, it sounded trite and thoughtless. A woman pregnant with her son may "have" all this stuff, but they're not hers beyond the point that her son is her own. They are not an inherent part of her. A normal woman is not coded to possess double the normal number of fingers and male genitalia. She is coded, and constructed, to carry them in the form of a developing son, but they are not an ontological part of her. Without the contribution of a male, she cannot produce these things at all, and even then, she'll only produce the distinctly male features about half the time.
Unless you care to patch together some telological definition of Woman as strictly a baby making machine, you can't assert on these grounds that a prenatal human is merely a mass of the woman's tissue that can be thought of and treated as casually as a cyst or wad of phlegm.
Well, maybe you could argue, again, that Woman has the metaphysical ability to impute humanity by fiat, much as how the Fourteenth Amendment imputes citizenship, but I think that argument's even shakier.
The first time I heard someone talk this way, several years ago, it seemed like a cutesy acknowledgement of the humanity of a pregnant woman's prenatal son. The next time I heard it, which was just a few months back, was after the "my arbitrary threshold for the humanity of a fetus is correct" rhetoric really got fleshed out in the public eye, or maybe just in my own mind and I'm not quite up to date on the propaganda.
Yes, the second time I heard the "twenty fingers and a penis" routine, it sounded trite and thoughtless. A woman pregnant with her son may "have" all this stuff, but they're not hers beyond the point that her son is her own. They are not an inherent part of her. A normal woman is not coded to possess double the normal number of fingers and male genitalia. She is coded, and constructed, to carry them in the form of a developing son, but they are not an ontological part of her. Without the contribution of a male, she cannot produce these things at all, and even then, she'll only produce the distinctly male features about half the time.
Unless you care to patch together some telological definition of Woman as strictly a baby making machine, you can't assert on these grounds that a prenatal human is merely a mass of the woman's tissue that can be thought of and treated as casually as a cyst or wad of phlegm.
Well, maybe you could argue, again, that Woman has the metaphysical ability to impute humanity by fiat, much as how the Fourteenth Amendment imputes citizenship, but I think that argument's even shakier.
Friday, March 31, 2006
The purpose of marriage (appendix)
I had a fascinating discussion with one of my quasi-bosses today. He came over from India the better part of two decades ago. Somehow, our conversation turned to the sad marital statistics in this country these days. Being an old-school Hindu, his marriage was arranged with a woman he didn't even know at the time.
Such marriages, while not unheard of here, are quite alien to most homegrown Americans. Who could imagine leaving such an important decision to the judgment of, well, anyone else?
It's certainly intimidating, but in India, trust and obedience are still more highly valued than they are here, so I'm sure there's a lot less angst about ending up with someone who turns out to be a bad match, and while parents sometimes make bad calls, I imagine the rate of bad matches revealing themselves in the first five years of marriage is probably far lower than 50%. They have fights now and then, too, but occasional marital stress just makes them normal, like the rest of us. Somehow, they keep on keepin' on.
I think there's something to this old school stuff, and I don't mean the higher stigma of divorce, although there's something to be said for being reluctant to just give up when things get tougher than you expect.
Imagine yourself being presented with a marriage arrangement. The people who know you best have selected someone for you to build a life with, someone brought in by the people who know her or him best, someone who has the same expectations and reservations. While you may lack the motivation to bond of a preexisting relationship, you also lack the illusion that whatever feelings you happen to have right now constitute all the foundation and effort needed to make a marriage work. You're not going into it just to up the ante on commitment as a sign of love. You're not going into it just looking for a legal rubber stamp on whatever you're already doing with your girlfriend or boyfriend.
What you are doing is going into marriage knowing what its purpose is. Sure, Americans might have a head start on the unitive angle, in practice if not in principle, but people like my quasi-boss harbor few to no misconceptions about the importance of the procreative angle.
I'm not saying we have to start arranging all our marriages, but I think we could learn something about the way the marital priorities are emphasized. Something all too easily forgotten in western society.
Such marriages, while not unheard of here, are quite alien to most homegrown Americans. Who could imagine leaving such an important decision to the judgment of, well, anyone else?
It's certainly intimidating, but in India, trust and obedience are still more highly valued than they are here, so I'm sure there's a lot less angst about ending up with someone who turns out to be a bad match, and while parents sometimes make bad calls, I imagine the rate of bad matches revealing themselves in the first five years of marriage is probably far lower than 50%. They have fights now and then, too, but occasional marital stress just makes them normal, like the rest of us. Somehow, they keep on keepin' on.
I think there's something to this old school stuff, and I don't mean the higher stigma of divorce, although there's something to be said for being reluctant to just give up when things get tougher than you expect.
Imagine yourself being presented with a marriage arrangement. The people who know you best have selected someone for you to build a life with, someone brought in by the people who know her or him best, someone who has the same expectations and reservations. While you may lack the motivation to bond of a preexisting relationship, you also lack the illusion that whatever feelings you happen to have right now constitute all the foundation and effort needed to make a marriage work. You're not going into it just to up the ante on commitment as a sign of love. You're not going into it just looking for a legal rubber stamp on whatever you're already doing with your girlfriend or boyfriend.
What you are doing is going into marriage knowing what its purpose is. Sure, Americans might have a head start on the unitive angle, in practice if not in principle, but people like my quasi-boss harbor few to no misconceptions about the importance of the procreative angle.
I'm not saying we have to start arranging all our marriages, but I think we could learn something about the way the marital priorities are emphasized. Something all too easily forgotten in western society.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Not even original garbage
Okay, maybe "garbage" is unfair. I suppose that, blurred historical details aside, Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code is decent enough pulp. Then again, I've read other books I'm willing to say are less entertaining than Left Behind, so take it for what it's worth.
Anyway, as you know by now, Dan Brown's up for plagiarism, and to the purpose of his defense he issued a statement, which reads in part:
I'll parse the choir comment as a sign of devotion to the church, and not a claim to expertise.
I have to wonder what else Brown would actually be willing to write about if he considers the Resurrection to be "controversial." There's a respectable precedent for calling the Crucifixion a "scandal," which might qualify as a controversy of sorts, but is there anyone out there who thinks the jury's still out on the matter of Easter, whom orthodox Christians need concern themselves with?
Anyway, as you know by now, Dan Brown's up for plagiarism, and to the purpose of his defense he issued a statement, which reads in part:
Being raised Christian and having sung in my church choir for 15 years, I am well aware that Christ’s Crucifixion (and ultimate Resurrection) serves as the very core of the Christian faith. It is the promise of life everlasting and that which makes Jesus ‘the Christ’. The Resurrection is perhaps the sole controversial Christian topic about which I would not desire to write; suggesting a married Jesus is one thing, but questioning the Resurrection undermines the very heart of Christian belief.
I'll parse the choir comment as a sign of devotion to the church, and not a claim to expertise.
I have to wonder what else Brown would actually be willing to write about if he considers the Resurrection to be "controversial." There's a respectable precedent for calling the Crucifixion a "scandal," which might qualify as a controversy of sorts, but is there anyone out there who thinks the jury's still out on the matter of Easter, whom orthodox Christians need concern themselves with?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Now a member of the B-Team!
By now you've probably noticed my Amateur Catholic graphic off to the right, there. I would have posted on it sooner, but, you know.
Rick Lugari, head honcho of the Amateur Catholic blogroll et al, said it was heartening to hear "'dirty papist' being muttered through clenched teeth in [his] direction." I agree, although my confrontations usually end with shocked disbelief. Actually, Rick's word was "heatening," but I presume he meant "heartening," although I confess I still sometimes take it personally when Mother Church is insulted in my presence.
I figured I qualified because the quality of my scholarship isn't terribly impressive. Maybe our good Mister Lugari would have been more impressed with my completely vacant list of regular readers. (; Eh, my work's modest enough to qualify, apparently. Now, if only I could say the same thing about my attitude....
Rick Lugari, head honcho of the Amateur Catholic blogroll et al, said it was heartening to hear "'dirty papist' being muttered through clenched teeth in [his] direction." I agree, although my confrontations usually end with shocked disbelief. Actually, Rick's word was "heatening," but I presume he meant "heartening," although I confess I still sometimes take it personally when Mother Church is insulted in my presence.
I figured I qualified because the quality of my scholarship isn't terribly impressive. Maybe our good Mister Lugari would have been more impressed with my completely vacant list of regular readers. (; Eh, my work's modest enough to qualify, apparently. Now, if only I could say the same thing about my attitude....
Monday, March 20, 2006
Trans-hyperdulia
The Shrine of the Holy Whapping (see link in sidebar) recently posted an article about the Ebenezer Lutheran Church (aka Her Church). I'd heard about their "goddess rosary" but wasn't going to comment, until I saw this video.
The church seems very communal and group-building, neither of which is a bad thing of itself. You'll notice they don't have any footage of liturgical activity until approximately halfway through the video; I'm not sure if it's designed to sort of warm up the viewers with a montage of cheery social images before showcasing a priestess saying what looks like a mass slanted towards the "sacred feminine" or...not.
I'm not sure if they and Dan Brown are cut from the same cloth or one inspired the other's ecclesial schema or if it's a coincidence. I'm leaning towards a fad rationale.
I think my favorite part was the "active liturgy" on the part of the laity during worship; it wasn't just folks from the pews taking the place of the priestess during the blessing of the bread and what appeared to be merely water, like a cynic would expect in this post-conciliar era, but kids playing musical instruments, making drums and mosaics, and adults going on "photo treks." Maybe the treks were for something else.
Quoth the pastor (maybe I shouldn't call her a priestess, what with being nominally Lutheran):
Is true feminism, in essence, compatible with Christianity? Certainly. Is it interchangeable with Christianity? Uh, no; it's severely lacking. In today's postmodern era, I don't think you can turn a gender-based demographic struggle philosophy into a religion until you add the dimension of race-based struggle.
My least favorite part is touched on in the Holy Whapping combox. Drew of the Shrine had accused these Protestants of worshipping Mary, and a commenter disagreed, pointing to a total absence of references to the BVM, Mary Magdalene, or Martha. True, there are no explicit references to the honored women in our tradition at Ebenezer's web site, but in the video they have a brief clip of a recitation of whatever they turned the Hail Mary into, referring to a "goddess full of grace" and the "Holy Cosmic Mother of the Risen Christ."
I think the case for a critically blurred line can be made.
The other thing I want to know is where a congregation that small got such a large and well-appointed church.
The church seems very communal and group-building, neither of which is a bad thing of itself. You'll notice they don't have any footage of liturgical activity until approximately halfway through the video; I'm not sure if it's designed to sort of warm up the viewers with a montage of cheery social images before showcasing a priestess saying what looks like a mass slanted towards the "sacred feminine" or...not.
I'm not sure if they and Dan Brown are cut from the same cloth or one inspired the other's ecclesial schema or if it's a coincidence. I'm leaning towards a fad rationale.
I think my favorite part was the "active liturgy" on the part of the laity during worship; it wasn't just folks from the pews taking the place of the priestess during the blessing of the bread and what appeared to be merely water, like a cynic would expect in this post-conciliar era, but kids playing musical instruments, making drums and mosaics, and adults going on "photo treks." Maybe the treks were for something else.
Quoth the pastor (maybe I shouldn't call her a priestess, what with being nominally Lutheran):
Ebenezer Lutheran Church, which is also known as Her Church, has taken it upon itself to integrate the heart of feminism and Christianity, which we believe really are interchangeable.
Is true feminism, in essence, compatible with Christianity? Certainly. Is it interchangeable with Christianity? Uh, no; it's severely lacking. In today's postmodern era, I don't think you can turn a gender-based demographic struggle philosophy into a religion until you add the dimension of race-based struggle.
My least favorite part is touched on in the Holy Whapping combox. Drew of the Shrine had accused these Protestants of worshipping Mary, and a commenter disagreed, pointing to a total absence of references to the BVM, Mary Magdalene, or Martha. True, there are no explicit references to the honored women in our tradition at Ebenezer's web site, but in the video they have a brief clip of a recitation of whatever they turned the Hail Mary into, referring to a "goddess full of grace" and the "Holy Cosmic Mother of the Risen Christ."
I think the case for a critically blurred line can be made.
The other thing I want to know is where a congregation that small got such a large and well-appointed church.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
News to me...
Apparently "homosexual" is no longer an acceptable term for people with same-sex attraction. This change in preference in the SSA community strikes me as odd, since historically it's a pretty clinical, neutral term, but apparently there are some who will argue with me over both my impression and my use of the word "clinical," since the American Psychiatric Assocation declared some time ago that SSA is not to be classified as a diagnosable mental disorder, but just as another expression of humanity, part of that great diversity that comprises the human species. Maybe it's not a widespread change of acceptable nomenclature, I only heard the assertion made once--I mean, the one about the change in preferred terminology; the APA bit I heard once before, not even a year ago, yet the source I have at hand says the APA published the decision in 1973--although I've been hearing "queer" used a little bit more lately than I did in the past, and the alphabet soup that covers for Gay, Lesbian, Other, Etc. keeps getting richer, but maybe I'm seeing two largely unrelated phenomena.
Excuse me while I dial my credulity and respect for the APA down a few notches.
It's not diagnosable? Is the APA trying to say it's not a distinct condition they should be identifying, even though the symptoms are obvious, at least to the person with SSA? Having SSA might be something worth factoring in during your observations or diagnosis of someone coming to see you as a psychologist, wouldn't it? The only alternative reading I can think of is that they mean it's not actually a disorder, which still wouldn't it make it a nonissue on the couch.
Isn't it a disorder, though? Is being disinclined to form species-perpetuating dyads a legitimate and natural variation in the phenome, an expression of a normal genotype (if it's genetic after all)? We're not talking about a trivial trait like hair color, or something you can chalk up to shyness. We're talking about something as functionally basic to being human as being born without testes or a uterus. Maybe it's neurochemical instead of anatomical (which would still be biochemical in origin, in all likelihood), maybe it's environmental like long-term abuse from a family member, but either way, it's a condition that yields no offspring, and all these other cases qualify as problems to be solved, or managed, so why is homosexuality excepted?
Producing offspring is part of any orthodox (ah, maybe there's my problem--I'm trying to be concrete and consistent) definition of life. Some may elect not to procreate, or may be prevented by external circumstances, but an inherent inability to do so, either physical or mental, logically must be disordered, medically as well as morally.
Why not just define diabetes or bipolar disorder as undiagnosable conditions? Maybe these conditions bring something good to the table. After all, folks with sickle cell anemia boast a higher resistance to malaria.
Oh, wait. SCA still has its own concrete drawbacks, as do radical shifts in mood and blood sugar.
Who's making these decisions? Do we also want to stop referring to people in hospitals as patients, and calling their illnesses diseases or vice-versa, in order to empower them to feel like nothing's wrong?
We all have our debilitating features. Some more than others, some more obvious than others. Saying it ain't so doesn't make it otherwise.
Excuse me while I dial my credulity and respect for the APA down a few notches.
It's not diagnosable? Is the APA trying to say it's not a distinct condition they should be identifying, even though the symptoms are obvious, at least to the person with SSA? Having SSA might be something worth factoring in during your observations or diagnosis of someone coming to see you as a psychologist, wouldn't it? The only alternative reading I can think of is that they mean it's not actually a disorder, which still wouldn't it make it a nonissue on the couch.
Isn't it a disorder, though? Is being disinclined to form species-perpetuating dyads a legitimate and natural variation in the phenome, an expression of a normal genotype (if it's genetic after all)? We're not talking about a trivial trait like hair color, or something you can chalk up to shyness. We're talking about something as functionally basic to being human as being born without testes or a uterus. Maybe it's neurochemical instead of anatomical (which would still be biochemical in origin, in all likelihood), maybe it's environmental like long-term abuse from a family member, but either way, it's a condition that yields no offspring, and all these other cases qualify as problems to be solved, or managed, so why is homosexuality excepted?
Producing offspring is part of any orthodox (ah, maybe there's my problem--I'm trying to be concrete and consistent) definition of life. Some may elect not to procreate, or may be prevented by external circumstances, but an inherent inability to do so, either physical or mental, logically must be disordered, medically as well as morally.
Why not just define diabetes or bipolar disorder as undiagnosable conditions? Maybe these conditions bring something good to the table. After all, folks with sickle cell anemia boast a higher resistance to malaria.
Oh, wait. SCA still has its own concrete drawbacks, as do radical shifts in mood and blood sugar.
Who's making these decisions? Do we also want to stop referring to people in hospitals as patients, and calling their illnesses diseases or vice-versa, in order to empower them to feel like nothing's wrong?
We all have our debilitating features. Some more than others, some more obvious than others. Saying it ain't so doesn't make it otherwise.
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