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I wish this U.S. election would end. I guess it will soon enough but I am still sick of it. I am sick of the ads for the Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics. I am tired of email missives and videos from organizations I subscribe to trying to convince me of what I am already convinced of. I am tired of all the discussions. I am tired of defending people I don't believe in to my friends. I am tired of being confronted for at least the fifth time since I gained the franchise with the choice of voting against the person I thought was a catastrophe or voting for someone I truly want but who won't get elected.
They say in Europe the length of the election season is much shorter than in the U.S. I'd go for that. I bet it would save money too.
Averring that he had been misunderstood and his aim distorted, a Catholic priest who had planned on taking votes on nuns based on profiles on his website has canceled the competition. The idea had been to raise awareness of vocations and demonstrate that religious sisters are not all old and dour. A noble goal, but perhaps a naive way to achieve it.
Palin's appointment has dramatically increased McCain/Palin's popularity among Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and pro-life folks. This is not the only thing that has increased his popularity; his interview with Rick Warren where he openly talked about his faith helped. They also mention an odd factor: "language aimed at finding common-ground solutions to reduce the number of abortions was struck from the final draft [of the Republican platform]". The redacted phrase, which apparently was responsible for increasing his popularity with pro-life people: "We invite all persons of good will, whether across the political aisle or within our party, to work together to reduce the incidence of abortion." I am curious as to why removing a platform to reduce the incidence of abortion would be considered positive by pro-life activists. I'm guessing two possible reasons: One, it could in practice be a codeword for contraception; two, it tends to be a phrase trotted out by liberals when they want to give the appearance of disapproving of abortion.
For anyone who is curious, this is how the desecration of the Eucharist by the professor at the University of Minnesota proceeded:
"However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.
"By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet."
He seemed in his screed to take much delight in calling the Eucharist a "cracker", and even took swipes at Mark Shea's comment on the issue. Unfortunately there seemed to be no lack of wackos who wrote to the professor who he was only too delighted to cite in support of his point. He expressed amazement that Jesus could actually be hurt by a "third-rate professor at a third-rate university", but of course, I agree with him: He cannot. Only the professor can be hurt.
According to a little Habitat for Humanity missive I got yesterday, the only staple (out of milk, bread, eggs, gas, and health care) that has risen more in price than gas since last year is — eggs. Thirty-five percent. Weird. I wonder what the cause is. Are they particularly sensitive to fuel prices? (Diesel has risen 64% since last year.)
The priest who died on a helium balloon flight officially won a Darwin Award. The writeup has new details; apparently he couldn't provide a rescue team with his location because while he had a GPS, he did not know how to use it.
Darwin Awards are given to those who through their own stupidity remove themselves from the gene pool. Of course, being a celibate priest he had already voluntarily removed himself from the gene pool, but this time it was permanent.
The good news: The student returned the Host because of many e-mails that he received from people around the world concerning the matter—including some that threatened to break into his dormitory room to rescue the Host. Armed university police now stand guard at Sunday Mass to prevent a similar incident.
The bad news: In reaction to the student's action, a University of Minnesota professor on his blog on the university's website has asked for anyone to get him a consecrated Host or Hosts so that he can publicly and blatantly desecrate the Host(s). In reply to a news release from the Catholic League (because the professor singled out Bill Donahue, the Catholic League's director, for his role in publicizing and criticizing the Florida university student's action), the university has removed the link to the professor's blog from its website. (See Catholic League articles 1, 2 and 3)
(Thanks to Tom S. for the update)
The body of the balloon priest who went up on a chair affixed to helium balloons has been found about 100 km off the coast of Brazil.
Requiescat in pace.
(Thanks to Greg)
I wish I could draw. Then I'd draw a cartoon of George Carlin approaching the Pearly Gates with the words "Oh #@$%&" escaping his lips.
May God have mercy on his soul. I fault him less for his pervasive obscenity (which was obnoxious enough) than for his blasphemy and anti-religious sentiment. But the gratuitous obscenity definitely didn't help. "I don't believe in God, and I think that it is a big scam. You can believe in God, and nobody thinks you're nuts. And there is no evidence for him at all. If you believe in UFOs, no evidence for that either, they think you are nuts. And it is the same kind of -- it's just a belief, it's a superstition. You say, OK, well there will be an invisible guy, and he will help me when I need it. Fine. I think there are little guys in things flying around, but they say, well you can't have that. If you are professor you can't say that." Well George: Now you know.
Newsweek has an article on how Obama is reaching out to religious people to address their concerns, one of which is his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Apparently Obama, who before overlooked Wright's peculiar opinions as he would a crazy relative's, has definitively severed ties with him and denounced his rantings, seeing what a liability they were to his campaign. It's about time, I say.
An expose on the Quran has caused an uproar on the net. First a site that hosted it got death threats. Those peaceful Muslims again. Then the domain on which it was supposed to be released was suspended by Network Solutions upon receipt of complaints that it violated the acceptable use policy (yeah right, I believe that one). Add to this the time that Pakistan took YouTube entirely off the Internet a few weeks ago for a brief period of time because they displeased them, and you see what kind of people these are. (At least Pakistan didn't threaten anyone.) There will continue to be wars of all kinds with these people.
Did you hear about the Islamic convert to Catholicism that Pope Benedict baptized? Karl Keating of Catholic Answers writes all about it and its significance in his e-newsletter. The individual already had a fatwa out for his death so I suppose he couldn't do any worse. Benedict has a lot of courage baptizing a Muslim so publicly. He's sending a clear message and it may not be well received. Makes one wonder if he will be the target for assassination.
Dr. Laura is blaming Spitzer's wife for driving him into the arms of another woman. See, she didn't meet his needs, didn't validate him as a man and so forth. Oy vey! I am disappointed.
I don't really see how a prostitute's validation can be meaningful to a man at all. She will just tell him whatever he wants to hear, and it won't be honest. A man who is satisfied by that is nothing but shallow.
(Historical context: Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York and former attorney general, resigned recently because he had been caught patronizing prostitutes.)
P.S. The link is fixed. Thanks, Caleb.
Eliot Spitzer will not be missed by the pro-life movement. According to the Family Research Council, he was a "bully towards pregnancy care centers and pro-life organizations and as a champion of abortion-on-demand and NARAL. As New York's attorney general, Elliot Spitzer spent taxpayer time and treasure attacking those who aid pregnant women. Shortly after winning the governorship, he pushed for legislation that would have made abortion in New York even more pandemic while stomping on the rights of religious providers like Catholic hospitals." So thanks be to God he has resigned.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mormons have been caught off guard by the virulent opposition they've received
They have a slick apologetic. When one ex-Mormon apologist claimed that Mormons "believe in more than one god", a Mormon apologist called him "wrong on the facts" and said "Mormons pray to one God". Ah, a bit of bait and switch here. The claim was not that they pray to multiple gods. The claim was that they believe in multiple gods, that is to say, they acknowledge the existence of multiple gods, whether they pray to them all or not. (In particular they believe that every believer is destined to become a god. With his own planet, no less.)
Anyway my own perspective is that if a Mormon is more likely to uphold family values (which seems likely given their culture), I'm all for him being elected president. (It's not clear Romney was such a great candidate in this regard, though.) I'd rather have a devout Mormon than a nominal Christian. Of course better still is a fervent Christian.
Here is a quote I wanted to add to my post on voting but forgot to include it. As Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta says, "We are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful." God judges us on our fidelity to truth, not whether we actually accomplish anything.
I've added the quote in context to the post.
Per my earlier post, I discovered to my surprised the Alan Keyes scored almost 10,000 votes in California and more than a few votes in several other states. Fascinating!
Today is Super Tuesday, when my state and 23 others voted in the presidential primary. A friend and I were discussing our votes this weekend and when I disclosed who I was voting for, she dismissively said that I was wasting my vote.
I resolved in the 2000 election to vote for people I want to be president instead of voting for the one everyone else seems to think will win. At the time I was behind Alan Keyes and when I'd bring him up with my friends, they all agreed he was a wonderful choice, but since he couldn't be elected, there was, they argued, no point in voting for him. In my frustration I wryly noted to myself that maybe if half the people who actually wanted him for president actually voted for him, maybe he'd have half a chance. So I swore that I'd vote, not grudgingly and with reservations, with my nose pinched, but triumphantly and proudly. And do you know what? Having voted that way in 2000 and 2004, I do not regret at all my vote, however inconsequential it seemed to be. I am in fact elated at how things turned out because had I voted for Bush, I would have been hanging my head in shame.
The other thing I hate about this popularity argument — that we should vote only for those who are allegedly electable — is that it is circular reasoning. We have to vote for someone everyone else is voting for. (Why?) But then we're voting for what other people want, not what we want; we're chasing after the wind. You know these cultural phenoms where someone starts doing something, then someone starts copying them, and then everyone gets into the act, until everyone realizes that they're just following one another and there is no actual substance to what people are doing? (Fashion is a lot like this.) I say vote for who you want to be elected, not for who someone else wants to be elected. Show some leadership!
Now let's examine this argument that one's vote is "wasted". Voting is a moral act. We will be judged by God on how we vote. It doesn't matter whether your vote is even counted or not for whatever reason, your vote makes a moral statement before God and for that reason alone it is never wasted. As Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta says, "We are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful." Second, votes send a message. Even if my candidate hasn't a snowball's chance, someone can look at the results and see, wow, this many people supported him. Third, people who argue in such a way won't argue that voting for a major candidate in a state predominated by the other party is a wasted vote. For example, one could argue that in Massachusetts, a presidential vote for a Republican candidate is always wasted because there is no way a Republican will win Massachusetts in this period in history. One could also argue that unless votes only differ by one vote, then your vote doesn't count either. If you stay home election day, except for that nearly impossible case, your vote won't make a difference.
My point is, one can make various arguments about what voting for so-and-so is a "wasted" vote, but I don't think votes are ever wasted. Even when they are in an extreme minority, they send a message, if only to God.
With all the hubbub over global warming, one wonders why the media is curiously silent about an issue that may be a much more immanent — and catastrophic — threat. The term is "Peak Oil" and essentially refers to that time when we'll run out of oil. (Technically it's not running out so much as reaching an absolute peak of oil production followed by a point if diminishing returns.) Some people claim it could happen any year now (or already has); others predict it won't happen for another twenty years. What's clear is that the world supply of oil is strained (chiefly by guess who) and will eventually be exhausted, and we don't know for sure when that will be, but it could be in our lifetimes. And that our society will suffer a serious — perhaps mortal — blow when it happens.
Basically what we're talking about is almost rolling back the industrial age. Well, not exactly — there is still biodiesel, which with a little bit of research may keep the trucks and cars running (if you have a diesel car).
No more plastic, by the way, either — it comes from oil. Those plastic utensils you've been using for lunch at work every day when you could have been using metal? Probably will be worth more than the metal ones. All those plastic bottles for holding New York tap water you willingly paid exorbitant prices for (the water, not the plastic) — you're gonna wish you kept them all. Everything that is made with plastic today, which is most items, will have to be designed without it. And that will be expensive.
Wikipedia has a sobering thought: "Liberal estimations of peak production forecast a peak will happen in the 2020s or 2030s and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used.
"Conservative predictions of future oil production operate on the thesis that the peak has already occurred or will occur shortly and, as proactive mitigation may no longer be an option, predict a global depression, perhaps even initiating a chain reaction of the various feedback mechanisms in the global market which might stimulate a collapse of global industrial civilization."
The problem, as I intimated earlier, is that societies are not preparing for this moment, chiefly by developing technology that will serve us when that moment comes, and also by making judicious use of the resources we are using. There is a certain amount of bootstrapping that will need to be done to enjoy at least some of our way of life. For example, if we build nuclear power plants now, we'll have electricity. You can't build a nuclear power plant without oil though, so when you're out of oil, it's too late. Guess you can't well build much of anything large without oil, I suppose.
My only hope is that when this happens (and it will happen, eventually) it will happen slowly enough to allow us to adjust according to market forces. The worst thing that would happen is for the oil to just stop with little warning. That's unlikely to happen but the more tapering off, the better.
I'll be curious to hear what Gary has to say on this subject. :-)
If you're keeping an eye on the whole atheism evangelism phenomenon going on recently, which I've written about a few times, tothesource has an excellent article on the topic worth reading.
This is very interesting. It appears that some of the most cited data to prove climactic warning had a Y2K bug in it and the propaganda balloon bursts when you put the pin to it. Remember how everyone's been saying that the 1990 decade was the warmest on record (or thereabouts)? Not any more. "The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II." To be sure, the actual effect on warming increases may be minor, but the psychological impact is huge.
(Thanks to Amy M.)
I was listening to "Ask a Bishop" (7/18 3p) on Catholic Answers Live. A guy called and said that his wife belonged to a certain "ecclesial community". This confused His Excellency, who thought he was referring to something within the Catholic church or some ecumenical entity. The guy of course was referring to what in common parlance we'd call a "church" but apparently wanted to use the theologically correct language for it (following the recent CDF document). Too bad it was lost on the clueless bishop.
I do admit the language sounded clunky but one could argue he was only using it as it's been prescribed. One could make the counterargument though that the CDF document was not directed toward colloquial use of language, only to theological/ecclesiological use of it. In other words, you can say "My brother belongs to the Lutheran church, so I have to find a Catholic church when I visit him"; you don't have to say "My brother belongs to the Lutheran ecclesiastical community" as this man was essentially saying. Sometimes context and the rules pertaining to it can be confusing and ambiguous in the Catholic Church.
Ever notice out there is a surfeit of bitter ex-Catholics, while I have never in all of my experience encountered a convert to Catholicism who was bitter toward his former church. Indeed, in virtually all cases they are grateful to their former church for teaching them the Christian faith and preparing them for Catholicism.
Consider this man's claim that his time as a Catholic was "wasted". I wonder if he ever really thought about all the basics of the Christian faith he learned in the Catholic church, and how much of the Gospel he was familiar with from the Sunday readings. Admittedly it may not have been as thorough as he later wished for, and he has valid points about catechesis, but at least he had a starting point. Imagine what it would be like being totally unchurched. Would he have even accepted the faith if he had been unchurched?
I'm sure someone could argue against me on this point but to me the fact that ex-Catholics Christians tend to be bitterly vituperative and ex-Protestant Catholics tend to be grateful to their former church tells me we're doing something right. You know a tree by its fruits.
So if you've heard about the Pope's new document allowing greater use of the 1962 Latin Mass, there is a brouhaha brewing. Seems that some Jews are upset about it. Why? Because there is an itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny prayer on one day (Good Friday) in the rite that prays for the conversion of the Jews. Well, you'd have thought the Mass called for a pogrom every time it was celebrated, the outcry is so great. The fact is there could be no more than a few thousand people throughout the world who will ever hear this prayer each year.
Beyond the disproportionality of it all, it seems to be that religions have a fundamental right to seek the conversion of other people. I realize that Jews don't do it but they have to realize that certain religions believe they possess the truth and means to salvation, and naturally want to share that with people. If some Mormons wanted to pray for my conversion, I'd smile and say Go for it, and thank them for thinking of me. I just don't fundamentally understand getting outraged over some religion's desire to pray for my conversion. We're not even talking about active attempts to convert, only a prayer. (Although I suppose they would argue that if you publically pray for their conversion, people will be emboldened to take action in that regard.) I could understand disagreement; I could understand annoyance; but outrage?
I guess what I find most embarrassing is that no one was outraged before this over what the Catholic Church is doing now to convert Jews (and Gentiles).
That blessed date will soon be upon us. What do you plan to do this Saturday, 7/7/7, to celebrate the milestone? It will not happen for another 100 years — a once in a lifetime opportunity. Missed my chance to get married on the date, though! (It's even on a Saturday!)
As for me, well, frankly, I have no clue what I'm going to do besides mark it. I'll have to see if I can get some friends together to celebrate it. I just got a new grill so it might be a good opportunity. Maybe get a big banner to hang across my house ... I'm sure the neighbors will think highly of me after that <grin>. Maybe make a special pilgrimage. Sheesh, why isn't the church talking this up??
All hail, 7/7/7!
Paris Hilton was recently interviewed by Larry King. If she has truly found God, there seems to be plenty of room for conversion given the focus of her replies.
But perhaps I shouldn't be too harsh. Being self-centered is natural for the unregenerate. It takes a while for the transforming grace of God to work out the kinks. Meanwhile this is a good opportunity for me to consider where I am self-centered and apply the appropriate correction. I (oops!) can only guess where I (ack!) would stand by this measure.
I'll say one more thing after searching for photos of Paris Hilton: Cultivating an appropriate level of modesty is going to take some work on her part.
(Thanks to Caleb)
I had an interesting experience today.
The Byzantines have something called the Funeral of Christ service on Good Friday (Great and Holy Friday), where an iconic corpus of Christ is given a burial procession as funeral lamentations are sung. (The corpus is used in earlier services; on Thursday it is nailed to the cross, and early Friday it is taken down from the cross.) The lamentations are beautiful, both in music and lyrics. The lyrics highlight the paradoxes that are so characteristic of Christianity, and are written in exquisite language. This is my favorite service of the whole year, bar none, and as soon as I finish one service, I'm looking forward to the next one.
Anyway, one of the lamentations says, "Magnify the might of America, granting her freedom and peace forever." Or at least, that's the way it was written in the book, and the way it was presumably sung for 38 years or longer, at least as long as I can remember.
Today was different, however. It was changed. As the line was sung in Arabic, and no changes were made in the book, I do not know what it was changed to. I know it was changed because they had the phonetic Arabic and it was obviously different from what was sung (someone next to me noticed the same thing). I have a question into the pastor, we'll see what he has to say.
I'm not entirely surprised it was changed. Independent of our foreign policy, "Magnify the might of America" sounds jarring to modern ears. We are such a global culture, and Christianity seems so peaceful, to pray that the might of one country be magnified seems out of place (although the concept is fairly common in Byzantine prayers). But I'm wondering, this being an Arab congregation, whether our foreign policy has so alienated Arabs that Christian immigrants in the U.S. could no longer tolerate a prayer to "magnify the might of America". Is this a telling sign? Independent of how one feels about our foreign policy, we have to recognize its consequences and effects, even if we declare them to be acceptable.
I subscribe to the newsletter of the Media Resource Center, which is a conservative political advocacy group which aims to prove there is liberal bias in the media. I try to evaluate it objectively. I often don't share their enthusiasm for the issues they pursue but there is some useful stuff.
The head of the organization recently published this piece about the attorneys general firing by the Bush administration. In general I have been sympathetic to the attorneys, who apparently did nothing wrong. It smells of politically motivated firings, and I don't mean the good kind. The administration's handling of it is disturbing as well.
Bozell wrote this piece comparing the eight attorneys general fired by Bush versus 93 fired by Clinton. Oh gosh, you're inclined to say, Clinton fired ten times as many, and the liberals didn't complain! The problem is that Clinton fired all of the attorneys, and did so shortly after his inauguration. The first fact proves that he had no bias — he wasn't singling out a small number of attorneys for retribution. The second fact proves the first: As I understand it it is customary for a new president to replace his attorneys on his accession, in fact a wide set of civil servants lose their jobs at the beginning of a new administration. So Clinton was doing exactly what was expected.
The fact that Bozell overlooks this apparently obvious fact disturbs me greatly, and does not commend him.
Am I missing anything here? Have a reasoned wrongly? Leave a comment and let's discuss it.
Conventional wisdom for years has asserted that the December 25th date for Christmas is borrowed directly from the Roman Saturnalia (winter solstice celebration). But Mark Shea defies this by claiming that the Saturnalia was not celebrated until long after Christians were celebrating Christmas on December 25th. In fact, he argues that it was the pagans that stole it from us, in an attempt to restore the dominance of paganism. He points out, for example, the exacting arguments from the Fathers who argue from Scripture and history for the date of Christ's birth, not from the Roman Saturnalia.
I always wondered, anyway, why it seemed so late for a winter solstice celebration. I can see calculation inaccuracies pushing it to the 22nd or thereabouts, but four days seems to be quite late for an advanced society to celebrate the solstice. You'd think even by measuring the length of the day you'd get a hint by the 23rd that light was increasing.
In any case, I'm going to reserve judgment on this one until I see more solid evidence. The Saturnalia theory has been around a long time and no doubt reviewed by many objective historians and anthropologists (if that's the right word). I'd like to see those same experts start to formally recognize the validity of this theory.
The American Family Association has its knickers in a twist because Keith Ellison, the first Muslim congressman, wants to swear on a Koran rather than a Bible. AFA quotes Dennis Prager, who is predicting the end of American civilization. Not really (although it sounds like it) — he simply argues that it "undermines" American civilization.
Well let's go to the reason why people swear on the Bible in the first place. They swear on the Bible to give force to their oath. Swearing on a Bible says, "May thus and such be done to me if I fail to uphold this oath", that is, may the curses in this book be upon me. It also invokes God's help in carrying out the oath.
Now it doesn't take much thought to see that such an oath is much more meaningful and effective if one actually believes in the book one is swearing by. Obviously a Muslim swearing to a Koran is going to pay much more attention to fulfilling his oath than if he swears by a Bible, which he cares relatively little about. So I for one would rather have him swear on the Koran.
I wonder if Jews, by the way (there have to have been some Jews in Congress), have the option of swearing on a Tanakh rather than a Christian Bible. Surely there is some precedent here? Prager claims that "Jews elected to public office have taken their oath on the Bible, even though they do not believe in the New Testament." Not sure if this means that all Jews have done so or just most Jews have done so. He makes the claim, which is a respectable one, that not everyone believes in the Bible, yet (the implication is) they all swear on the Bible, even if someone else is more meaning to them. I would argue that we're going to restrict ourselves to religious books, otherwise things get out of hand, and we're talking about God witnessing the oath and enforcing it anyway, so swearing on the collected works of Voltaire isn't going to cut it.
One could argue that putting your hand on a Bible is a meaningless symbol of a bygone era. Few actually believe that God is going to curse them if they violate the oath. But the fact is that is the nature of oaths (just ask Scott Hahn). There is not much point in taking an oath otherwise. Perhaps the Bible is a symbol that we are a "Christian" nation, and the AFA wants to cling to that, despite the fact that it seems obvious that whatever we were, we aren't one anymore. It also brings up the question of what the meaning of an oath is in a world which by and large gives little thought to God. I guess that's why it just makes me happy to see someone take his oath seriously enough to want to make it on what he believes is the Word of God.
James O'Keefe, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate for Mass. State Treasurer, embarks on "mission implausible" when he trumpets, "The days of corporate abuses, such as Enron, will be over if I am elected."
If everything else he promises is as truthful as that claim, then I think I'll pass!
You read his page and of course he promises exactly what people want to hear: He'll create "thousands of new jobs." Never have I heard a politician promise to eliminate jobs, or stagnate the job market.
Somehow he expects to be able to "rein in excessive CEO salaries and perks." Exactly how he plans to do this as treasurer is beyond me. Maybe he'll refuse to disburse funds to corporations that don't revamp their pay structure. Or maybe he'll refuse to pay legislators who don't vote his way.
Ah, politics: I just hate it. I ran for class president once. I promised I'd get the prohibition on gum repealed, among other extravagant things. I won. Imagine my consternation when I talked to the administration and they wouldn't budge.
Anyway, don't forget to vote tomorrow, even if you have to hold your nose. (On the other hand, don't be afraid to vote for the person you really want, even if they seem unelectable.)
I decided to pop in and pay a visit to alt.religion.islam. a.r.i. is a Usenet newsgroup, and for those of you unfamiliar with it, Usenet is what we had to discuss stuff before we had Internet mailing lists and web forums. (You can check it out if you go to Google Groups).
Usenet is of a free-wheeling nature, and as it is open to anyone, tends to devolve into flamefests. I used to frequent soc.religion.christian many years ago, and it was replete with Christians bickering over minor points and discussions of various minutiae. It had its share of kooks, "personalities", trolls (people who lob clearly inflammatory questions just to get a rise out of people), and so forth.
I had expected to see the same sort of thing on a.r.i. Certainly there had to be no lack of "infidels" attacking Islam and inciting flamefests, not to mention arguments among Muslims. But I reviewed a few dozen posts and saw none of this. It was surprisingly placid. Neat and tidy and peaceful.
I thought about it a while, and concluded maybe the people in a.r.i. are so docile because they've been pummelled so badly by the trolls and other anti-Islamic posters (which I am sure they get in droves). Perhaps the first time your religion is attacked you fly off into a rage and respond harshly. After 100 attacks you're a bit more circumspect; you simply don't have the emotional energy to get worked up about it anymore. Maybe the problem with the Muslims in Muslim countries is they are so isolated, so accustomed to being unchallenged in their smug thinking that they are right, that they go off at the slightest provocation.
I also suspect that they don't want to reveal their disagreements in front of "infidels". This is a classic behavior in Islam: Few want to condemn Islamic violence because it will appear to divide Islam, and the "Prophet" says that Islam will never be divided.
So they've done a good job in keeping a.r.i. clean. Maybe I'll check out soc.religion.islam to see if it is any different. I'd like to see someone arguing over whether "infidels" should be forcibly converted.
A lot of Muslims are upset that the Pope suggested they coerce people into embracing Islam, but here and here are good examples of this now and throughout history.
Now it would be one thing if Muslims merely exercised forced conversions throughout history. After all, so have Christians. One could certainly argue that they still do and we do not, and that would be an effective argument, but the Paleologos' controversial statement is that Mohammed was the source of this practice. It would be hard to defend the pope without proving this.
But yet, we can. One of the interesting facts about the Koran is that it tends to have contradictory elements that believers are apparently free to choose between. (Not to say that the Bible doesn't have an appearance of contradiction, but those verses, when examined seriously, don't affect what people do in the way the Koran verses do.) For example, moderate Muslims will offer the iyat (verse) "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256). However, there is also "the verse of the sword": "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the jizya (poor-due), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." (9:5)
There is a fascinating discussion of this. First, he notes that some more radical deal with the contradiction by saying this is a later iyat, and so it overrides the earlier one. Second, he points out it is basically a consistent modus operandi of Islam: Threaten a people with military force, and relent if they convert to Islam (if pagans or Christians) or submit to a heavy tax and second-class citizenhood (dhimmihood, if Christians). This would be considered coercion in our language but apparently it is not to Muslims. (Probably because it would contradict the Koran.) "Dhimmi" means "protected people" — just like when Guido the Sicilian approaches your business and offers to protect it.
When Muslims are a little more honest about their practices, they claim that Christians are exempt from coerced conversions (in the sense of convert or die). What they fail to see is that dhimmihood — second-class citizenship and non-believer tax — might be better than death, but it is still coercion. Any time you punish someone for not converting, you are exercising coercion, because they may be motivated for reasons other than free acceptance and conscience to convert.
The subject of these two journalists who made a videotaped profession of Islam in a forced conversion is an interesting study. I saw one Islamic defense of this (which, by the way, the Hamas-led Palestinian government condemned, to their credit) which said that they "freely" chose of their own accord to convert to Islam because it would get them out of captivity. Yet that's precisely the point: If you are doing it to escape captivity, it is not a free choice. It's not sincere, it's a lie designed to avoid violence.
This is also discussed well on the Free Republic website. Some excerpts:
Muhammad instructed his followers to call people to Islam before waging war against them—the warfare would follow from their refusal to accept Islam or to enter the Islamic social order as inferiors, required to pay a special tax (Sahih Muslim 4294). There is therefore a threat in this “invitation” to accept Islam. Would one who converted to Islam under the threat of war be considered to have converted under duress? No; from the standpoint of traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence, such a conversion would have resulted from “no compulsion.”
Muhammad reinforced these instructions many times during his prophetic career. Late in his career, he wrote to Heraclius, the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople: “Embrace Islam and you will be safe” (Bukhari, 4.52.191). Heraclius did not accept Islam, and soon the Byzantines would know well that the warriors of jihad indeed granted no safety to those who rejected their “invitation.”
So Mohammed, and even the Koran, endorses coercing people to accept Islam, despite what the moderates are saying.
The talk of the net nowadays is this news which says that AOL is rolling out a service that would allow companies to bypass their spam filters if they pay a fee, on the order of $2 or $3 per 1000 messages.
Some smaller organizations are up in arms, claiming that AOL will shut them out if they don't pay the fee. That's not what the program is about, at least by all indications. AOL is claiming that mail delivery of "non-certified" mail will continue pretty much as it has been, although their partner who is implementing it, Goodmail Systems, says that it cannot guarantee that all non-certified email with web links and images will be delivered. (Apparently a lot of ISPs use those characteristics to identify spam, though I think it is a rather poor indication.) Richard Gingras, CEO of Goodmail says, "This is all about protecting consumers from spam, phishing, viruses and fraud." I must admit that doesn't make a lot of sense if AOL has no plans to tighten the noose around bulk senders after signing up the whitelist participants. Still, a lot of people will get very upset if their solicited email starts going away. I can't see AOL surviving that.
Personally I see it as a way of legitimizing spam and selling access to people's mailboxes.
They say all the other ISPs could jump on the bandwagon, but frankly I doubt this model works for all but the largest ISPs. Otherwise it just gets totally unwieldy. The New York Times is not going to make deals with 5,000 ISPs nationwide.
Anyway I've only done a little research — Snopes is doing more thorough research, so keep an eye on them.
Newsweek had a comment in their Conventional Wisdom column that said, "Will riots and threats from the Arab world (over offensive cartoons) lead to a new form of censorship?" Ah, the First Amendment fundamentalists — I see their concern is not the people who have been killed or injuried, rather it's with "censorship".
I thank God for censorship.
I thank God when publications censor information from sources not proven to be reliable, and not from every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants media exposure.
I thank God when publications censor material unfair to or grossly offensive to a particular group (such as Christians).
I thank God when publications censor sexual material, since it helps me keep my mind pure instead of planting images that I can't escape.
I thank God when publications likewise censor disturbing material that traumatizes people (such as photos of mangled bodies).
I thank God when publications censor what they know is defamatory or not true.
I thank God when publications censor what is a threat to national security.
The other side of "censorship" is discretion. Not everything needs to be published. Discretion is the skill of determining what should and what should not be published. There is nothing wrong with deciding not to publish something deliberately intended to inflame passions.
This is not to say that there isn't merit to fighting some forms of censorship, or that censorship is an absolute good. But neither is opposition to censorship.
Within appropriate bounds, I say then, let's hear it for censorship.
For more information, see the Zondervan Responsibility in Free Speech campaign.
One wire-service wag wrote concerning the cartoon controversy, 'But apparently the Quran is like the Constitution: It's a "living document," capable of sprouting all-new provisions at will. Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it.'
The amusing thing of course is that these cartoons would have languished in total obscurity had there not been any reaction to them. Now they have been spread all over the world. If their objective was to stop the spread of blasphemy or whatever they consider it to be, they failed, failed miserably. We have course have seen this in our own protests, which is why we are often careful not to protest anything too strongly, lest we make it more popular.
I wonder how long it will be before I start getting ugly comments from Muslims on this issue.
Ok, figure this out:
Iran's largest selling newspaper has announced it is holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. "It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper, which is published by Tehran's conservative-run municipality, said on Monday.
Oh yeah that makes sense — some Danes publish cartoons of you, so you publish cartoons offensive to Jews. Makes a lot of sense. Besides the fact that you're attacking someone who didn't attack you, it's a return of hate for hate. Scream bloody murder when someone attacks you — then go attack someone else. Maybe, just maybe, if you don't want someone to wrong you in a certain way, you should not wrong someone in the same way?
This kind of thing makes it obvious why Jesus came and taught what he did.
What is wrong with these people?? Do they really think they are promoting their cause by behaving this way? Can they even think at all? Are they capable of civil behavior? Frustrating!
Here is an interesting report: The lobbyist Jack Abramoff (the one who is in hot water right now) apparently convinced Christians groups to block an anti-gambling bill on the grounds that it didn't go far enough.
Never underestimate the capacity of someone to deceive you! (And always check the background of your political bedfellows.)
News of the Weird reported the following in their 1/8/6 edition (.935):
Mr. Rayfran das Neves Sales was convicted in Belem, Brazil, in December of the widely reported murder of an American rain forest-activist nun, who was gunned down as she argued with Sales over who owned the land he was working. Sales claimed self-defense, in that, according to him, the nun reached into her bag as she was proclaiming that "the weapon I have (for fighting for preservation of the rain forest) is this," and Sales, sensing that she was about to pull a gun, shot her. The nun's "weapon," was, of course, her copy of what countless preachers refer to as a primary "weapon" against sin: the Bible. [Tampa Tribune-AP, 12-10-05]
Here is an article.
I suppose we don't know whether he is being truthful or not. On one hand it's not an entirely implausible story and it's something (I'd argue) that would be tough to manufacture. On the other hand it sounds like he was incredibly trigger-happy given the circumstances, and he was undoubtedly a notorious individual who had plenty of motive to kill her.
Very sad if true.
Reader Tom Syseskey writes:
You might wish to mention and post the URL(s) to the petition(s) on the "other" Christifideles (i.e., Christifideles.net) "respectfully" asking Mayor Tom "Mumbles" Menino of Boston to withdraw from the Boston Catholic Charities December 9th event honoring him (http://www.christifideles.net) and also asking Archbishop O'Malley of Boston to ask the Boston Catholic Charities to "disinvite" the mayor to that event (http://www.christifideles.net/petition_omalley.php).
Not many have signed either petition, and "time is short."
A good Slate article on the prom controversy.
Man, it amazes me how much parents are complicit in this disaster.