This should be interesting
I wonder if all the bishops can really get on the same page.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Dissenting in Lawrence, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that the decision ''effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation." It was a prediction the majority made no effort to refute.
Remember this the next time some Evil Party Spokesoid talks about the need for "balance" on the Supreme Court.
Remember this the next time some Evil Party Spokesoid talks about the need for "balance" on the Supreme Court.
The Amazing Thing About This Story Is that You Never Find Out What the Priest is Saying
It's purely Pavlovian "Rebellious Priest Hero vs. Evil Empire" story. The guy could be advocating using kindly grandmothers for crococile bait and you'd never know it. All you need to know is his parish wuvs him. So it's obvious his bishop is an Oppressor.
It's purely Pavlovian "Rebellious Priest Hero vs. Evil Empire" story. The guy could be advocating using kindly grandmothers for crococile bait and you'd never know it. All you need to know is his parish wuvs him. So it's obvious his bishop is an Oppressor.
Infelicitous
See, the thing is, Padre, given that not a few clergy die from AIDS, it's only natural for people to wonder what the priests you mention died of. And if it turns out to be AIDS, then it's only natural to get the idea that, not their orientation, but their choice to violate their vow in order to gratify that orientation did indeed have rather a significant impact on their fitness for priesthood since being dead impairs one's effectiveness as a priest.
People don't die from having an orientation. They do die from having anal sex with AIDS-infect prostitutes and swapping needles with AIDS-infected junkies. I doubt that's what Paul meant by being "all things to all".
Chojnacki wrote in the letter, dated Monday, that he had participated in the funerals of several gay Jesuit clergy over the last few years.
"I find it insulting to demean their memory and their years of service by even hinting that they were unfit for priesthood because of their sexual orientation," he wrote.
See, the thing is, Padre, given that not a few clergy die from AIDS, it's only natural for people to wonder what the priests you mention died of. And if it turns out to be AIDS, then it's only natural to get the idea that, not their orientation, but their choice to violate their vow in order to gratify that orientation did indeed have rather a significant impact on their fitness for priesthood since being dead impairs one's effectiveness as a priest.
People don't die from having an orientation. They do die from having anal sex with AIDS-infect prostitutes and swapping needles with AIDS-infected junkies. I doubt that's what Paul meant by being "all things to all".
My Eldest is All about Vocal Jazz This Year
Consequently, I'm getting a crash course in great a capella groups. One of the funniest is the brilliant Da Vinci's Notebook. They have a magnificent send-up of pre-fab manufactured Boy Band tunes called "The Title of the Song".
You can hear a taste of it here. Go here and read all the lyrics. Believe me, its even funnier with the music.
Consequently, I'm getting a crash course in great a capella groups. One of the funniest is the brilliant Da Vinci's Notebook. They have a magnificent send-up of pre-fab manufactured Boy Band tunes called "The Title of the Song".
You can hear a taste of it here. Go here and read all the lyrics. Believe me, its even funnier with the music.
It's all about Editing
Want to see The Shining transmogrified into a heartwarming family comedy? Look no further.
Want to see The Shining transmogrified into a heartwarming family comedy? Look no further.
A discussion below reminded me of a quip by a priest I know
When the Son of Man comes, he will separate the nations as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To those on his right, he will say, "Enter into the Kingdom prepared for you by my Father."
To rest he will say, "Break into small groups..."
When the Son of Man comes, he will separate the nations as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To those on his right, he will say, "Enter into the Kingdom prepared for you by my Father."
To rest he will say, "Break into small groups..."
The Great Woman Cardinal Freak Out or "Beware of Binding God to Contracts He Never Signed"
Down below, I pointed out that I've been saying for years that one of the effects of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was to make clear that it is *only* the priestly office to which women cannot be ordained. This means, among other things, that the offices of King and Prophet *are* open to women (and have been occupied by them for centuries, right along side men).
One of the consequences of this fact is that I can see nothing in the Tradition that particularly forbids the Church from making laywomen cardinals. I don't have anything particularly invested in laywomen (or laymen) being made cardinals (which is why you haven't seen a lot of entries here on that topic). But I see no reason why it couldn't happen. However, since somebody sent me a link about somebody who is making the same basic point, I thought I'd post a little quickie pointing out that the thought had occurred to me too.
Yikes! My comboxes freaked out!
and my personal favorite:
Feel the love!
Anyway, getting back to the subject, my point is not that I'm especially eager to see this, nor that I'm especially opposed to it. My point is that, like it or not, there is nothing in apostolic tradition (that is to say, the Revelation of God) which make this impossible. Given that I am just as opposed to adding to the Tradition when Conservative want to do as when liberals do, I thought I'd point it out.
A couple of readers propose Paul's remarks about women having authority over men as the bulwark against the possibility of lay cardinals. But, as the Church has pointed out in Inter Insigniores
That women are not barred from teaching (i.e. exercising an aspect of the prophetic office) is attested to, not only by the fact that entire orders of nuns do nothing else, but by the fact that four women are Doctors of the Church.
Similarly, women have long exercised the kingly office that is part of their baptism. That's why we have had abbesses, hospital administrators, principals, college presidents, and any number of other governance roles filled by women. Nothing in the Tradition forbids this.
So we are left with what? Basically, a kneejerk horror of doing things differently. Now, I'm not an advocate of change for change's sake. As you know, I'm a big believer in the adage that most of human history can be described in two sentences: 1. "What could it hurt?" followed shortly thereafter by 2. "How was I supposed to know?"
However, I am also aware of the long history of Catholics trying to bind God to contracts he has never signed. It begins when those damn modernists starting telling Gentiles they didn't have to be circumcised and our weak-kneed bishops at the Council of Jerusalem caved in and swept away 2000 years of tradition, damn them! (Acts 15). It's continued ever since with the Church stumbling from one huge cowardly mistake to the next (and provoking the wrath of people like Arius, Donatus, Luther, Calvin, and countless others who got it right when the Church got it all wrong--at least according to them).
Moral: the extremely clear-headed Tom from Disputations (whom you should all be reading instead of me) is simply right:
The simple fact is this: the College of Cardinals is a bureaucratic device fadged up in the High Middle Ages to handle an administrative problem. It is useful. It is not sacrosanct. It was not created by Jesus Christ or the apostles and it is no more a feature of sacred tradition than a parish finance council. Currently, the Church opts to have only ordained men as cardinals. I have no beef with that. The Church's governance is the business of the Church's governors. However, the fact remains that there is absolutely nothing standing in the way of the Church's governors opting to alter the canon law that is their own creation and making lay men and women cardinals, if they see fit.
Because I recognize this fact, it will not constitute a crisis of faith for me if, at some point in the future, the Church opts to do this. However, if one chooses to try to bind God to a contract he has never signed, such as, say, "Gentiles must be circumcised to belong to the Church" or "Women can never be cardinals", then be prepared to have a perfectly foolish crisis of faith in a God who is smaller than the real one. God never promised that circumcision or kosher laws would be binding on Gentile converts and the Judaizers pointlessly went into schism demanding that he do so. Likewise, God has not said one word about the eternal necessity of an all male, all-ordained College of Cardinals. If the Church alters this manmade structure at some point in the future don't say you weren't warned that it was perfectly possible. And if you go into schism over it, don't try to tell God that you aren't culpable. Because you just read this blog entry. :)
Down below, I pointed out that I've been saying for years that one of the effects of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was to make clear that it is *only* the priestly office to which women cannot be ordained. This means, among other things, that the offices of King and Prophet *are* open to women (and have been occupied by them for centuries, right along side men).
One of the consequences of this fact is that I can see nothing in the Tradition that particularly forbids the Church from making laywomen cardinals. I don't have anything particularly invested in laywomen (or laymen) being made cardinals (which is why you haven't seen a lot of entries here on that topic). But I see no reason why it couldn't happen. However, since somebody sent me a link about somebody who is making the same basic point, I thought I'd post a little quickie pointing out that the thought had occurred to me too.
Yikes! My comboxes freaked out!
It's a horrible idea. Perhaps it isn't forbidden...but then again perhaps it isn't forbidden for priests to wear red clown noses during mass either.
If you want to bring about women's ordination as quickly as possible, then this would be a great idea. I suppose having female cardinals would inevitably cause a major schism. Firstly many conservatives and traditionalists would likely begin to see more and more legitimacy to schismatic arguments of people like the SSPX. Furthermore, the cardinalesses (who, as someone points out above) would eventually begin to see themselves as completely equal to the cardinals. Perhaps they'd start voting for eachother. Most likely, there'd be a massive move to ordain female priests. And then we might have a real problem. We might have an anti-popess in the Vatican, with the true pope somewhere else, looking for all the world like a schismatic anti-pope. Even if that didn't happen, I strongly suspect that the female cardinals (and perhaps some of the male cardinals as well) would begin to ordain female priests, which would result of course in excommunication and schism.
In short, I think this is a very bad idea.
---
A horrible idea. Execrable. Crazy. Unbelievable. Come on, Mark. Geez!
and my personal favorite:
Only the most grotesque ingnorance of Church history and absence of the 'mens Catholica' could imagine such a thing.
Too bad I didn't see Mr. Shea's original post or he would have been rid of me sooner. There is no point in engaging a leftist version of Robert Sungenis.
Feel the love!
Anyway, getting back to the subject, my point is not that I'm especially eager to see this, nor that I'm especially opposed to it. My point is that, like it or not, there is nothing in apostolic tradition (that is to say, the Revelation of God) which make this impossible. Given that I am just as opposed to adding to the Tradition when Conservative want to do as when liberals do, I thought I'd point it out.
A couple of readers propose Paul's remarks about women having authority over men as the bulwark against the possibility of lay cardinals. But, as the Church has pointed out in Inter Insigniores
Paul in no way opposes the right, which he elsewhere recognizes as possessed by women, to prophesy in the assembly (cf. 1 Cor 11:5); the prohibition solely concerns the official function of teaching in the Christian assembly.
That women are not barred from teaching (i.e. exercising an aspect of the prophetic office) is attested to, not only by the fact that entire orders of nuns do nothing else, but by the fact that four women are Doctors of the Church.
Similarly, women have long exercised the kingly office that is part of their baptism. That's why we have had abbesses, hospital administrators, principals, college presidents, and any number of other governance roles filled by women. Nothing in the Tradition forbids this.
So we are left with what? Basically, a kneejerk horror of doing things differently. Now, I'm not an advocate of change for change's sake. As you know, I'm a big believer in the adage that most of human history can be described in two sentences: 1. "What could it hurt?" followed shortly thereafter by 2. "How was I supposed to know?"
However, I am also aware of the long history of Catholics trying to bind God to contracts he has never signed. It begins when those damn modernists starting telling Gentiles they didn't have to be circumcised and our weak-kneed bishops at the Council of Jerusalem caved in and swept away 2000 years of tradition, damn them! (Acts 15). It's continued ever since with the Church stumbling from one huge cowardly mistake to the next (and provoking the wrath of people like Arius, Donatus, Luther, Calvin, and countless others who got it right when the Church got it all wrong--at least according to them).
Moral: the extremely clear-headed Tom from Disputations (whom you should all be reading instead of me) is simply right:
It would certainly be a nuisance, what with the changes in canon law and protocol and all, and I'm not sure exactly what good it would do, but I can't see that allowing women to vote in a papal conclave is in any meaningful way contrary to Divine Revelation or Tradition.
Or are we altogether certain that dove who elected Pope St. Fabian was male?
The simple fact is this: the College of Cardinals is a bureaucratic device fadged up in the High Middle Ages to handle an administrative problem. It is useful. It is not sacrosanct. It was not created by Jesus Christ or the apostles and it is no more a feature of sacred tradition than a parish finance council. Currently, the Church opts to have only ordained men as cardinals. I have no beef with that. The Church's governance is the business of the Church's governors. However, the fact remains that there is absolutely nothing standing in the way of the Church's governors opting to alter the canon law that is their own creation and making lay men and women cardinals, if they see fit.
Because I recognize this fact, it will not constitute a crisis of faith for me if, at some point in the future, the Church opts to do this. However, if one chooses to try to bind God to a contract he has never signed, such as, say, "Gentiles must be circumcised to belong to the Church" or "Women can never be cardinals", then be prepared to have a perfectly foolish crisis of faith in a God who is smaller than the real one. God never promised that circumcision or kosher laws would be binding on Gentile converts and the Judaizers pointlessly went into schism demanding that he do so. Likewise, God has not said one word about the eternal necessity of an all male, all-ordained College of Cardinals. If the Church alters this manmade structure at some point in the future don't say you weren't warned that it was perfectly possible. And if you go into schism over it, don't try to tell God that you aren't culpable. Because you just read this blog entry. :)
I like the Open Book motto
One of the things I love best about my parish is that my prayers are not interrupted with the thought, "Now what is he doing?"
I want liturgy to be like shoes. Shoes are for going somewhere. And the last thing you want when you go somewhere is to be constantly noticing your shoes. That's invariably a Bad Thing. I'm not ultra-sensitive to the liturgy. I can't put up with my share of bad music and sucky hymns (though even that is pretty rare at my parish thanks to our wonderful musicians). It's more the deliberate "Hey! Look at me!" stuff that irritates. Priests who rip out or alter things they don't like. Homilists who declare the reading a "crock" (yes, that happened once at another parish). Idjits who bless you in the name of God the Father and Mother. Musicians who think it clever to stick in riffs from "Take Five" or "The Rose". It's the wilfullness, not mere ineptitude, that generally rankles. Inept liturgists/priests/ musicians are like the story of the widow's mite. They are offering the best they have. I have to respect that. But the willfully defiant who deliberately bend the liturgy toward the service of "Hey! Look at me!" are, in their own small way, doing the work of Satan himself. I catch a whiff of sulfur when it happens and it stinks.
One of the things I love best about my parish is that my prayers are not interrupted with the thought, "Now what is he doing?"
I want liturgy to be like shoes. Shoes are for going somewhere. And the last thing you want when you go somewhere is to be constantly noticing your shoes. That's invariably a Bad Thing. I'm not ultra-sensitive to the liturgy. I can't put up with my share of bad music and sucky hymns (though even that is pretty rare at my parish thanks to our wonderful musicians). It's more the deliberate "Hey! Look at me!" stuff that irritates. Priests who rip out or alter things they don't like. Homilists who declare the reading a "crock" (yes, that happened once at another parish). Idjits who bless you in the name of God the Father and Mother. Musicians who think it clever to stick in riffs from "Take Five" or "The Rose". It's the wilfullness, not mere ineptitude, that generally rankles. Inept liturgists/priests/ musicians are like the story of the widow's mite. They are offering the best they have. I have to respect that. But the willfully defiant who deliberately bend the liturgy toward the service of "Hey! Look at me!" are, in their own small way, doing the work of Satan himself. I catch a whiff of sulfur when it happens and it stinks.
Gay Brownshirts on the March!
Crushing free speech and freedom of religion in the worship of the All-Conquering Willie!
Crushing free speech and freedom of religion in the worship of the All-Conquering Willie!
So... what did Bennett say that was wrong?
You get the feeling that the press is responding merely to acoustic cues (like dogs) and not to rational thought.
Bennett clearly said that abortion is morally reprehensible. He's not advocating genocide (though Planned Parenthood found Margaret Sanger did and for exactly the reasons Bennett is attacking). Yet strangely, Sanger is not attacked and Bennett is.
Weird.
You get the feeling that the press is responding merely to acoustic cues (like dogs) and not to rational thought.
Bennett clearly said that abortion is morally reprehensible. He's not advocating genocide (though Planned Parenthood found Margaret Sanger did and for exactly the reasons Bennett is attacking). Yet strangely, Sanger is not attacked and Bennett is.
Weird.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Young French Catholics are slowly building up a site to teach the faith
The very diligent Jean Baptiste Garnier has been translating my articles into French for months. Here's a taste.
There's a lot more there than just my stuff.
The very diligent Jean Baptiste Garnier has been translating my articles into French for months. Here's a taste.
There's a lot more there than just my stuff.
Just as abortion will never lead to euthanasia...
...so gay marriage will never lead to polygamy.
or man/boy love.
Or incest.
Or marrying your dog.
How could a vision of morality whose *sole* qualifier is "the personal autonomy of [insert number] of consenting organisms" ever lead to that?
And what happens when somebody adds to the mix the realization that some organism are obviously more equal than others and the whole concept of "equality" is a purely mystical dogma (much like the mystical concept of the family) and unprovable by empirical science?
Then things will get really interesting.
Holland: The Front Line of the Last Gasp.
...so gay marriage will never lead to polygamy.
or man/boy love.
Or incest.
Or marrying your dog.
How could a vision of morality whose *sole* qualifier is "the personal autonomy of [insert number] of consenting organisms" ever lead to that?
And what happens when somebody adds to the mix the realization that some organism are obviously more equal than others and the whole concept of "equality" is a purely mystical dogma (much like the mystical concept of the family) and unprovable by empirical science?
Then things will get really interesting.
Holland: The Front Line of the Last Gasp.
That's funny. Studio suits had no trouble with making "Dogma" and "Da Vinci Code"
Jittery cowards in Hollywood fear that brittle humorless Muslims will react violently if made fun of. Of course, being cowards, that just means they will make more vicious films about Christians and applaud themselves for their "courage".
Jittery cowards in Hollywood fear that brittle humorless Muslims will react violently if made fun of. Of course, being cowards, that just means they will make more vicious films about Christians and applaud themselves for their "courage".
But do they make smart underwear that tells you when your bladder is full?
Seems to me that if you are too drunk to know your mug is empty, you're too drunk to know your bladder is full. And which is more important in a public place when you think about it?
Seems to me that if you are too drunk to know your mug is empty, you're too drunk to know your bladder is full. And which is more important in a public place when you think about it?
Humble Public Servant and Man of the People is Ready for His Close-up, Mr. DeMille
I haven't followed and am not in the slightest interested in the whole DeLay thing. But this Earle guys sounds like a splendid example of a blow-dried spouting popinjay. I'd go see the movie just to laugh.
I haven't followed and am not in the slightest interested in the whole DeLay thing. But this Earle guys sounds like a splendid example of a blow-dried spouting popinjay. I'd go see the movie just to laugh.
Bishop Decides Not to Take Any More Crap from Dissenting Priests
It turns out that gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility even in Massachusetts.
More like this bishop, please.
It turns out that gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility even in Massachusetts.
More like this bishop, please.
My Patriotic Bona Fides are In Question
Because I criticize the Administration (and commonly conservative) fogbank concerning US policy regarding torture, I'm being asked (or charged) in varying degrees concerning my alleged hatred of the US. One reader has already found me (and Fishback) guilty of virtual treason:
The fascinating thing about this is the sheer kneejerk rhetorical character of it. From the determination to smear Fishback from the get-go to the weird disconnect between what I have said and what the writer hears through a Talk Radio-induced haze, it's an almost picture perfect example of what I meant by "Conservative dogma". Like the Left's response to the elections last year, it is conceived and executed in an echo chamber cut off, not only from anything I've written, but from any serious engagement with the teaching of the Church. My repeated point that "America is not salvific" is magically transmuted into "America is evil". The Church's clear rejection of torture is sneered at as bleeding heartism ("tortures nice detainees"). Somehow global warming and tax cuts for the rich and SUVs get mixed up in it, not because I've ever written a word about these subjects (I haven't, and I'm rather skeptical about global warming), but because the author has lost his capacity to actually *engage* with a political opinion that differs from his without reducing it to a Sean Hannity cartoon character called a "Liberal" and dismissing it with boilerplate denunciations. Weird.
Another reader complains:
As the redoubtable Tom from Disputations has pointed out, the primary complaint that I have is about the Right's tendency to sanction fog:
Tom's point is borne out by the several posts I immediately got saying, variously, that Fishback should get the immediate boot for causing "bad morale" (and besides he's probably running for office), andd that, hey!, who knows *what* the heck torture is anyway!, and so forth (as though breaking legs with baseball bats for fun is indistinguishable from being scowled at). One writer attempts to make the case that any attempt to makes such distinctions would result in a labrynthine thicket of petty regulations. It's all so very Clintonian ("Rape? What do we really *mean* by so-called 'rape' anyway?")
I think all this sort of thing is sinister. (And I don't much want it on my blog. Consequently, I will be banning alleged Catholic men who don't know what rape is (or who pretend not to know in order to defend and foggify torture).
As to my alleged belief of every single charge against the Administration, this is manifestly untrue. I think Cindy Sheehan and her zookeepers are kooks. I have not been poring over the Daily Kos, listening to moonbats blaming the President for plotting 9/11. I likewise regard Robert Sungenis' various conspiracy theories about the Administration as raw-boned nuttery. I don't think, and have made abundantly clear over and over and over I don't think, that the US is the "moral equivalent" of the Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics from the Islamosphere. So I don't rail against the United States. I rail against the sins of the United States (much as I rail against the sins of the Church). A large number of these sins are near and dear to the heart of the Left. One sin in particular--torture--is currently being defended by many (not all) on the Right (including Catholics who should know better but who are blinded by ideology). My point is not that the US is evil, but that many on the Right are just as quick and eager to spit on the Church's teaching when it gets in the way of ideology ("torturing those nice detainees") as those on the Left ("Fetus Lovers hate Women"). It is because I love my country that I do not want to see us go down that road.
Finally, as to the charge of being a Democrat at heart: I'm a Catholic at heart. I regard human political organizations as tools for attempting to enact the gospel as much as possible. I have no more allegiance to a political party than I do to a saw, wrench, or hammer. If the party is useful in helping to enact a political agenda that protects human life and guards the family, subsidiarity, and other basic human rights and facets of Catholic social teaching I will support it. To the degree that a party fails to do this, I will cheerfully drop it and look for another party that will. At present, the Dem's fascination with the sacrament of abortion forbids me to support them. My support for the GOP has *always* had the character of a hope that they are the party that will do the least mischief, not the party that will do a lot of good. So far, they have not given me much reason to change that assessment. They have done the absolute bare minimum of bring the US up to Carthaginian standards of culture. They have also done great harm by spending like drunken sailors and involving us in a war in Iraq that did not, in my estimation and in the estimation of the overhwhelming majority of magisterial authorities (including the last two Popes) meet Just War criteria. If the Dems ever renounced their obsession with abortion and tried to seriously become pro-life, I'd support them in a heartbeat if they showed they had a reasonable plan for resolving these issues and for not being the mortal enemies of the family. But I would not regard them as saviors anymore than I regard the GOP as saviors. I would regard them as this year's strategic allies in enacting something a little bit closer to the Church's social teaching. I think that the number one job of a politician is self-preservation. Given that, I do not put my trust in any prince.
Because I criticize the Administration (and commonly conservative) fogbank concerning US policy regarding torture, I'm being asked (or charged) in varying degrees concerning my alleged hatred of the US. One reader has already found me (and Fishback) guilty of virtual treason:
I assume Capt. Fishback ordered his troops to be nice to whatever detainees they took alive. He, then, did his part and his conscience is clear.
So, what's his beef? Does he plan to run for elective office when he resigns his commission?
As a serving officer, he should have reported torture that he witnessed. Did he? He has not been asked to testify as an expert witness, has he? He should not have aired generalizations detrimental to morale and to the war effort. MS and AS do that well enough without the captain's "I am certains."
Oh, yes! Now, I get it (I guess I'm pretty dense): America is evil (tortures nice detainees, global warming, sweat shops in Indonesia, tax cuts for the rich, supports Israel, has troops on holy soil, porn, abortion, stem cell farming, SUV's, rock and roll, etc.). I see: we got (I was ther) what we deserved on 9/11. America deserves Divine retribution at the hands of the heroic jihadists of al Qaeda.
I trust Capt. Fishback will do the right thing and tender his resignation as soon as possible. Let him out of his service commitment. I do not want him serving in the same army with my son.
The fascinating thing about this is the sheer kneejerk rhetorical character of it. From the determination to smear Fishback from the get-go to the weird disconnect between what I have said and what the writer hears through a Talk Radio-induced haze, it's an almost picture perfect example of what I meant by "Conservative dogma". Like the Left's response to the elections last year, it is conceived and executed in an echo chamber cut off, not only from anything I've written, but from any serious engagement with the teaching of the Church. My repeated point that "America is not salvific" is magically transmuted into "America is evil". The Church's clear rejection of torture is sneered at as bleeding heartism ("tortures nice detainees"). Somehow global warming and tax cuts for the rich and SUVs get mixed up in it, not because I've ever written a word about these subjects (I haven't, and I'm rather skeptical about global warming), but because the author has lost his capacity to actually *engage* with a political opinion that differs from his without reducing it to a Sean Hannity cartoon character called a "Liberal" and dismissing it with boilerplate denunciations. Weird.
Another reader complains:
I agree with Mark that abortion is the Sacrament of the Democratic Party. Funny thing is, it's the Anti-Sacrament to Mark Shea. That is, without the abortion issue, he would be a through-and-through Democrat. He believes every single accusation leveled at the administration implicitly, and routinely rails against the awfulness of the United States. With regard to the latter point, I compare the United States to Churchill's assessment of democracy: it's an awful system; the only thing to be said for it is that it's better than any other system out there. So yes, there is plenty to complain about, but get a grip.
I have yet to see *one* person sanction the use of torture against anyone. If you're going to attack Conservatives willy-nilly, Mark, use some actual evidence rather than behaving like Howard Dean.
As the redoubtable Tom from Disputations has pointed out, the primary complaint that I have is about the Right's tendency to sanction fog:
It's nice to have you back blogging and all, but I wish you wouldn't blog on torture. The comments inevitably creep me out.
I think people who represent the debate as one of of "pretty please with sugar on top" and of "being scowled at while asked a question" are trying to make the case, not for torture as such, but for the fog Capt. Fishbeck decries. That torture and other evils are morally certain consequences of that fog doesn't seem to bother them nearly as much as does pointing out that torture and other evils are morally certain consequences of that fog. And if the torture and other evils happen to have good effects, well... only a fool would turn his nose up at those good effects, right?
Tom's point is borne out by the several posts I immediately got saying, variously, that Fishback should get the immediate boot for causing "bad morale" (and besides he's probably running for office), andd that, hey!, who knows *what* the heck torture is anyway!, and so forth (as though breaking legs with baseball bats for fun is indistinguishable from being scowled at). One writer attempts to make the case that any attempt to makes such distinctions would result in a labrynthine thicket of petty regulations. It's all so very Clintonian ("Rape? What do we really *mean* by so-called 'rape' anyway?")
I think all this sort of thing is sinister. (And I don't much want it on my blog. Consequently, I will be banning alleged Catholic men who don't know what rape is (or who pretend not to know in order to defend and foggify torture).
As to my alleged belief of every single charge against the Administration, this is manifestly untrue. I think Cindy Sheehan and her zookeepers are kooks. I have not been poring over the Daily Kos, listening to moonbats blaming the President for plotting 9/11. I likewise regard Robert Sungenis' various conspiracy theories about the Administration as raw-boned nuttery. I don't think, and have made abundantly clear over and over and over I don't think, that the US is the "moral equivalent" of the Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics from the Islamosphere. So I don't rail against the United States. I rail against the sins of the United States (much as I rail against the sins of the Church). A large number of these sins are near and dear to the heart of the Left. One sin in particular--torture--is currently being defended by many (not all) on the Right (including Catholics who should know better but who are blinded by ideology). My point is not that the US is evil, but that many on the Right are just as quick and eager to spit on the Church's teaching when it gets in the way of ideology ("torturing those nice detainees") as those on the Left ("Fetus Lovers hate Women"). It is because I love my country that I do not want to see us go down that road.
Finally, as to the charge of being a Democrat at heart: I'm a Catholic at heart. I regard human political organizations as tools for attempting to enact the gospel as much as possible. I have no more allegiance to a political party than I do to a saw, wrench, or hammer. If the party is useful in helping to enact a political agenda that protects human life and guards the family, subsidiarity, and other basic human rights and facets of Catholic social teaching I will support it. To the degree that a party fails to do this, I will cheerfully drop it and look for another party that will. At present, the Dem's fascination with the sacrament of abortion forbids me to support them. My support for the GOP has *always* had the character of a hope that they are the party that will do the least mischief, not the party that will do a lot of good. So far, they have not given me much reason to change that assessment. They have done the absolute bare minimum of bring the US up to Carthaginian standards of culture. They have also done great harm by spending like drunken sailors and involving us in a war in Iraq that did not, in my estimation and in the estimation of the overhwhelming majority of magisterial authorities (including the last two Popes) meet Just War criteria. If the Dems ever renounced their obsession with abortion and tried to seriously become pro-life, I'd support them in a heartbeat if they showed they had a reasonable plan for resolving these issues and for not being the mortal enemies of the family. But I would not regard them as saviors anymore than I regard the GOP as saviors. I would regard them as this year's strategic allies in enacting something a little bit closer to the Church's social teaching. I think that the number one job of a politician is self-preservation. Given that, I do not put my trust in any prince.
A reader writes
I don't have any deep answers here. The question, stated in its simplest form, is once again "Why does God permit evil?" To that question, St. Thomas replies:
From this, I derive the assumption that the existence of a creature that refuses good for itself is permitted by God for the sake of another creature who *will* choose good.
In real life this seems to pan out. I don't know of too many people weeping that Hitler got his comeuppance or feeling like he was a pathetic victim of a callous God. If there *is* anybody in Hell (which, by the way, we don't know) they are not there by accident. Nor are they there because God didn't lift a finger to help them. They are there because, despite every conceivable attempt of mercy to reach them, they have steadfastly shoved that mercy away with an iron will (and usually inflicted a great deal of pain on others in the process). The fact that the blessed have *not* refused the Mercy and have typically become the blessed by turning the suffering inflicted on them by evil people in to an occasion of blessing is not "unfair" nor is it God's fault. Corrie Ten Boom was made holy and even happy in Hitler's concentration camp system. She acquired a heart capable of thanking God for the fleas in her bed.
That's not a complete answer. Nothing is. Theodicy is a mystery as profound as the cross itself. But the key is this: God desires *nobody* to be lost. For that to happen, it takes our deliberate self-exclusion from the Mercy. God is apparently willing to risk that for the sake of those who will *not* deliberately exclude themselves from the Mercy. I can't see how that's unfair since we have only ourselves to blame if we are stupid enough to turn down the offer of the Free Gift.
I'm sorry to bother you at home, so to speak, but a young fellow at RCIA class asked the following: "Why does God create those He knows will end up in Hell." My team members on the RCIA staff came back with the free will response, that God creates every one to be with Him but does not coerce them into loving Him. He gives everyone sufficient grace to be saved, but God honors their choice even if it is to reject Him eternally.
The questioner accepted the response but I don't think he was totally satisfied, since in his mind I think he couldn't reconcile a merciful God creating a human person that in his omniscience He knows (before the person ever has the choice to reject God) will end up in Hell.
I was silent because I didn't have anything to add, but I would like to provide a deeper answer if one exists. Or perhaps I'm just too dumb to come up with the obvious answer. Do you have any links on this that you could send me, or perhaps you could write a Catholic Exchange article on same.
I know how busy you are, and if you don't have the time that's fine. But if you could help me out on this one, I'd appreciate it. The young person in question would make a fine Catholic, and I don't want him to think we are brushing off tough questions. Don't worry, I won't make this kind of request a habit.
I don't have any deep answers here. The question, stated in its simplest form, is once again "Why does God permit evil?" To that question, St. Thomas replies:
Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.
From this, I derive the assumption that the existence of a creature that refuses good for itself is permitted by God for the sake of another creature who *will* choose good.
In real life this seems to pan out. I don't know of too many people weeping that Hitler got his comeuppance or feeling like he was a pathetic victim of a callous God. If there *is* anybody in Hell (which, by the way, we don't know) they are not there by accident. Nor are they there because God didn't lift a finger to help them. They are there because, despite every conceivable attempt of mercy to reach them, they have steadfastly shoved that mercy away with an iron will (and usually inflicted a great deal of pain on others in the process). The fact that the blessed have *not* refused the Mercy and have typically become the blessed by turning the suffering inflicted on them by evil people in to an occasion of blessing is not "unfair" nor is it God's fault. Corrie Ten Boom was made holy and even happy in Hitler's concentration camp system. She acquired a heart capable of thanking God for the fleas in her bed.
That's not a complete answer. Nothing is. Theodicy is a mystery as profound as the cross itself. But the key is this: God desires *nobody* to be lost. For that to happen, it takes our deliberate self-exclusion from the Mercy. God is apparently willing to risk that for the sake of those who will *not* deliberately exclude themselves from the Mercy. I can't see how that's unfair since we have only ourselves to blame if we are stupid enough to turn down the offer of the Free Gift.
Chris Blosser...
...of the Ratzinger Fan Club, writes:
Yeah. Catholic missionaries show up in sci-fi space a lot. Another reminder of theologian Lenny Bruce's observation that "The Catholic Church is the only 'The Church'". Ironic, given that you'd far more likely see Evangelical missionaries rushing off to convert the Heathen on Alpha Centauri than Jesuits. I did like the vaguely Benedictine/Dominican/Franciscan monks on Babylon 5 (the only show I've ever seen that also featured a black gospel choir singing "No Hiding Place" while a revenge killing takes place.)
Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" is another "Christianity is provincial" story with a missionary losing his faith because the Star of Bethlehem was a super-nova that obliterated an advance civilization. And, though I've not read it, the Jesuits also figure prominently in The Sparrow, a sci-fi novel written by Catholic convert to Judaism name Mary Doria Russell. In addition to that uncommon background, she's also a paleoanthropologist who was tired of the "Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise" rhetoric that was de rigeur during the 1992 commemorations of Columbus. So she set out to write a novel about contact between humans and an alien civilization to demonstrate that even people with the best intentions can end in catastrophe when two completely different civilizations (like medieval Europe and Meso-America) collide.
...of the Ratzinger Fan Club, writes:
Your speculations on alien races and culpability due to a lack of original sin sounded familiar.
Sure enough, Ray Bradbury's "The Fire Balloons" is about a Catholic mission to space and a priest with evangelical zeal having to come to terms with his encounter with an unfallen race. It's a good story, howbeit unfortunately tainted by Bradbury's gnostic treatment of sin -- the aliens are bodiless "orbs", who are without sin precisely *because *they have developed the means of freeing themselves from the flesh and desires thereof.
Anyway, if you want to mention to your readers, it's included in the anthology *The Illustrated Man -- *I'm sure he's not the only SF author who made use of the 'Jesuit mission to space/religious encounter with alien race' theme ('Speaker for the Dead', the second in Orson Scott Card's Ender Wiggin series, took place at a Catholic colony on a far off planet).
Yeah. Catholic missionaries show up in sci-fi space a lot. Another reminder of theologian Lenny Bruce's observation that "The Catholic Church is the only 'The Church'". Ironic, given that you'd far more likely see Evangelical missionaries rushing off to convert the Heathen on Alpha Centauri than Jesuits. I did like the vaguely Benedictine/Dominican/Franciscan monks on Babylon 5 (the only show I've ever seen that also featured a black gospel choir singing "No Hiding Place" while a revenge killing takes place.)
Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" is another "Christianity is provincial" story with a missionary losing his faith because the Star of Bethlehem was a super-nova that obliterated an advance civilization. And, though I've not read it, the Jesuits also figure prominently in The Sparrow, a sci-fi novel written by Catholic convert to Judaism name Mary Doria Russell. In addition to that uncommon background, she's also a paleoanthropologist who was tired of the "Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise" rhetoric that was de rigeur during the 1992 commemorations of Columbus. So she set out to write a novel about contact between humans and an alien civilization to demonstrate that even people with the best intentions can end in catastrophe when two completely different civilizations (like medieval Europe and Meso-America) collide.
Calling All Catholic Philosophers!
A reader asks:
I'm not a trained philosopher. Can anybody help this person?
A reader asks:
One of the topics hard for me to understand and even more difficult to explain. but, how do you explain the term "Person" to the Trinity. Do we understand it the same way as you and I are a "person"?
I appreciate if you can suggest a book that explains more about it in a simple way because is hard for me to understand philosophical terms and sometimes theological.
I've returned Home as catholic, but need to understand more.
I'm not a trained philosopher. Can anybody help this person?
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Credibility for Andrew Sullivan is made possible...
by the dogma-driven slowness of Conservatives to admit that this stinks to high heaven.
If the Conservative media supinely cooperates in simply trying to poison the public against Fishback, they will deserve the odium they receive. Let's face it, not a few Bush supporters have been trying to make the case for torture, so why should we be surprised at this filth being done in the name of America?
Yes, yes, I'm fully briefed on the fact that this is Sullivan and his real goal is to discredit Bush at all costs in furtherance of The Only Thing That Really Matters. So what? Respond to Fishback. Why does the Administration surround this matter with such dense layers of fog?
by the dogma-driven slowness of Conservatives to admit that this stinks to high heaven.
If the Conservative media supinely cooperates in simply trying to poison the public against Fishback, they will deserve the odium they receive. Let's face it, not a few Bush supporters have been trying to make the case for torture, so why should we be surprised at this filth being done in the name of America?
Yes, yes, I'm fully briefed on the fact that this is Sullivan and his real goal is to discredit Bush at all costs in furtherance of The Only Thing That Really Matters. So what? Respond to Fishback. Why does the Administration surround this matter with such dense layers of fog?
Stockholm Syndrome Victims Act Out
Some of my readers may remember a problem in the Boston Archdiocese. Many laypeople were demanding that corrupt priests be compelled to resign their positions and Face the Music.
That was then. This is now. Now a crooked priest named Fr. Walter Cuenin has resigned after admitting to skiving off with $85,000 in parish funds. Naturally, everybody is delighted to see him go, no?
No. It turns out he was The Right Sort of Priest. You know: Lefty. Speaking Truth to Orthodoxy. Not Confined by the Stupid Doctrines of the Church. That sort. So when *he* rips his parishioners off, it's not justice to give him the boot. It's persecution! And the Stockholm Syndrome Victims of Boston will not rest till the guy who ripped them off is back where he can rip them off again.
Weird.
Watch the Drama unfold on Dom Bettinelli's blog, complete with a baying chorus of Stockholm Syndrome Victims complaining that Dom won't join in the chorus of MSM defenses of The Right Sort of Corrupt Priest.
Some of my readers may remember a problem in the Boston Archdiocese. Many laypeople were demanding that corrupt priests be compelled to resign their positions and Face the Music.
That was then. This is now. Now a crooked priest named Fr. Walter Cuenin has resigned after admitting to skiving off with $85,000 in parish funds. Naturally, everybody is delighted to see him go, no?
No. It turns out he was The Right Sort of Priest. You know: Lefty. Speaking Truth to Orthodoxy. Not Confined by the Stupid Doctrines of the Church. That sort. So when *he* rips his parishioners off, it's not justice to give him the boot. It's persecution! And the Stockholm Syndrome Victims of Boston will not rest till the guy who ripped them off is back where he can rip them off again.
Weird.
Watch the Drama unfold on Dom Bettinelli's blog, complete with a baying chorus of Stockholm Syndrome Victims complaining that Dom won't join in the chorus of MSM defenses of The Right Sort of Corrupt Priest.
Dale Price vs. Brainwashed Thinking Catholic[TM] Apostate
There's crunchy goodness in every heaping spoonful of Price's prose. Unfortunately for Thinking Catholics[TM] the crunchy stuff is their bones.
There's crunchy goodness in every heaping spoonful of Price's prose. Unfortunately for Thinking Catholics[TM] the crunchy stuff is their bones.
Robert Sungenis Continues Campaign to Embarrass the Church
First, geocentrism
then, the amazing discovery of the Einstein-induced Gay Priest phenomenon
Now, Sungenis heads for the depths of space with... wait for it... An Expose of the Great Big Jewish Conspiracy!
Once again, a newborn Rad Trad lends support to my theory that Rad Trads are simply people who cannot distinguish between the Tradition and old sin. By cracky, if our ancestors blamed the Jews for all the evils of the world, then *we* should be blaming them for all the evils of the world too!
First, geocentrism
then, the amazing discovery of the Einstein-induced Gay Priest phenomenon
Now, Sungenis heads for the depths of space with... wait for it... An Expose of the Great Big Jewish Conspiracy!
Once again, a newborn Rad Trad lends support to my theory that Rad Trads are simply people who cannot distinguish between the Tradition and old sin. By cracky, if our ancestors blamed the Jews for all the evils of the world, then *we* should be blaming them for all the evils of the world too!
Tone Deaf "Crescent of Embrace" Memorial Gets Flushed
Aesthetic Experts responsible for this design have also been hired to build new "Rising Sun of Hope" Pearl Harbor Memorial as well as the Kennedy Firing Range Memorial and the Martin Luther King Memorial featuring "white bedsheets with eyeholes" ("We feel it symbolizes purity, rest, and a vision of the future. Only somebody with a bigoted mind would make any other imaginitive connections.")
Aesthetic Experts responsible for this design have also been hired to build new "Rising Sun of Hope" Pearl Harbor Memorial as well as the Kennedy Firing Range Memorial and the Martin Luther King Memorial featuring "white bedsheets with eyeholes" ("We feel it symbolizes purity, rest, and a vision of the future. Only somebody with a bigoted mind would make any other imaginitive connections.")
" ... It is a little wind and a little rain ... It is bad but there are other things going on in this country today ... and in the world!"
Cindy Sheehan, the Mother of All Compassion, complaining because the suffering caused by Hurricane Rita was diverting cameras away from her face.
The Nancy Kerrigan Principle in action!
Cindy Sheehan, the Mother of All Compassion, complaining because the suffering caused by Hurricane Rita was diverting cameras away from her face.
The Nancy Kerrigan Principle in action!
Many DREs Have Been Working to Make Catholics More Ignorant for Over 30 years!
No. Not all DREs. In fact, the DRE at my parish is outstanding, as are many I have met in my travels. But not a few spout twaddle like the stuff Rich describes. You gotta wonder how they keep their jobs.
No. Not all DREs. In fact, the DRE at my parish is outstanding, as are many I have met in my travels. But not a few spout twaddle like the stuff Rich describes. You gotta wonder how they keep their jobs.
More on the "Godlessness is good for society" "study"
I wrote:
I wonder how long I will have to wait for the National Center of Science Education to issue a scathing press release taking these guys to task for the dreadful injection of religious philosophy into a discussion of natural selection and their advocacy of the idiotic notion that the existence of God should be scientifically proven.
And a reader, zealously defending the notion that there is nothing whatsoever about Darwinism that constitutes a quasi-religion, retorted:
I think they should involve themselves now, given that the guy who emitted this bogus brain fart masquerading as "science" is talking just like the NCSE:
One would think the NCSE would be *outraged* at this naked attempt to pass off a religious ideology in the name of Science. And yet all I hear are crickets.
By the way, I loved the Roland Hedley Burton ending to the interview. Whenever a reporter is too dumb to think of anything else to say, they opt for the "remains to be seen" or "controversial" denouement: "Whether the Iraq War will be a success remains to be seen." or, in this case, "Controversial study author Gregory Paul". No reporer describes David Duke or Fred Phelps as "controversial". "Controversial" is reserved for cranks and bigots who attack thing the MSM is not fond of. Cranks and bigots who attack things the MSM is fond of are called "extremists".
I wrote:
I wonder how long I will have to wait for the National Center of Science Education to issue a scathing press release taking these guys to task for the dreadful injection of religious philosophy into a discussion of natural selection and their advocacy of the idiotic notion that the existence of God should be scientifically proven.
And a reader, zealously defending the notion that there is nothing whatsoever about Darwinism that constitutes a quasi-religion, retorted:
When this SOCIOLOGY paper gets turned into a "theory" and gets a popular push from non-sociologists to be taught in a SCIENCE CLASSROOM then maybe the National Center for SCIENCE EDUCATION will get involved.....
I think they should involve themselves now, given that the guy who emitted this bogus brain fart masquerading as "science" is talking just like the NCSE:
Being a palaeontologist, I've for many years had to deal with the issue of creationism verus evolutionary science in this country.
One would think the NCSE would be *outraged* at this naked attempt to pass off a religious ideology in the name of Science. And yet all I hear are crickets.
By the way, I loved the Roland Hedley Burton ending to the interview. Whenever a reporter is too dumb to think of anything else to say, they opt for the "remains to be seen" or "controversial" denouement: "Whether the Iraq War will be a success remains to be seen." or, in this case, "Controversial study author Gregory Paul". No reporer describes David Duke or Fred Phelps as "controversial". "Controversial" is reserved for cranks and bigots who attack thing the MSM is not fond of. Cranks and bigots who attack things the MSM is fond of are called "extremists".
What constitutes a menace to student safety in our public schools?
a) guns
b) drug
c) sexually transmitted diseases
d) Reading the Bible by oneself
If you answered "d" you may have a future as a public school administrator!
a) guns
b) drug
c) sexually transmitted diseases
d) Reading the Bible by oneself
If you answered "d" you may have a future as a public school administrator!
Nicely Done Series by Brandon Evans on the Problem of Evil
I'm one of those superstitious primitives who thinks the devil is real. His greatest achievement so far is convincing the survivors of the 20th Century that he's not there. Amazing. You almost have to applaud the sheer artistry of the lie.
I'm one of those superstitious primitives who thinks the devil is real. His greatest achievement so far is convincing the survivors of the 20th Century that he's not there. Amazing. You almost have to applaud the sheer artistry of the lie.
Amy Spanks Andy
Leader of the Cult of Narcissus caught red-handed twisting facts to further his Devotion to the One Thing the Really Matters.
Leader of the Cult of Narcissus caught red-handed twisting facts to further his Devotion to the One Thing the Really Matters.
Dan Darling writes:
The best short essays I've seen on this question are from C.S. Lewis. One is called "Religion and Rocketry" and the other is "Will we Lose God in Outer Space". If memory serves, Lewis points out several basic criteria that have to be met before life on other worlds would pose a theological problem to Christianity.
First, it has to exist, which we don't know.
Second, it has to be sentient. Alien oysters cannot sin any more than ours do.
Third, it has to have fallen. An unfallen race is not in need of redemption.
Fourth, we have to know that, being fallen, it has been denied the chance of redemption by God. How on earth we'd ever figure that out beats me.
Fifth, we have to know that the redemption will be *forever* denied this hypothetically existent, hypothetically fallen race. After all, if you'd visited earth 10,000 years ago you would not have seen to many obvious clue that redemption was in the works for us.
Sixth, we have to know that redemption via an incarnation, death and resurrection is the *only* way in which God redeems fallen creatures and that such a redemption will never be granted such creatures.
As Lewis says, if our faith never encounters a bigger challenge than this, we are sitting pretty.
As to the existence of non-human intelligences in the universe, the Faith answers this with a definite affirmative: they are called "angels". The existence of *organic* creatures with intelligence is therefore not an insuperable obstacle. God can do as he likes.
That said, there *are* certain facets of the Tradition that present problems for the traditional sci fi scenario. One of them is St. Thomas' teaching that "Man is the form of a rational animal." In other words, if you want to see an intelligent critter made of matter, we're it. That's deeply offensive to us because we think it is arrogant to say that we are alone. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. As Rare Earth has done a fine job of demonstrating, the Copernican Principle (i.e., the notion that planets like ours are dime a dozen in the Great Grand Scheme of things) is waaaaaaay over-rated. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our planet is one of the few in the galaxy to have complex life and the only one with intelligent life. If the universe is crowded with alien civilizations, then, as Enrico Fermi asked 50 years ago and projects like SETI are making more acutely felt with each day, where is everybody?
Finally, re: preaching the gospel to aliens. Until Lewis' questions are answered I doubt there would be much point. Indeed, as Lewis Space Trilogy suggests (almost alone in the canons of science fiction that I know of), the reality may well be that and unfallen race would be way ahead of us in their knowledge of Maleldil, just as the angels are. That only stands to reason since the universal God who reveals himself *to us* in Christ Jesus would be present to the souls of unfallen creatures without the hampering effects of original sin. Missionaries to an unfallen planet might find themselves embarrassed by the knowledge of their students, who would all speak "with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees."
I tend to side with Lewis in his speculation that, if there *are* any intelligent critters out there the vast distances of space are designed to be a quarantine. If we ever made contact with a technologically inferior race, we would murder and enslave them as we have murdered and enslaved weaker members of our own race. If they were technologically superior, they would very properly annihilate us in self-defense.
But, as I never tire of saying, that won't happen, because we are never getting off the earth and we will never contact any aliens.
Amidst all the terrorism work I do for the Manhattan Institute, I'm writing a fairly detailed science fiction/fantasy story that will hopefully one day see print and one of the areas I've been tinkering back and forth with is the ramification of alien life on world religions, particularly Christianity. Ranging from all the discussions of this I've seen on the Internet, I gather that the idea that there are aliens out there isn't a denial of any particular teaching of the Magisterium, but I've been having problems with the issue of how to approach the issue of Catholics converting aliens. On one hand, Christ died once for all, but on the other aliens may or may not have the taint of original sin.
The interesting thing is that Christianity is the only religion that has this particular dilemma. Islam says that the Qu'ran should be preached to Djinn as well as men, whereas Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, et al. all entertain all kinds of stories about classes of non-divine beings.
The best short essays I've seen on this question are from C.S. Lewis. One is called "Religion and Rocketry" and the other is "Will we Lose God in Outer Space". If memory serves, Lewis points out several basic criteria that have to be met before life on other worlds would pose a theological problem to Christianity.
First, it has to exist, which we don't know.
Second, it has to be sentient. Alien oysters cannot sin any more than ours do.
Third, it has to have fallen. An unfallen race is not in need of redemption.
Fourth, we have to know that, being fallen, it has been denied the chance of redemption by God. How on earth we'd ever figure that out beats me.
Fifth, we have to know that the redemption will be *forever* denied this hypothetically existent, hypothetically fallen race. After all, if you'd visited earth 10,000 years ago you would not have seen to many obvious clue that redemption was in the works for us.
Sixth, we have to know that redemption via an incarnation, death and resurrection is the *only* way in which God redeems fallen creatures and that such a redemption will never be granted such creatures.
As Lewis says, if our faith never encounters a bigger challenge than this, we are sitting pretty.
As to the existence of non-human intelligences in the universe, the Faith answers this with a definite affirmative: they are called "angels". The existence of *organic* creatures with intelligence is therefore not an insuperable obstacle. God can do as he likes.
That said, there *are* certain facets of the Tradition that present problems for the traditional sci fi scenario. One of them is St. Thomas' teaching that "Man is the form of a rational animal." In other words, if you want to see an intelligent critter made of matter, we're it. That's deeply offensive to us because we think it is arrogant to say that we are alone. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. As Rare Earth has done a fine job of demonstrating, the Copernican Principle (i.e., the notion that planets like ours are dime a dozen in the Great Grand Scheme of things) is waaaaaaay over-rated. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our planet is one of the few in the galaxy to have complex life and the only one with intelligent life. If the universe is crowded with alien civilizations, then, as Enrico Fermi asked 50 years ago and projects like SETI are making more acutely felt with each day, where is everybody?
Finally, re: preaching the gospel to aliens. Until Lewis' questions are answered I doubt there would be much point. Indeed, as Lewis Space Trilogy suggests (almost alone in the canons of science fiction that I know of), the reality may well be that and unfallen race would be way ahead of us in their knowledge of Maleldil, just as the angels are. That only stands to reason since the universal God who reveals himself *to us* in Christ Jesus would be present to the souls of unfallen creatures without the hampering effects of original sin. Missionaries to an unfallen planet might find themselves embarrassed by the knowledge of their students, who would all speak "with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees."
I tend to side with Lewis in his speculation that, if there *are* any intelligent critters out there the vast distances of space are designed to be a quarantine. If we ever made contact with a technologically inferior race, we would murder and enslave them as we have murdered and enslaved weaker members of our own race. If they were technologically superior, they would very properly annihilate us in self-defense.
But, as I never tire of saying, that won't happen, because we are never getting off the earth and we will never contact any aliens.
Our Triumphant Superior Culture Will Save Us!
Just got this:
I particularly enjoy that last line.
And please, before you start. I'm not saying the culture of Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics is equal to ours. I recognize that monsters who saw heads off innocent victims are unfit to live and I have no problem with blowing away creatures like this. I'm not a pacifist, no matter how many times Chris Sullivan attempts to torture the Catechism into a pacifist tract.
That said, however, The question is not "Which civilization is superior?" The question is "What must I do to be saved?" The answer is not "Trust in your superior culture and technology." That's my point. Remember: the devil loves to send error into the world in pairs so that, fleeing one, we will embrace the other. At the end of the day, two civilizations animated by diseased spiritualities are facing off and telling us we have to choose between them. An inflamed spirituality like Islam cannot save us. But neither can the watery narcissistic spirituality of the West. Only Christ can save us. The only cure for a diseased spirituality is not another diseased spirituality, but a healthy spirituality.
Just got this:
Serial ballbusters - Real life ballbusting violence on the streets - video clipsSerial ballbusters - Real life ballbusting violence on the streets
09/23/2005 Update ! Download our exclusive ballbusting videos !
SERIAL-BALLBUSTERS.COM
The pink umbrella
Maria is attacked by a junk who wants to take her cigarette pack... She strikes back by kicking him in the balls as hard as she can... He tries to run away with her cigarettes, but she uses her pink umbrella to grab him by the groin from behind ! Ouch ! A really, really violent and sadistic self-defense move ! She then grabs him by the balls and she finishes him...
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The pen attack
While Myriam is dressing in the cabin, Eddy tries to see her nude...
But she notices that someone is spying her. She quickly slaps his groin with a pen. A deadly move !
She then kness him and kicks him in the balls multiple times !
The ballbusting saleswoman is back, cruel and sexy !
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Where do you go with my bike ?
A man is trying to steal Maria's bike while she's harvesting some nuts... Suddenly, she sees him and run after him to get her bike back ! She beats his crotch with the bike, she brutally kicks his groin ! She menaces him to castrate him... She grabs his balls and squeezes them very hard ! The guy is in pain... He falls unconscious. She then beats him with a big branch !
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Warning these clips contains violent scenes with women kicking men in the groin.
Do not download these clips if you're not used to television or under 13.
I particularly enjoy that last line.
And please, before you start. I'm not saying the culture of Foaming Bronze Age Fanatics is equal to ours. I recognize that monsters who saw heads off innocent victims are unfit to live and I have no problem with blowing away creatures like this. I'm not a pacifist, no matter how many times Chris Sullivan attempts to torture the Catechism into a pacifist tract.
That said, however, The question is not "Which civilization is superior?" The question is "What must I do to be saved?" The answer is not "Trust in your superior culture and technology." That's my point. Remember: the devil loves to send error into the world in pairs so that, fleeing one, we will embrace the other. At the end of the day, two civilizations animated by diseased spiritualities are facing off and telling us we have to choose between them. An inflamed spirituality like Islam cannot save us. But neither can the watery narcissistic spirituality of the West. Only Christ can save us. The only cure for a diseased spirituality is not another diseased spirituality, but a healthy spirituality.
An Indian Catholic Attempts to Read the Signs of the Times
I have an allergy to this sort of speculation. I agree with the overall picture of the cosmos (i.e. the Blessed Mother (coached by Jesus) vs. Satan in the ultimate steel cage death match). But just how the United States figures in it all is not as clear to me as it is to this writer. I'm likewise skeptical that Clinton is The One Who Unleashed the Forces of Paganism.
As to Bush hatred: it is weird and I do tend to detect the whiff of hell in *any* wildly irrational hatred, but I'm less than convinced that the main lesson to draw from this is "Bush is God's Anointed". I think it's probably more sensible to say, as one of my reader's put it: "The real war going on around us is not America vs. Islam, but rather the Blessed Virgin Mary vs. Satan. Everything else is just a manifestation of that struggle. Fortunately, no matter how things appear to be going at this point, we know who wins."
That, by the way, is why I regard the "triumph of superior American technology and culture" chatter as idolatrous. It is precisely because the conflict with Islam is ultimately a spiritual battle and not a technological one that the whole attempt to make America the principle protagonist here is like making Israel the principal protagonist in the book of Exodus. *God* is the principal protagonist. Israel--*if* they remain faithful to God--is the beneficiary of the conflict.
No, I'm not saying we sit back, do nothing, and await deliverance. But I am saying that we attribute our salvation to our technology and superior culture while ignoring God only at our grave peril.
I have an allergy to this sort of speculation. I agree with the overall picture of the cosmos (i.e. the Blessed Mother (coached by Jesus) vs. Satan in the ultimate steel cage death match). But just how the United States figures in it all is not as clear to me as it is to this writer. I'm likewise skeptical that Clinton is The One Who Unleashed the Forces of Paganism.
As to Bush hatred: it is weird and I do tend to detect the whiff of hell in *any* wildly irrational hatred, but I'm less than convinced that the main lesson to draw from this is "Bush is God's Anointed". I think it's probably more sensible to say, as one of my reader's put it: "The real war going on around us is not America vs. Islam, but rather the Blessed Virgin Mary vs. Satan. Everything else is just a manifestation of that struggle. Fortunately, no matter how things appear to be going at this point, we know who wins."
That, by the way, is why I regard the "triumph of superior American technology and culture" chatter as idolatrous. It is precisely because the conflict with Islam is ultimately a spiritual battle and not a technological one that the whole attempt to make America the principle protagonist here is like making Israel the principal protagonist in the book of Exodus. *God* is the principal protagonist. Israel--*if* they remain faithful to God--is the beneficiary of the conflict.
No, I'm not saying we sit back, do nothing, and await deliverance. But I am saying that we attribute our salvation to our technology and superior culture while ignoring God only at our grave peril.
The Emperor's New Groove
Rented this from Netflix again. Absolutely hilarious. Patrick Warburton (AKA "The Tick") can read from the phone book and crack me up. And the film itself is is just... quirky. Oddly different from the typical Disney fare.
Rented this from Netflix again. Absolutely hilarious. Patrick Warburton (AKA "The Tick") can read from the phone book and crack me up. And the film itself is is just... quirky. Oddly different from the typical Disney fare.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
The Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact!
This is from before my time, but it looks jolly! Does this make any of you feel nostalgia?
This is from before my time, but it looks jolly! Does this make any of you feel nostalgia?
Kathy Shaidle: Snappy Headline Goddess
Bill Maher, by the way, is Exhibit A, of why outfits like Street Prophets are doomed. If the Left can't figure out why a jerk like him sends a message of utter contempt for serious believers, then one wonders how "prophetic" somebody can be when they can't see the nose in front of their face. It takes some doing to make the author of an excoriating screed against Mother Teresa feel that Maher is "ungallant" to a lady.
Bill Maher, by the way, is Exhibit A, of why outfits like Street Prophets are doomed. If the Left can't figure out why a jerk like him sends a message of utter contempt for serious believers, then one wonders how "prophetic" somebody can be when they can't see the nose in front of their face. It takes some doing to make the author of an excoriating screed against Mother Teresa feel that Maher is "ungallant" to a lady.
At the Name of America Every Knee Shall Bow, Every Tongue Confess
That, at least, seems to be the attitude of some of my readers as they confront what *they themselves* were only last week declaring to be a false revelation, possibly demonic in origin. We're talking about a religion of a billion--1,000,000,000--adherents. One that has resisted everything the West can throw at it for over a thousand years. And yet, a Catholic who presumably *knows* the teaching of the Church about the necessity of the Holy Spirit's power to change hearts and redeem the world can still look straight at Isaiah's warning:
..and still declare with a straight face, "You're right it won't be horses and chariots, it will be American economic, political and cultural superiority, or ICBM's, that will win the battle with Islam."
I tingle for the day when our economic, political and cultural superiority triumphs and ushers in the Millennium of Fetal Farming. Why bother with all that tired religious crap Isaiah was talking about. Our form of pagan barbarism is superior to the Muslim form. Who needs God when you have technology?
That, at least, seems to be the attitude of some of my readers as they confront what *they themselves* were only last week declaring to be a false revelation, possibly demonic in origin. We're talking about a religion of a billion--1,000,000,000--adherents. One that has resisted everything the West can throw at it for over a thousand years. And yet, a Catholic who presumably *knows* the teaching of the Church about the necessity of the Holy Spirit's power to change hearts and redeem the world can still look straight at Isaiah's warning:
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! (Isaiah 31:1).
..and still declare with a straight face, "You're right it won't be horses and chariots, it will be American economic, political and cultural superiority, or ICBM's, that will win the battle with Islam."
I tingle for the day when our economic, political and cultural superiority triumphs and ushers in the Millennium of Fetal Farming. Why bother with all that tired religious crap Isaiah was talking about. Our form of pagan barbarism is superior to the Muslim form. Who needs God when you have technology?
Funny for So Many Reasons
Am I the only one who thinks the words "bad science" are mild pejoratives to describe this ideologically driven "study"?
It's so hard to pick the juiciest quotes. I enjoy the Euro-snobbery of "The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so." Also fetching was this Olympian verdict: "I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states." Don't worry, pal. Soon you'll be living in a Muslim state. But then again, the blank inability to discriminate between a theist who believes in free will and a theist (such as a Muslim) for whom God is something more like a Fate may render him unable to tell the difference.
I also enjoyed this telling little bit of agitprop:
And here I thought that evolutionary theory was simply and solely science and not a quasi-religious philosophy. But mean and evil ID is a horrible intrusion of philosophy into the cold clinical findings of Pure Science.
Oh, and I especially loved the Magisterial and High Priestly dogma concluding the article:
Scientia locuta est. Causa finita est.
I wonder how long I will have to wait for the National Center of Science Education to issue a scathing press release taking these guys to task for the dreadful injection of religious philosophy into a discussion of natural selection and their advocacy of the idiotic notion that the existence of God should be scientifically proven.
Am I the only one who thinks the words "bad science" are mild pejoratives to describe this ideologically driven "study"?
It's so hard to pick the juiciest quotes. I enjoy the Euro-snobbery of "The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so." Also fetching was this Olympian verdict: "I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states." Don't worry, pal. Soon you'll be living in a Muslim state. But then again, the blank inability to discriminate between a theist who believes in free will and a theist (such as a Muslim) for whom God is something more like a Fate may render him unable to tell the difference.
I also enjoyed this telling little bit of agitprop:
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
And here I thought that evolutionary theory was simply and solely science and not a quasi-religious philosophy. But mean and evil ID is a horrible intrusion of philosophy into the cold clinical findings of Pure Science.
Oh, and I especially loved the Magisterial and High Priestly dogma concluding the article:
"The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted."
Scientia locuta est. Causa finita est.
I wonder how long I will have to wait for the National Center of Science Education to issue a scathing press release taking these guys to task for the dreadful injection of religious philosophy into a discussion of natural selection and their advocacy of the idiotic notion that the existence of God should be scientifically proven.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Company wants to take Martian Chronicles out of Fiction and into History
Two thoughts:
1. How freakin' cool!
2. It will never work.
Start by doing something vastly easier, like creating a workable human community in Antarctica that is not completely dependent on subsidies from a functional ecological/economic system up north. Even there you have the huge advantage of not having to have your atmosphere shipped in and water in more than trace amounts. Once you've created something like Hooterville at the Pole, then you can start talking about making plans for a functional human colony on Mars.
Have I mentioned my convictions that we will never get off the earth? It's true. We're going nowhere but heaven or hell. Oh sure, we'll pay a visit to Mars. But there isn't going to be any warp drive or Centauri jump gates. Interstellar travel will never happen. We won't even have a permanent settlement on Mars.
And it will be very interesting to see the psychological impact of the death of that eschatological dream on a society that has forgotten how to hope for Heaven.
Two thoughts:
1. How freakin' cool!
2. It will never work.
Start by doing something vastly easier, like creating a workable human community in Antarctica that is not completely dependent on subsidies from a functional ecological/economic system up north. Even there you have the huge advantage of not having to have your atmosphere shipped in and water in more than trace amounts. Once you've created something like Hooterville at the Pole, then you can start talking about making plans for a functional human colony on Mars.
Have I mentioned my convictions that we will never get off the earth? It's true. We're going nowhere but heaven or hell. Oh sure, we'll pay a visit to Mars. But there isn't going to be any warp drive or Centauri jump gates. Interstellar travel will never happen. We won't even have a permanent settlement on Mars.
And it will be very interesting to see the psychological impact of the death of that eschatological dream on a society that has forgotten how to hope for Heaven.
Albertus Minimus Launches a Nifty New Blog Across the Pond
featuring a cool post on "Religion: the New Rock and Roll!"
Also, a fun bit of speculation about Tom Bombadil.
featuring a cool post on "Religion: the New Rock and Roll!"
Also, a fun bit of speculation about Tom Bombadil.
More Muslims Like This Please
The thing that Catholics have a hard time remembering is that we are the weirdos in the human religious community because we have a Magisterium. It's really hard for us to bear in mind that the overwhelming mass of humanity's experience of religion is conducted without a ruling body that decides "what we really believe". Consequently, we have this notion that there is some official who "speaks for" Islam or Buddhism or whatnot.
There isn't. Islam is, within very broad parameters, whatever the loudest and most powerful figures in the Muslim world say it is. It is therefore in our very considerable interest to see to it that voices of sanity prevail. This is one of the reasons it is so frickin' perverse when the St. Blog's Cyber-Fatwa Tribunal takes it upon itself to issue bulls of excommunication against a Cdl. McCarrick for commending a leading a Muslim figure who is laboring to make Islam a place where sane people are determining the the destiny of Islam instead of foaming lunatics. Every voice of reason in the Islamic world should be encouraged. Because (as Iraq is rapidly making clear) this battle for the soul of Islam is not going to be decided by our trust in horse and chariot.
The thing that Catholics have a hard time remembering is that we are the weirdos in the human religious community because we have a Magisterium. It's really hard for us to bear in mind that the overwhelming mass of humanity's experience of religion is conducted without a ruling body that decides "what we really believe". Consequently, we have this notion that there is some official who "speaks for" Islam or Buddhism or whatnot.
There isn't. Islam is, within very broad parameters, whatever the loudest and most powerful figures in the Muslim world say it is. It is therefore in our very considerable interest to see to it that voices of sanity prevail. This is one of the reasons it is so frickin' perverse when the St. Blog's Cyber-Fatwa Tribunal takes it upon itself to issue bulls of excommunication against a Cdl. McCarrick for commending a leading a Muslim figure who is laboring to make Islam a place where sane people are determining the the destiny of Islam instead of foaming lunatics. Every voice of reason in the Islamic world should be encouraged. Because (as Iraq is rapidly making clear) this battle for the soul of Islam is not going to be decided by our trust in horse and chariot.
Fr. Todd Reitmeyer Makes the Case for Barring All SSA Guys from Seminary
All this discussion is, of course, academic till we actually see what Rome is going to do. But it's still worth thinking about.
All this discussion is, of course, academic till we actually see what Rome is going to do. But it's still worth thinking about.
Amy vs. the Cyber-Fatwa Tribunal of Faithful Conservative Catholics[TM]
As you might guess from the title of her entry, Amy Welborn, being sane, thinks it a good, magnanimous and noble thing that Pope Benedict is trying to reach out to dissenting cranks like Hans Kung and bring them within hailing distance of orthodoxy.
However the Cyber-Fatwa Tribunal of Faithful Conservative Catholics[TM], having carefully considered this for nearly 20 seconds, registers its typical roar of disapproval. Once again, the Pope has failed to proclaim their puny little gospel of Kicking Ass and Taking Names and the good news that Jesus came to tell tax collectors, sinners and the impure to go to hell. The Star Chamber, yet again, weighs Benedict in the balance and finds him wanting. Sigh. How incredibly tedious.
Whispers in the Loggia is apparently also getting mortally tired of the endless bitchfest in comboxes.
As you might guess from the title of her entry, Amy Welborn, being sane, thinks it a good, magnanimous and noble thing that Pope Benedict is trying to reach out to dissenting cranks like Hans Kung and bring them within hailing distance of orthodoxy.
However the Cyber-Fatwa Tribunal of Faithful Conservative Catholics[TM], having carefully considered this for nearly 20 seconds, registers its typical roar of disapproval. Once again, the Pope has failed to proclaim their puny little gospel of Kicking Ass and Taking Names and the good news that Jesus came to tell tax collectors, sinners and the impure to go to hell. The Star Chamber, yet again, weighs Benedict in the balance and finds him wanting. Sigh. How incredibly tedious.
Whispers in the Loggia is apparently also getting mortally tired of the endless bitchfest in comboxes.
Farewell Don Adams
Agent 86's personal Tale of the Unexplained.
The weird thing about such stories is that they are as common as daisies and everybody who has experienced them always feels like they are weirdos, not ordinary.
Private revelation is like that.
Agent 86's personal Tale of the Unexplained.
The weird thing about such stories is that they are as common as daisies and everybody who has experienced them always feels like they are weirdos, not ordinary.
Private revelation is like that.
I think Matthew Fox has a great deal to say to the Church...
Black is white. Freedom is slavery. I love Big Brother. And I am not writing under the influence of coercive mind control techniques of any kind.
Black is white. Freedom is slavery. I love Big Brother. And I am not writing under the influence of coercive mind control techniques of any kind.
We never tire of conversion stories for the same reason we never tire of love stories
Because they are the same thing.
Because they are the same thing.
Another reader discovers that there really is only one Ultimate Value for Andrew Sullivan
Gentle Reader: Everything--absolutely everything--in Andy's world is ordered the freedom of Andy's groin to pursue its interests. There is no principle that will not fall before that Master Principle. And, of course, when it comes to the Catholic Church in general and Benedict in particular, Andy has the great advantage of speaking to an audience that is largely composed of theological illiterates and bigots. So he doesn't even have to back up this nasty backchat with facts. He can just cite some anonymous source spreading a rumor. What a cushy thing blog journalism is!
I am a strong opponent of the proposed seminary policy as you know, but this makes me absolutely furious. Aside from the impertinent question of whether Benedict is or isn't, isn't Andrew Sullivan the one who has consistently opposed "outing" tactics and wasn't he the victim of a vile "outing" campaign by gay activists who were angry about his (relative) conservatism? Ah, but of course, Benedict XVI has offended Andrew Sullivan's sensibilities and therefore he must pay, even in the absence of evidence. Sexual McCarthyism indeed! What makes him any different than the "outers" of the gay left or the anti-gay right? How can he piously oppose witchhunts by Catholic right and encourage similar witchhunts by the loony-left?
I'm now convinced that Andrew Sullivan exists in a self-referential bubble that is completely divorced from the Real World.
Gentle Reader: Everything--absolutely everything--in Andy's world is ordered the freedom of Andy's groin to pursue its interests. There is no principle that will not fall before that Master Principle. And, of course, when it comes to the Catholic Church in general and Benedict in particular, Andy has the great advantage of speaking to an audience that is largely composed of theological illiterates and bigots. So he doesn't even have to back up this nasty backchat with facts. He can just cite some anonymous source spreading a rumor. What a cushy thing blog journalism is!
Phil Blosser and Readers Fail to Agree with Fr. Thinking Catholic[TM] that Homosexuality is the Source and Summit of All that is Noble, True, Good and Beautiful Always, Everywhere and at All Times.
You know, for a guy who is supposedly dedicated to the priestly vocation, Padre sure has a lot of time on his hands to vent clouds of ASCII into the void.
You know, for a guy who is supposedly dedicated to the priestly vocation, Padre sure has a lot of time on his hands to vent clouds of ASCII into the void.
PWTN: Television for the Thinking Catholic[TM]
I think that's Sr. Orbis Rotunda I see there on "Sweatin' with the Dominicans".
I think that's Sr. Orbis Rotunda I see there on "Sweatin' with the Dominicans".
So far nobody has given credit to Ancient Astronauts for this
Those of you younger than 30 may not remember the Ancient Astronaut craze of the late 70s. It was started by Erich von Daniken, a former hotel employee (if memory serves) who wrote a book called Chariots of the Gods, which basically hypothesized that ever major human achievement was due to aliens showing up and helping us dumb humans figure out how to pile rocks on each other and draw big pictures of spiders on hillsides. Since that is the first thing we humans would naturally do after achieiving interstellar travel, it was, of course, greeted with wild enthusiasm by the Art Bell crowd. No doubt somebody will find extraterrestrial significance in the big pink bunny one of these days too.
Those of you younger than 30 may not remember the Ancient Astronaut craze of the late 70s. It was started by Erich von Daniken, a former hotel employee (if memory serves) who wrote a book called Chariots of the Gods, which basically hypothesized that ever major human achievement was due to aliens showing up and helping us dumb humans figure out how to pile rocks on each other and draw big pictures of spiders on hillsides. Since that is the first thing we humans would naturally do after achieiving interstellar travel, it was, of course, greeted with wild enthusiasm by the Art Bell crowd. No doubt somebody will find extraterrestrial significance in the big pink bunny one of these days too.
Singer, Actress, Policy Expert, Meteorologist, Expert Speller
Is there *anything* she cannot do?
If she and Bob Sungenis married, it could actually be the closest the human race has ever come to complete omniscience.
Is there *anything* she cannot do?
If she and Bob Sungenis married, it could actually be the closest the human race has ever come to complete omniscience.
God's Gift to the Bush Administration Arrested
Kook who last week was babbling about the Jewish Conspiracy and the need to get troops out of "occupied New Orleans" this week takes her Narcissism Express Act to DC and get busted. Narcissist trumpet forth their rallying cry: "The whole world is watching."
This show has jumped the shark so bad it's beached.
Update: To those who wonder why I think this is a huge exercise in narcissism:
Remember the Nancy Kerrigan Principle: Just because you have suffered doesn't mean you can't be a jerk too.
Kook who last week was babbling about the Jewish Conspiracy and the need to get troops out of "occupied New Orleans" this week takes her Narcissism Express Act to DC and get busted. Narcissist trumpet forth their rallying cry: "The whole world is watching."
This show has jumped the shark so bad it's beached.
Update: To those who wonder why I think this is a huge exercise in narcissism:
Remember the Nancy Kerrigan Principle: Just because you have suffered doesn't mean you can't be a jerk too.
Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners was Sport
Desperate times call for desperate measures! It never happened, and besides, they deserved it! Don't you know we're at war! This is all the MSM's fault! How could our troops possibly know it was wrong to break prisoners legs with baseball bats when those darn Geneva Conventions are so confusing? And besides, what *is* torture anyway? I had to stand in line for hours one to sign up for a dorm room! [Insert dismissive excuse here.]
Desperate times call for desperate measures! It never happened, and besides, they deserved it! Don't you know we're at war! This is all the MSM's fault! How could our troops possibly know it was wrong to break prisoners legs with baseball bats when those darn Geneva Conventions are so confusing? And besides, what *is* torture anyway? I had to stand in line for hours one to sign up for a dorm room! [Insert dismissive excuse here.]
Discovery Institute Continues Sinister Campaign of Evil
Can't make the 10/6 date but I'm going to try to make the other stuff.
Can't make the 10/6 date but I'm going to try to make the other stuff.
Like Nixon Attempting to Disco
...the Daily Kos launches a blog that tries to show Lefties treat religion with respect. That would be the same Daily Kos that referred to Pope Benedict as "Ratf*cker".
By "religion", of course, they mean supporting public television and libraries, repeating the words "peace and justice" a lot, quoting from heavee dootee thinkers like Deepak Chopra and that "Conversations with God" Walsch guy, and looking to spiritual leaders like Gene V. Robinson and John Shelby Spong.
Excruciating.
By the way, have you ever noticed how often Thinking Christians[TM] refer to themselves as "prophets" or "prophetic"? Just about exactly as often as they condemn Christians with whom they disagree for "presuming to speak for God" when they quote inspired Scripture verbatim or cite the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church. You know, the Church to whom Christ said, "He who listens to you, listens to me. And he who listens to me, listens to him who sent me."
...the Daily Kos launches a blog that tries to show Lefties treat religion with respect. That would be the same Daily Kos that referred to Pope Benedict as "Ratf*cker".
By "religion", of course, they mean supporting public television and libraries, repeating the words "peace and justice" a lot, quoting from heavee dootee thinkers like Deepak Chopra and that "Conversations with God" Walsch guy, and looking to spiritual leaders like Gene V. Robinson and John Shelby Spong.
Excruciating.
By the way, have you ever noticed how often Thinking Christians[TM] refer to themselves as "prophets" or "prophetic"? Just about exactly as often as they condemn Christians with whom they disagree for "presuming to speak for God" when they quote inspired Scripture verbatim or cite the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church. You know, the Church to whom Christ said, "He who listens to you, listens to me. And he who listens to me, listens to him who sent me."
Belgium to Foaming Bronze Fanatics
Don't kill us! Let us kill ourselves!
Chesterton wrote this about Carthage:
I very much fear that some future Catholic historian, pondering the ruins of Europe and the US, will write something identical about us.
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! (Isaiah 31:1).
Don't kill us! Let us kill ourselves!
Chesterton wrote this about Carthage:
Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of nature. It may sound fanciful to say that men we meet at tea table es or talk to at garden-parties are secretly worshippers of Baal or Moloch. But this sort of commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the vision of Carthage. It has in it the brutal blunder that was the ruin of Carthage. The Punic power fell, because there is in this materialism a mad indifference to real thought. By disbelieving in the soul, it comes to disbelieving in the mind. Being too practical to be moral it denies what every practical soldier calls the moral of an army. It fancies that money will fight when men will no longer fight. So it was with the Punic merchant princes. Their religion was a religion of despair, even when their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hope less? Their religion was a religion of force and fear; how could they understand that men can still despise fear even when they submit to force? Their philosophy of the world had weariness in its very heart; above all they were weary of warfare; how should they understand those who still wage war even when they are weary of it? In a word, how should they understand the mind of Man, who had so long bowed down before mindless things, money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts? They awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had disdained too much even to tread out were again breaking everywhere into flames; that Hasdrubal was defeated that Hannibal was outnumbered, that Scipio had carried the war into Spain; that he had carried it into Africa. Before the very gates of the golden city Hannibal fought his last fight for it and lost; and Carthage fell as nothing has fallen since Satan. The name of the New City remains only as a name. There is no stone of it left upon the sand.
Another war was indeed waged before the final destruction: but the destruction was final. Only men digging in its deep foundations centuries after found a heap of hundreds of little skeletons, the holy relics of that religion. For Carthage fell because she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his children.
I very much fear that some future Catholic historian, pondering the ruins of Europe and the US, will write something identical about us.
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! (Isaiah 31:1).
The Flypaper Strategy Doesn't Seem to Be Panning Out
Speaking of which, given what I now know about the Bush Administration competence in dealing with domestic logistical crises, what possible motivation (apart from dogmatic ideological stick-to-itiveness) do I have for believing Rumsfeld and disbelieving Prince Saud al-Faisal.
Speaking of which, given what I now know about the Bush Administration competence in dealing with domestic logistical crises, what possible motivation (apart from dogmatic ideological stick-to-itiveness) do I have for believing Rumsfeld and disbelieving Prince Saud al-Faisal.
Speaking of the Supreme Court...
I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel confident that a Court which gave us Roe, Lawrence, and Kelso would never, ever legislate anything contrary to fundamental human dignity if Alberto Gonzalez, the man who argued tirelessly for Caesar to commit torture for the Greater Good of the Fatherland, wound up sitting on it.
After all, when has a state *ever* wound up oppressing its own people in order to protect its own grip on power? The Founding Fathers would have laughed at the very idea!
I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel confident that a Court which gave us Roe, Lawrence, and Kelso would never, ever legislate anything contrary to fundamental human dignity if Alberto Gonzalez, the man who argued tirelessly for Caesar to commit torture for the Greater Good of the Fatherland, wound up sitting on it.
After all, when has a state *ever* wound up oppressing its own people in order to protect its own grip on power? The Founding Fathers would have laughed at the very idea!
The Backstroke of the West
Rather crude in spots, but funny. You wonder why the Chinese bother with subtitles at all. Obviously, the only *real* reason to watch Star Wars is to see stuff blow up real good. Nobody's there for the sparkling dialogue.
Rather crude in spots, but funny. You wonder why the Chinese bother with subtitles at all. Obviously, the only *real* reason to watch Star Wars is to see stuff blow up real good. Nobody's there for the sparkling dialogue.
Cult of Narcissus Expands
Excessive Catholicism reports:
One of the things the gay agitprop machine has not yet ironed out has been the way to reconcile "Homsexuality is Always and Everywhere an Ironclad Reality Stamped in Our Very DNA and Can NEVER Change!" with the "Lesbian Until Graduation" phenomenon among college students.
Excessive Catholicism reports:
A new Center for Disease Control report show[s] that same-sex 'encounters' among women have tripled over the past ten years. Researchers called the finding "unexpected" but, in fact, Catholic apologist Matt Pinto predicted, in a lecture I was at over the summer, that lesbianism would increase dramatically as they are less and less able to satisfy men's sexual appetites, which are less and less about women as people as they are about raw carnal pleasure.
One of the things the gay agitprop machine has not yet ironed out has been the way to reconcile "Homsexuality is Always and Everywhere an Ironclad Reality Stamped in Our Very DNA and Can NEVER Change!" with the "Lesbian Until Graduation" phenomenon among college students.
It's that time of year again!
When priests who haven't had an original thought in two decades trot out--yet again--the shocking thesis that the True Meaning[TM] of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes was that Jesus inspired Middle Eastern peasants to share their sandwiches (and a swelling flock of Catholic faithful greet this brilliant new idea with a chorus of well-deserved yawns.
I remember hearing a Palestinian Catholic remark on this interpretation to the effect that it was an insult that said a lot more about the comfy upper middle class greed of Western theologians than it did about Middle Eastern culture. "If a guest came to our door in need of food, I and my family would go hungry before the guest did." Clues for the clueless homilist, there are few shames bigger than the refusal of hospitality in ancient Near Eastern culture. Lose this stupid "True Meaning[TM]" exegesis and back to the actual meaning of the story: a miracle of ex nihilo creation foreshadowing the Eucharist.
When priests who haven't had an original thought in two decades trot out--yet again--the shocking thesis that the True Meaning[TM] of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes was that Jesus inspired Middle Eastern peasants to share their sandwiches (and a swelling flock of Catholic faithful greet this brilliant new idea with a chorus of well-deserved yawns.
I remember hearing a Palestinian Catholic remark on this interpretation to the effect that it was an insult that said a lot more about the comfy upper middle class greed of Western theologians than it did about Middle Eastern culture. "If a guest came to our door in need of food, I and my family would go hungry before the guest did." Clues for the clueless homilist, there are few shames bigger than the refusal of hospitality in ancient Near Eastern culture. Lose this stupid "True Meaning[TM]" exegesis and back to the actual meaning of the story: a miracle of ex nihilo creation foreshadowing the Eucharist.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
See You Monday!
Taking off tomorrow with the Scout younglings to go sit in the woods contemplating the work of the All Wise Creator of Heaven and Earth while simultaneously scoffing at the very idea of an Intelligent Designer of Nature. Sooner or later I'll figure that one out.
Ciao dudes and dudettes! And thanks again for a great and generous response from your great and generous hearts!
Taking off tomorrow with the Scout younglings to go sit in the woods contemplating the work of the All Wise Creator of Heaven and Earth while simultaneously scoffing at the very idea of an Intelligent Designer of Nature. Sooner or later I'll figure that one out.
Ciao dudes and dudettes! And thanks again for a great and generous response from your great and generous hearts!
Feddie for SCOTUS
Get on the bandwagon now and you'll be able to ride in his Official Supreme Court Lear Jet and say you knew him when. Also, no more parking or speeding tickets for the first 500 people to sign the "Draft Feddie" petition.
Go Feddie!
Get on the bandwagon now and you'll be able to ride in his Official Supreme Court Lear Jet and say you knew him when. Also, no more parking or speeding tickets for the first 500 people to sign the "Draft Feddie" petition.
Go Feddie!
StrongSad Now has a Live Journal
If you feel down, there's always somebody more miserable than you that you can feel superior to!
If you feel down, there's always somebody more miserable than you that you can feel superior to!
A reader writes:
In the words of Instapundit, "Heh."
You might be interested in posting this Boston Globe article:
It seems that Jordan's King Abdullah, still in DC a few days after his address condemning terrorism to which McCarrick was responding in his infamous-around-St.-Blog's "Allah" comments, met with a number of Jewish leaders, of all sorts, and quoted a lot from the Torah, and talked about the need for true mutual acceptance and peace.
The "Judaism-and-Israel-are-great-but-anything-that-sounds-even-remotly-Muslim-like-is-eeeeevil" folks might enjoy reading about it (and the rest of us might enjoy watching their heads explode).
In the words of Instapundit, "Heh."
Many many thanks!
To all who contributed to the Quarterly Fund Drive this week. We at Chez Shea are deeply grateful! May God bless you for your generosity through our Lord Jesus! I can't tell you how much you've helped us! You guys are the best!
To all who contributed to the Quarterly Fund Drive this week. We at Chez Shea are deeply grateful! May God bless you for your generosity through our Lord Jesus! I can't tell you how much you've helped us! You guys are the best!
Ghosts and Flagellae
Here are two snatches of conversation from my comboxes;
In other words, evolution takes millions of years and can't be reproduced in a lab, for the most part.
Meanwhile, in a deserted warehouse on the other side of town, another conversation is going on in another combox, this time about Ghosts:
In short, we need to have a photograph of a ghost in order to admit their existence. Prescinding from the fact that this assumes a helluva lot about how our physics "must" apply to spiritual phenomena, I simply note the following:
A person of intelligence, integrity and sanity claims to see a ghost or some other phenomenon. The skeptic demands proof, say, a photograph. When one points out that it's rather hard to persuade a ghost to pose for the camera, one is accused of refusing to be scientific. When somebody says, "Don't just tell me that you can well imagine how a simpler structure could evolve into a flagellum. Show me an actual demonstration of a simpler structure becoming a flagellum" they are accused of being simple-minded . The evolutionary scientist has clearly told an excellent "connect the dots" story which explains how he, personally, can well imagine how the simpler structure evolved into a flagellum and we are to trust that he is correct.
What's wrong with this picture?
Please understand, I'm not especially interested in ghosts per se (though I have no particular reason to doubt their existence). Nor am I at pains to argue that a flagellum *can't* have arisen from simpler structures. I'm simply interested in the odd double standard that seems to apply here. Why is the argument from personal credulity "science" but when objects are flying across the room at an exorcism (according to Rod Dreher) that's just gullibility. You can't test either one. Both essentially boil down to saying "I'm connecting the dots (between these two structures in the case of the scientist and between the weird phenomena and the presence of some kind of spiritual entity on the other).
Here are two snatches of conversation from my comboxes;
Look, all I'm asking for here are some examples of detailed, testable Darwinian pathways that give rise to irreducubly complex biological machines such as the bacterial flagellum.
Is that too much to ask for?
Actually, yes. It is.
In other words, evolution takes millions of years and can't be reproduced in a lab, for the most part.
Meanwhile, in a deserted warehouse on the other side of town, another conversation is going on in another combox, this time about Ghosts:
Whatever you might say an "immaterial" being is, for it to have any relevance to anything, it has to interact somehow with the world we are all familiar with. In which case, it would have some testable feature to show for itself.
In short, we need to have a photograph of a ghost in order to admit their existence. Prescinding from the fact that this assumes a helluva lot about how our physics "must" apply to spiritual phenomena, I simply note the following:
A person of intelligence, integrity and sanity claims to see a ghost or some other phenomenon. The skeptic demands proof, say, a photograph. When one points out that it's rather hard to persuade a ghost to pose for the camera, one is accused of refusing to be scientific. When somebody says, "Don't just tell me that you can well imagine how a simpler structure could evolve into a flagellum. Show me an actual demonstration of a simpler structure becoming a flagellum" they are accused of being simple-minded . The evolutionary scientist has clearly told an excellent "connect the dots" story which explains how he, personally, can well imagine how the simpler structure evolved into a flagellum and we are to trust that he is correct.
What's wrong with this picture?
Please understand, I'm not especially interested in ghosts per se (though I have no particular reason to doubt their existence). Nor am I at pains to argue that a flagellum *can't* have arisen from simpler structures. I'm simply interested in the odd double standard that seems to apply here. Why is the argument from personal credulity "science" but when objects are flying across the room at an exorcism (according to Rod Dreher) that's just gullibility. You can't test either one. Both essentially boil down to saying "I'm connecting the dots (between these two structures in the case of the scientist and between the weird phenomena and the presence of some kind of spiritual entity on the other).
Purely anecdotal, but curious
While I was working on the Mary book, one of the things I began to notice was that virtually every Jewish convert to the Faith I have run across, from Pavel Chichikov, to Roy Schoeman, to Dawn Eden, to several others who don't have websites has had some kind of profound mystical encounter with Mary.
I'm reminded of that as I look at this long piece by another Jewish convert to the Faith.
I don't really know what to make of that, but I find it curious and arresting. If you are a Jewish Catholic, feel free to chime in and explain it all.
While I was working on the Mary book, one of the things I began to notice was that virtually every Jewish convert to the Faith I have run across, from Pavel Chichikov, to Roy Schoeman, to Dawn Eden, to several others who don't have websites has had some kind of profound mystical encounter with Mary.
I'm reminded of that as I look at this long piece by another Jewish convert to the Faith.
I don't really know what to make of that, but I find it curious and arresting. If you are a Jewish Catholic, feel free to chime in and explain it all.
Another (brief) example of what troubles me about some ID opponents
A reader writes (in the combox)
And another reader chimes in:
I reply:
Thanks for that hardy exposition of Manichaean theology. For Christians, however, the body is not simply a Tupperware container for "the real me" (i.e., the spiritual, non-material soul). "I" am both body and soul. I would not be me in the body of an aardvark or even in the body of another human being. It's this kind of theological sloppiness on the part of evolution defenders that bothers me.
That is not to say that I "disbelieve evolution" (as the curiously theological phrase goes). People need to understand: I'm a guy who was suckled on the milk of dinosaurs. The first books I ever read were dinosaur books and the basic evolutionary scenario of life as a branching tree proceeding from simple celled organism to all its permutations in various complex critters all descending down to today by slight modifications due to natural selection is a picture that is in my blood. The basic common sense of the thing has always been obvious to me. Look at a fossil record from a billion years ago and you don't find fish, dinosaurs, mammals or human beings. Look at progressively more recent rocks and you find progressively more complicated critters, first in the water, then living amphibiously, then able to live on land, then sprouting feathers and fur, then adopting a basic hominid body plan, then going through various branches and modifications till we arrive at a critter that looks like us. Evolutionary theories have a lot of intuitive explanatory power and I've never denied that. I think attempts to say the earth is 6000 years old, or to posit humans and dinosaurs as co-existent, are silly.
At the same time, however, I think that there is a tendency in the modern mind to adopt an attitude toward the explanatory power of evolutionary theory that basically consists of making an aesthetic judgment into a sort of philosophical dogma.
Let me explaint. But first, though, let me offer a caveat. Some people claim that the ID are arguing that God more or less lets nature take its course, and then sticks his finger in at various moments to specially create various changes in organism and so get new species (or organ systems or whatever) off to a start. I'm skeptical that they really argue this, but for the sake of argumentation, I will grant the charge. In response to this notion of a God who is constantly tweaking bits of his creation, Br. Guy (who graciously responded in my comboxes) says:
The problem with this analysis is nicely handled by Tom from Disputations:
It's that last paragraph that has me thinking. Because if Christianity is true at all, it is certainly true that we live in a universe governed by a God of order who has given us a creation that is intelligible. So, as Br. Guy says, the scientific enterprise is well worth while and the very powerful game of "connect the dots" that basic evolutionary theory plays is not, I think, just an optical illusion.
But at the same time, if Christianity is true, it is also the case that we live in a universe where, for all we know, God *might* choose to stick his finger in here and there and commit the (to our taste) gross aesthetic sin of monkeying around with his creatures in acts of special creation. If, for instance, the miracle of the Incarnation itself, or the birth of Isaac, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes, or the raising of Lazarus are any indication, God does not seem to feel himself constrained by the demands of modern science to only allow nature to proceed in a way that is rational, testable, and repeatable.
More later. I'm still wrapping my head around this stuff. It's a bit like juggling refrigerator containers.
A reader writes (in the combox)
It seems that ID is a "Truth" in search of proof. Obviously, to the Christian, we are designed (made in the image and likeness)
And another reader chimes in:
Personally, I find it a little absurd to think that by this, God meant: "and thou shalt have a gastrulated gut with a mouth on one end and fundament on the other, just like I." I rather think it makes more sense to think of God's hand as being the spiritual formation of man, not a particular godly hangup with one physical form over another. That just seems so petty and pedestrian. Why would an all powerful fundamental undergird of all existence need, for instance, hands? Or eyes? All such things seem ridiculously terrestrial and just fine to leave to evolutionary happenstance. You don't need God to have intended or formed your physical frame in order to know that he formed YOU.
I reply:
Thanks for that hardy exposition of Manichaean theology. For Christians, however, the body is not simply a Tupperware container for "the real me" (i.e., the spiritual, non-material soul). "I" am both body and soul. I would not be me in the body of an aardvark or even in the body of another human being. It's this kind of theological sloppiness on the part of evolution defenders that bothers me.
That is not to say that I "disbelieve evolution" (as the curiously theological phrase goes). People need to understand: I'm a guy who was suckled on the milk of dinosaurs. The first books I ever read were dinosaur books and the basic evolutionary scenario of life as a branching tree proceeding from simple celled organism to all its permutations in various complex critters all descending down to today by slight modifications due to natural selection is a picture that is in my blood. The basic common sense of the thing has always been obvious to me. Look at a fossil record from a billion years ago and you don't find fish, dinosaurs, mammals or human beings. Look at progressively more recent rocks and you find progressively more complicated critters, first in the water, then living amphibiously, then able to live on land, then sprouting feathers and fur, then adopting a basic hominid body plan, then going through various branches and modifications till we arrive at a critter that looks like us. Evolutionary theories have a lot of intuitive explanatory power and I've never denied that. I think attempts to say the earth is 6000 years old, or to posit humans and dinosaurs as co-existent, are silly.
At the same time, however, I think that there is a tendency in the modern mind to adopt an attitude toward the explanatory power of evolutionary theory that basically consists of making an aesthetic judgment into a sort of philosophical dogma.
Let me explaint. But first, though, let me offer a caveat. Some people claim that the ID are arguing that God more or less lets nature take its course, and then sticks his finger in at various moments to specially create various changes in organism and so get new species (or organ systems or whatever) off to a start. I'm skeptical that they really argue this, but for the sake of argumentation, I will grant the charge. In response to this notion of a God who is constantly tweaking bits of his creation, Br. Guy (who graciously responded in my comboxes) says:
Now, if you insist that the human eye (to take one favorite example) was too complicated to be made in the normal course of physics, so that at this point the Omnipotent had to pull some strings, then you are implying that His original design was flawed.
The problem with this analysis is nicely handled by Tom from Disputations:
No. You may rather be implying that the current model of the "normal course of physics" is flawed, or even that the whole concept of a "normal course of physics" is flawed. To insist on the conclusion that God is "an inept, or at least not-very-intelligent, designer" is to insist that we know better than God how He intended to design creation.
As you say, Br. Guy, "Science starts with the assumption that this 'how' can be expressed in rational, testable, repeatable steps." But it doesn't follow that if the assumption is wrong, God made a mistake.
It's that last paragraph that has me thinking. Because if Christianity is true at all, it is certainly true that we live in a universe governed by a God of order who has given us a creation that is intelligible. So, as Br. Guy says, the scientific enterprise is well worth while and the very powerful game of "connect the dots" that basic evolutionary theory plays is not, I think, just an optical illusion.
But at the same time, if Christianity is true, it is also the case that we live in a universe where, for all we know, God *might* choose to stick his finger in here and there and commit the (to our taste) gross aesthetic sin of monkeying around with his creatures in acts of special creation. If, for instance, the miracle of the Incarnation itself, or the birth of Isaac, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes, or the raising of Lazarus are any indication, God does not seem to feel himself constrained by the demands of modern science to only allow nature to proceed in a way that is rational, testable, and repeatable.
More later. I'm still wrapping my head around this stuff. It's a bit like juggling refrigerator containers.
David Morrison on the Decision to Bar SSA Guys from the Seminary
People have asked what I think. I pretty much agree with Dave. I've had reservations about this policy for a number of reasons.
a) I think it takes an approach that does not see the person, but thinks only in broad insurance company terms. I would prefer it if a guy like David Morrison--i.e. a committed, celibate man with SSA with a proven track record of devotion to our Lord--could be a priest if he wanted to be.
b) I think it will, if implemented, wind up punishing the honest and rewarding liars.
c) I very much doubt it will be implemented in any case, just as the American Church has managed to avoid implementing Ex Corde Ecclesia.
What I've been arguing is not that this judgment is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but that it does not constitute an exclusion of SSA men from the life of the Church. That's why I've used my own situation as an example. I can't be a priest either. That doesn't mean I can't have a rich and fruitful life in the Church. My counsel has not been, "This is great! Take *that*, struggling guy with SSA!" Rather it's "Don't let this be a cause of despair." The priesthood is not the be all and end all of relationship with God--and relationship with God is what matters.
People have asked what I think. I pretty much agree with Dave. I've had reservations about this policy for a number of reasons.
a) I think it takes an approach that does not see the person, but thinks only in broad insurance company terms. I would prefer it if a guy like David Morrison--i.e. a committed, celibate man with SSA with a proven track record of devotion to our Lord--could be a priest if he wanted to be.
b) I think it will, if implemented, wind up punishing the honest and rewarding liars.
c) I very much doubt it will be implemented in any case, just as the American Church has managed to avoid implementing Ex Corde Ecclesia.
What I've been arguing is not that this judgment is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but that it does not constitute an exclusion of SSA men from the life of the Church. That's why I've used my own situation as an example. I can't be a priest either. That doesn't mean I can't have a rich and fruitful life in the Church. My counsel has not been, "This is great! Take *that*, struggling guy with SSA!" Rather it's "Don't let this be a cause of despair." The priesthood is not the be all and end all of relationship with God--and relationship with God is what matters.
A reader asks:
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
By the way, prayers for the good people of Houston and everybody else in Rita's way. Prayers especially for Bill Cork, who is currently fleeing to high ground. God of Mercy, protect those in harm's way and keep their property safe from destruction, through Christ our Lord, who rebuked the winds and they obey him.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for those who have most need of your prayers.
I have a colleague who works in our Houston, TX office. She is protestant but is forming a genuine bond with the Catholic faith. She has been searching for a church and I suggested to her a Catholic one. The problem is, I do not know of a solidly catholic church down there. Would any of your readers have a suggestion?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
By the way, prayers for the good people of Houston and everybody else in Rita's way. Prayers especially for Bill Cork, who is currently fleeing to high ground. God of Mercy, protect those in harm's way and keep their property safe from destruction, through Christ our Lord, who rebuked the winds and they obey him.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for those who have most need of your prayers.
A reader writes me about "the wrong Church"
You know, you're right. I'm sick of belonging to a Church whose members sin. I'm ready to leave and ask Jesus to help me come out of her and be separate, touching no unclean thing. Could you please direct me to a Church where nobody sins? Is it your Church? If so, then I take it you are sinless (since you are a member of it). And if your *are* sinless, then what's your secret? How do you deal with it when Scripture says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:8-10). That passage has always stumped me. It's like the Word is saying we're *arrogant* or something if we claim to be without sin. But that can't be what it really means since you belong to a sinless Church and *you're* not arrogant.
Please help me understand all this, because I'm itching to get out of this messed-up Church with sinners in it and into the Right Church: namely, the church without sinners that you belong to, gentle reader.
Can it be more evident that the catholic church is exactly what the Bible says it is in Revelation 17?
Read the latest adventures of your child molesting sodomite priest hood.
Come out of her, repent and ask Jesus Christ to save you once and for all.
You know, you're right. I'm sick of belonging to a Church whose members sin. I'm ready to leave and ask Jesus to help me come out of her and be separate, touching no unclean thing. Could you please direct me to a Church where nobody sins? Is it your Church? If so, then I take it you are sinless (since you are a member of it). And if your *are* sinless, then what's your secret? How do you deal with it when Scripture says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:8-10). That passage has always stumped me. It's like the Word is saying we're *arrogant* or something if we claim to be without sin. But that can't be what it really means since you belong to a sinless Church and *you're* not arrogant.
Please help me understand all this, because I'm itching to get out of this messed-up Church with sinners in it and into the Right Church: namely, the church without sinners that you belong to, gentle reader.
"We chose the name because we think Clinton is a symbol of success and a man of responsibility."
America continues its glorious cultural conquest of the world. Another Great Leap Forward as two nations who eat their young gaze across the Pacific at each other and see a beautiful bond of commonality emerging.
Deep calls to deep.
America continues its glorious cultural conquest of the world. Another Great Leap Forward as two nations who eat their young gaze across the Pacific at each other and see a beautiful bond of commonality emerging.
Deep calls to deep.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Good Morning! It's Day 7 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week
Supporting yer emphatically lower middle class scribe as he tries to do his apostolic thang is a good work. So make this pledge week go out with a real bang! The person to donate the largest amount today--Day 7--will get a free copy of whichever one of my books or audio recording you would like.
Of course, you can still buy my books and tapes too. And if you'd rather not do the PayPal thang, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
And remember! I'm available to speak!
Supporting yer emphatically lower middle class scribe as he tries to do his apostolic thang is a good work. So make this pledge week go out with a real bang! The person to donate the largest amount today--Day 7--will get a free copy of whichever one of my books or audio recording you would like.
Of course, you can still buy my books and tapes too. And if you'd rather not do the PayPal thang, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
And remember! I'm available to speak!
Tales of the Unexplained, Continued
Down below, A Philosopher confidently remarked "I know that there are no ghosts." He then listed off a laundry list of things like unicorns, vampires, zombies, alien abductions and leprechauns and said, in essence, that because these do not exist, ghosts don't either.
I replied, in part, "It does no good classifying spiritual phenomena with non-existent physical phenomena like unicorns. The way to show there are no unicorns or leprechauns is to examine the physical world and see if they are there. They're not. But how does this disprove the existence of a spiritual world or show that other "natures" besides our own do not exist and never interact with this one?"
I then repeated the question. How could anybody possibly "know" with certitude that ghosts do not exist? Philosopher replied: "I didn't say I knew for sure. I said I knew."
I have absolutely no idea how to parse that.
He continued, "I don't see why the physical/supernatural divide is particularly relevant; as far as I can tell my reasons for thinking that there are no vampires carry over entirely into my reasons for thinking that there are no ghosts. And the putative cataract of testimony actually seems to me to make the case the stronger, given that no actual useful evidence seems to emerge out of this abundance of cases."
I think the physical supernatural divide matters immensely. If somebody says "There are unicorns in England" you can go to England and search for them. But if somebody says, "Spirits of people in Purgatory, or damned devils pretending to be such, or glorious saints heaven periodically are permitted, for whatever reason, to bridge the gulf between this spatio-temporal realm and whatever new created order they now inhabit, how is somebody supposed to prove that claim false beyond the shadow of a doubt? Largely what we have to go on is human testimony. And when the testimony to haunting or an apparition is given, I apply the normal tests anybody would. Is the person making the claim given to delusion, or after a buck, or a fool, etc. Lots of candidates are eliminated this way. But I don't see the point of embracing a dogmatic materialism that simply refuses, a priori, to credit the testimony of, say, 70,000 eyewitnesses to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, or Rod Dreher's account of preternatural activity during an exorcism to which he was eyewitness. I think the open-minded thing to do is admit the possibility that there are other natures--other created orders--besides the universe we are familiar with and that sometimes these nature are allowed to come in contact by the Creator.
The funny thing is, this very hypothesis is put forward (minus that pesky annoying God Person) in the Many Worlds Hypothesis. It's a hypothesis specifically designed to try to figure out a way out of the Anthropic Principle. We live in a universe that is spectacularly (and suspiciously) fine tuned. So fine tuned, in fact, that atheist Anthony Flew had to finally--grudgingly--concede a limited, modifed hangout form of... grumble, grumble theism (dammit!) after struggling with the various points raised by Roy Abraham Varghese's fine book The Wonder of the World.
The human mind though, is infinitely creative in its search for escape hatches. So we get the Many Worlds Hypothesis, which tells us that this incredibly fine-tuned universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, all with varying laws of physics, universal constants and so forth. No Creator involved. Nothingness just hatched an infinite number of universes with an infinite combination of basic physical laws. We got lucky and wound up in one that works. Doubtless there are trillions of other universes with completely different sets of physical laws that also work, as well as trillions more that didn't work.
So what's the difference between positing created orders beyond ours in which, for instance, intelligences called "angels" may be found and the Many Worlds Hypothesis? Only this: the notion of a multi-tiered creation with room for angels, purgatory, and saints is ruthlessly dismissed as "mythology" or "superstition" because it has room for God. But a Many Worlds Hypothesis is warmly received as a rebuke to the provincial narrow-mindedness of the Anthropic Principle because it shuts out the need of a Creator and the highly suspicious fine-tuning of the universe (or so many of its proponents think).
In the same thread, another readers remarked, "When my little girl asked, worriedly, if there were such things as ghosts and witches, I told her confidently and truthfully that there are not. They are make-believe."
My question is, "Why?" Witches,unlike unicorns, can quickly be documented by a simple Google search. There are plenty of people who identify themselves as witches. So what is the point of saying they don't exist?
Of course, what the reader doubtless meant was, "There are no people who fly on broomsticks." True. But there are people who, quite consciously and with malice aforethought, seek to enter into covenant with fallen angelic powers. That too is quickly established by Googling "satanism". Whether those fallen angelic powers exist is a separate matter. But whether people seek such powers is not open to question. They do.
Now the existence of such powers is a fact testified to by the entire Catholic Tradition, beginning with our Lord himself. Science is utterly powerless to disprove this facet of revelation, so I don't understand why a believer would regard it as a fairy tale given that the only means we have to determine its reality--namely supernatural revelation--is loud and clear: the devil is real.
Similarly, I see no reason why--given such stories as Saul calling up the ghost of Samuel at the end of 1 Samuel, of the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the various well-attested apparitions of Our Lady--we as Catholics should be committed to the notion that appearances of the dead from time to time should all be rejected without trial as "fairy tales". This sort of dogmatism seems to me to spring from an unexamined philosophical prejudice, not from an impartial examination of the evidence.
As usual, I think Chesterton said it best:
Down below, A Philosopher confidently remarked "I know that there are no ghosts." He then listed off a laundry list of things like unicorns, vampires, zombies, alien abductions and leprechauns and said, in essence, that because these do not exist, ghosts don't either.
I replied, in part, "It does no good classifying spiritual phenomena with non-existent physical phenomena like unicorns. The way to show there are no unicorns or leprechauns is to examine the physical world and see if they are there. They're not. But how does this disprove the existence of a spiritual world or show that other "natures" besides our own do not exist and never interact with this one?"
I then repeated the question. How could anybody possibly "know" with certitude that ghosts do not exist? Philosopher replied: "I didn't say I knew for sure. I said I knew."
I have absolutely no idea how to parse that.
He continued, "I don't see why the physical/supernatural divide is particularly relevant; as far as I can tell my reasons for thinking that there are no vampires carry over entirely into my reasons for thinking that there are no ghosts. And the putative cataract of testimony actually seems to me to make the case the stronger, given that no actual useful evidence seems to emerge out of this abundance of cases."
I think the physical supernatural divide matters immensely. If somebody says "There are unicorns in England" you can go to England and search for them. But if somebody says, "Spirits of people in Purgatory, or damned devils pretending to be such, or glorious saints heaven periodically are permitted, for whatever reason, to bridge the gulf between this spatio-temporal realm and whatever new created order they now inhabit, how is somebody supposed to prove that claim false beyond the shadow of a doubt? Largely what we have to go on is human testimony. And when the testimony to haunting or an apparition is given, I apply the normal tests anybody would. Is the person making the claim given to delusion, or after a buck, or a fool, etc. Lots of candidates are eliminated this way. But I don't see the point of embracing a dogmatic materialism that simply refuses, a priori, to credit the testimony of, say, 70,000 eyewitnesses to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, or Rod Dreher's account of preternatural activity during an exorcism to which he was eyewitness. I think the open-minded thing to do is admit the possibility that there are other natures--other created orders--besides the universe we are familiar with and that sometimes these nature are allowed to come in contact by the Creator.
The funny thing is, this very hypothesis is put forward (minus that pesky annoying God Person) in the Many Worlds Hypothesis. It's a hypothesis specifically designed to try to figure out a way out of the Anthropic Principle. We live in a universe that is spectacularly (and suspiciously) fine tuned. So fine tuned, in fact, that atheist Anthony Flew had to finally--grudgingly--concede a limited, modifed hangout form of... grumble, grumble theism (dammit!) after struggling with the various points raised by Roy Abraham Varghese's fine book The Wonder of the World.
The human mind though, is infinitely creative in its search for escape hatches. So we get the Many Worlds Hypothesis, which tells us that this incredibly fine-tuned universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, all with varying laws of physics, universal constants and so forth. No Creator involved. Nothingness just hatched an infinite number of universes with an infinite combination of basic physical laws. We got lucky and wound up in one that works. Doubtless there are trillions of other universes with completely different sets of physical laws that also work, as well as trillions more that didn't work.
So what's the difference between positing created orders beyond ours in which, for instance, intelligences called "angels" may be found and the Many Worlds Hypothesis? Only this: the notion of a multi-tiered creation with room for angels, purgatory, and saints is ruthlessly dismissed as "mythology" or "superstition" because it has room for God. But a Many Worlds Hypothesis is warmly received as a rebuke to the provincial narrow-mindedness of the Anthropic Principle because it shuts out the need of a Creator and the highly suspicious fine-tuning of the universe (or so many of its proponents think).
In the same thread, another readers remarked, "When my little girl asked, worriedly, if there were such things as ghosts and witches, I told her confidently and truthfully that there are not. They are make-believe."
My question is, "Why?" Witches,unlike unicorns, can quickly be documented by a simple Google search. There are plenty of people who identify themselves as witches. So what is the point of saying they don't exist?
Of course, what the reader doubtless meant was, "There are no people who fly on broomsticks." True. But there are people who, quite consciously and with malice aforethought, seek to enter into covenant with fallen angelic powers. That too is quickly established by Googling "satanism". Whether those fallen angelic powers exist is a separate matter. But whether people seek such powers is not open to question. They do.
Now the existence of such powers is a fact testified to by the entire Catholic Tradition, beginning with our Lord himself. Science is utterly powerless to disprove this facet of revelation, so I don't understand why a believer would regard it as a fairy tale given that the only means we have to determine its reality--namely supernatural revelation--is loud and clear: the devil is real.
Similarly, I see no reason why--given such stories as Saul calling up the ghost of Samuel at the end of 1 Samuel, of the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the various well-attested apparitions of Our Lady--we as Catholics should be committed to the notion that appearances of the dead from time to time should all be rejected without trial as "fairy tales". This sort of dogmatism seems to me to spring from an unexamined philosophical prejudice, not from an impartial examination of the evidence.
As usual, I think Chesterton said it best:
Any one who likes... may call my belief in God merely mystical; the phrase is not worth fighting about. But my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism -- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence -- it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is -- that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Baffling interview with Vatican Astronomer
I like the guy, and I like his defense of the religious underpinnings of the scientific enterprise in the West. But I can't for the life of me understand what he means in some places. He appears to me to reject Vatican I's statement that God is knowable through reason. He sounds a little like Siger of Brabant, who posited a sort of "two truths" picture of the world that is very much with us. This view basically said that while I'm being a Catholic, I can affirm all that supernatural business. But then when I step out into the Real World, I could remember that all that supernatural stuff is just rubbish that I "choose to believe" for some subjective reason of my own. It's not actually real in the way that buses and thunderstorms and taxes are real. It's real as feelings and moods and comforting fancies are real. And when the Creator of Heaven and Earth starts to bear too much resemblance to the more abstract and colorless Designing Intelligence, he (or it) must be firmly ushered back to the world of "my religious faith" and away from the Real World where scientists talk about real things.
That at least is all I can make of the mysterious remark, "The trouble with this idea of 'God's thumbprint' is, first of all, it denies the fact that it's ALL thumbprint."
Er, if Creation is all thumbprint (and I agree that it is), then what is the problem with the ID guys saying, "Here's a place where the thumbprint is particularly big and greasy and obvious." Why is that bad?
I'm also frankly surprised to hear him ask, "If you say it's all God's design, then what about evil in the world?" and then go on to advocate a sort of deistic model of a universe that God let fly, in which the freedom of creatures is the *opposite* of the providence and sovereignty of God. Indeed, it seems to veer rather strongly into the process theology view of God where the Almighty has no more idea than we do of how things are going to turn out. Hasn't this guy heard of St. Thomas?
So once again, I'm left very confused by the peculiar vehemence of the rejection of ID and with a strange sense of confusion about why it's okay to say Creation is "all thumbprint" but crazy crankinness to say, "Here's a place where the thumbprint is particularly obvious."
I like the guy, and I like his defense of the religious underpinnings of the scientific enterprise in the West. But I can't for the life of me understand what he means in some places. He appears to me to reject Vatican I's statement that God is knowable through reason. He sounds a little like Siger of Brabant, who posited a sort of "two truths" picture of the world that is very much with us. This view basically said that while I'm being a Catholic, I can affirm all that supernatural business. But then when I step out into the Real World, I could remember that all that supernatural stuff is just rubbish that I "choose to believe" for some subjective reason of my own. It's not actually real in the way that buses and thunderstorms and taxes are real. It's real as feelings and moods and comforting fancies are real. And when the Creator of Heaven and Earth starts to bear too much resemblance to the more abstract and colorless Designing Intelligence, he (or it) must be firmly ushered back to the world of "my religious faith" and away from the Real World where scientists talk about real things.
That at least is all I can make of the mysterious remark, "The trouble with this idea of 'God's thumbprint' is, first of all, it denies the fact that it's ALL thumbprint."
Er, if Creation is all thumbprint (and I agree that it is), then what is the problem with the ID guys saying, "Here's a place where the thumbprint is particularly big and greasy and obvious." Why is that bad?
I'm also frankly surprised to hear him ask, "If you say it's all God's design, then what about evil in the world?" and then go on to advocate a sort of deistic model of a universe that God let fly, in which the freedom of creatures is the *opposite* of the providence and sovereignty of God. Indeed, it seems to veer rather strongly into the process theology view of God where the Almighty has no more idea than we do of how things are going to turn out. Hasn't this guy heard of St. Thomas?
Whether all things are subject to the Divine government?
Objection 1. It would seem that not all things are subject to the Divine government. For it is written (Eccles. 9:11): "I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skillful, but time and chance in all." But things subject to the Divine government are not ruled by chance. Therefore those things which are under the sun are not subject to the Divine government.
Objection 2. Further, the Apostle says (1 Cor. 9:9): "God hath no care for oxen." But he that governs has care for the things he governs. Therefore all things are not subject to the Divine government.
Objection 3. Further, what can govern itself needs not to be governed by another. But the rational creature can govern itself; since it is master of its own act, and acts of itself; and is not made to act by another, which seems proper to things which are governed. Therefore all things are not subject to the Divine government.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 11): "Not only heaven and earth, not only man and angel, even the bowels of the lowest animal, even the wing of the bird, the flower of the plant, the leaf of the tree, hath God endowed with every fitting detail of their nature." Therefore all things are subject to His government.
I answer that, For the same reason is God the ruler of things as He is their cause, because the same gives existence as gives perfection; and this belongs to government. Now God is the cause not indeed only of some particular kind of being, but of the whole universal being, as proved above (44, 1,2). Wherefore, as there can be nothing which is not created by God, so there can be nothing which is not subject to His government. This can also be proved from the nature of the end of government. For a man's government extends over all those things which come under the end of his government. Now the end of the Divine government is the Divine goodness; as we have shown (2). Wherefore, as there can be nothing that is not ordered to the Divine goodness as its end, as is clear from what we have said above (44, 4; 65, 2), so it is impossible for anything to escape from the Divine government.
Foolish therefore was the opinion of those who said that the corruptible lower world, or individual things, or that even human affairs, were not subject to the Divine government. These are represented as saying, "God hath abandoned the earth" (Ezech. 9:9).
Reply to Objection 1. These things are said to be under the sun which are generated and corrupted according to the sun's movement. In all such things we find chance: not that everything is casual which occurs in such things; but that in each one there is an element of chance. And the very fact that an element of chance is found in those things proves that they are subject to government of some kind. For unless corruptible things were governed by a higher being, they would tend to nothing definite, especially those which possess no kind of knowledge. So nothing would happen unintentionally; which constitutes the nature of chance. Wherefore to show how things happen by chance and yet according to the ordering of a higher cause, he does not say absolutely that he observes chance in all things, but "time and chance," that is to say, that defects may be found in these things according to some order of time.
Reply to Objection 2. Government implies a certain change effected by the governor in the things governed. Now every movement is the act of a movable thing, caused by the moving principle, as is laid down Phys. iii, 3. And every act is proportionate to that of which it is an act. Consequently, various movable things must be moved variously, even as regards movement by one and the same mover. Thus by the one art of the Divine governor, various things are variously governed according to their variety. Some, according to their nature, act of themselves, having dominion over their actions; and these are governed by God, not only in this, that they are moved by God Himself, Who works in them interiorly; but also in this, that they are induced by Him to do good and to fly from evil, by precepts and prohibitions, rewards and punishments. But irrational creatures which do not act but are acted upon, are not thus governed by God. Hence, when the Apostle says that "God hath no care for oxen," he does not wholly withdraw them from the Divine government, but only as regards the way in which rational creatures are governed.
Reply to Objection 3. The rational creature governs itself by its intellect and will, both of which require to be governed and perfected by the Divine intellect and will. Therefore above the government whereby the rational creature governs itself as master of its own act, it requires to be governed by God.
So once again, I'm left very confused by the peculiar vehemence of the rejection of ID and with a strange sense of confusion about why it's okay to say Creation is "all thumbprint" but crazy crankinness to say, "Here's a place where the thumbprint is particularly obvious."
Speaking of which...
Amy continues her ongoing coverage the Great Enema. Today's chapter takes us to Philadelphia, where the same weary story plays out and the episcopacy makes FEMA look like a juggernaut of ruthless efficiency, competence and honesty.
Amy continues her ongoing coverage the Great Enema. Today's chapter takes us to Philadelphia, where the same weary story plays out and the episcopacy makes FEMA look like a juggernaut of ruthless efficiency, competence and honesty.
Show Me a Culture That Despises Virginity and I'll Show you a Culture that Despises Children
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg labors to create a world safe for abusive priests.
Who knew the priests who were "pursuing relationships" with 12 year olds were simply on the cutting edge of progressive thought?
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg labors to create a world safe for abusive priests.
Who knew the priests who were "pursuing relationships" with 12 year olds were simply on the cutting edge of progressive thought?
America Continues its March...
...to becoming a country where gays have the right to order people to violate their consciences and Christians have the right to be punished if they obey their conscience. That's called "freedom" doncha know.
Sweet land of liberty!
...to becoming a country where gays have the right to order people to violate their consciences and Christians have the right to be punished if they obey their conscience. That's called "freedom" doncha know.
Sweet land of liberty!
The Blessed Mother really gets around
If she's not appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich, she's turning up in a waterstain under a freeway overpass or in somebody's sonogram.
I looked and looked, but couldn't see her. Perhaps somebody with a more pious imagination will do better.
If she's not appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich, she's turning up in a waterstain under a freeway overpass or in somebody's sonogram.
I looked and looked, but couldn't see her. Perhaps somebody with a more pious imagination will do better.
I've always thought the Shroud was genuine
This person thinks so too. She comes dangerously close to fulfilling Disputations' Law of Theophysical Asininity with statements like "A heretofore unknown interface acted as an event horizon" (meaning "Something we don't understand put the image on the cloth"). But she manages to avoid that fate by drawing physical rather than theological conclusions from this murky New Age lingo.
This person thinks so too. She comes dangerously close to fulfilling Disputations' Law of Theophysical Asininity with statements like "A heretofore unknown interface acted as an event horizon" (meaning "Something we don't understand put the image on the cloth"). But she manages to avoid that fate by drawing physical rather than theological conclusions from this murky New Age lingo.
Cardinal Ratzinger on evolutionary theory
The longer I look at it, the more it seems to me that both sides in this dispute are playing perfectly reasonable games of connect-the-dots. I will try to elaborate more on this anon.
Has the last word been spoken? Have Christianity and reason permanently parted company? There is no getting around the dispute about the extent of the claims of the doctrine of evolution as a fundamental philosophy and about the exclusive validity of the positive method as the sole indicator of systematic knowledge and of rationality. This dispute has therefore to be approached objectively and with a willingness to listen, by both sides -- something that has hitherto been undertaken only to a limited extent. No one will be able to cast serious doubt upon the scientific evidence for micro-evolutionary processes...
Within the teaching about evolution itself, the problem emerges at the point of transition from micro to macro-evolution, on which point Szathmary and Maynard Smith, both convinced supporters of an all-embracing theory of evolution, nonetheless declare that: "There is no theoretical basis for believing that evolutionary lines become more complex with time; and there is also no empirical evidence that this happens."
The question that has now to be put certainly delves deeper: it is whether the theory of evolution can be presented as a universal theory concerning all reality, beyond which further questions about the origin and the nature of things are no longer admissible and indeed no longer necessary, or whether such ultimate questions do not after all go beyond the realm of what can be entirely the object of research and knowledge by natural science. I should like to put the question in still more concrete form. Has everything been said with the kind of answer that we find thus formulated by Popper: "Life as we know it consists of physical 'bodies' (more precisely, structures) which are problem solving. This the various species have 'learned' by natural selection, that is to say by the method of reproduction plus variation, which itself has been learned by the same method. This regress is not necessarily infinite." I do not think so. In the end this concerns a choice that can no longer be made on purely scientific grounds or basically on philosophical grounds.
The question is whether reason, or rationality, stands at the beginning of all things and is grounded in the basis of all things or not. The question is whether reality originated on the basis of chance and necessity (or, as Popper says, in agreement with Butler, on the basis of luck and cunning) and, thus, from what is irrational; that is, whether reason, being a chance by-product of irrationality and floating in an ocean of irrationality, is ultimately just as meaningless; or whether the principle that represents the fundamental conviction of Christian faith and of its philosophy remains true: "In principio erat Verbum" -- at the beginning of all things stands the creative power of reason. Now as then, Christian faith represents the choice in favor of the priority of reason and of rationality. This ultimate question, as we have already said, can no longer be decided by arguments from natural science, and even philosophical thought reaches its limits here. In that sense, there is no ultimate demonstration that the basic choice involved in Christianity is correct. Yet, can reason really renounce its claim to the priority of what is rational over the irrational, the claim that the Logos is at the ultimate origin of things, without abolishing itself?
The longer I look at it, the more it seems to me that both sides in this dispute are playing perfectly reasonable games of connect-the-dots. I will try to elaborate more on this anon.
A reader writes:
I'm not sure what my reader is troubled by. As a general rule, I wouldn't make Christian Mockery 101 a subject for Catholic high school students since so many students don't know how to read critically (witness the success of The Da Vinci Code with a theologically illiterate American public). But on the other hand, I *can* see circumstances where an anti-Catholic text would be a fit object for study, provided the teacher was there to point out the holes in the argument, the emotional manipulation, and/or dishonesty of the book. One of the principal ways we know what ancient critics of the Faith said was because the Church Fathers quoted them at length (whether in Contra Celsus or the Summa) before refuting them.
The Catholic high school where I teach is grappling with guidelines for
readings assigned by the English department. If you have time or if you would
just be willing to post on your blog, I would be interested in others' comments
about the rough draft below. I personally have problems with it, especially
the last item. Any idea?
*It is not necessary for a literary work to pass every test for it to be
deemed appropriate.
* Does this work help the reader cope with a fear or fears?
* Does this book help one to cope with the realities of life?
* Does it awaken good longings within us?
* Does it cause one to not only look at the work but then to look
through it to real life?
* What is the literary value of this work?
* Does the book cause one to gain sympathy for a cause that is clearly
opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church?
* Is this a literary work with which an educated person should and
would be familiar?
* Is there balance in the reading selections in my class between the
dark realities of our culture and the hopefulness of our faith?
* Is there a moral redeeming value to this book?
* Is the violence and/or sexual content in this work age appropriate
and not merely gratuitous?
Does the author of this work openly defy, mock, or reject the Christian
faith in a subtle or flagrant manner that encourages the reader to do the same?
(If so, the assignment should not be made without guidance from your class;
therefore, it would be inappropriate for summer reading.)
I'm not sure what my reader is troubled by. As a general rule, I wouldn't make Christian Mockery 101 a subject for Catholic high school students since so many students don't know how to read critically (witness the success of The Da Vinci Code with a theologically illiterate American public). But on the other hand, I *can* see circumstances where an anti-Catholic text would be a fit object for study, provided the teacher was there to point out the holes in the argument, the emotional manipulation, and/or dishonesty of the book. One of the principal ways we know what ancient critics of the Faith said was because the Church Fathers quoted them at length (whether in Contra Celsus or the Summa) before refuting them.
Fair enough
Both Kevin Miller and Greg Popcak disagree with me. I can see their point and think I was too hasty in my dismissal of the rector's comment.
Both Kevin Miller and Greg Popcak disagree with me. I can see their point and think I was too hasty in my dismissal of the rector's comment.
Alas, Alack and Welladaye!
Barb Nicolosi puts her blog on hiatus.
Actually, the correct title is "Holy Roman Emperor". But we shall be clement seeing as you are engaged in fruitful apostolic works, Barb.
By the way, the breakfast with Barb the other day was a boodle of fun. She is not what you would call a shrinking violet. She is delightfully brash and blunt--the genuine article and the sort of person who does not register at all on my Inner BS-O-Meter. She speaks her mind, is very funny, very knowledgeable of her craft and a very determined apostle for Christ. I liked her a lot and look forward to the next time she is in town. I also look forward to her book!
Thanks for a fun visit, Barb! And your talk on Thursday night was a blast!
Barb Nicolosi puts her blog on hiatus.
I remember when Mark Shea went on a blog hiatus to write his book, I thought, 'I could write my book without stopping the blog........ Well, that just shows why Mark is the wise sovereign of all blogdom.
Actually, the correct title is "Holy Roman Emperor". But we shall be clement seeing as you are engaged in fruitful apostolic works, Barb.
By the way, the breakfast with Barb the other day was a boodle of fun. She is not what you would call a shrinking violet. She is delightfully brash and blunt--the genuine article and the sort of person who does not register at all on my Inner BS-O-Meter. She speaks her mind, is very funny, very knowledgeable of her craft and a very determined apostle for Christ. I liked her a lot and look forward to the next time she is in town. I also look forward to her book!
Thanks for a fun visit, Barb! And your talk on Thursday night was a blast!
Tales of the Unexplained
I don't buy the connection between Revelations and Katrina. But I don't have any particular reason to doubt the soldiers' experiences with the ghosts. New Orleans has a long, dark history with the occult.
I don't buy the connection between Revelations and Katrina. But I don't have any particular reason to doubt the soldiers' experiences with the ghosts. New Orleans has a long, dark history with the occult.
Compare and contrast
Fr. Dick "Where's my collar?" McBrien simultaneously sniffs at the Wrong Sort of People while affecting his Man of the People[TM] persona.
Not everybody can be a Populist Snob. McBrien demonstrates how to fail in the attempt.
Fr. Dick "Where's my collar?" McBrien simultaneously sniffs at the Wrong Sort of People while affecting his Man of the People[TM] persona.
Not everybody can be a Populist Snob. McBrien demonstrates how to fail in the attempt.
The Bush Administration Continues to Keep us Safe
Chronic Bush-hater John Podhoretz also notes some of the difficulties currently plaguing the the Administration and politely suggests that chalking it all up to a spiteful MSM is less than helpful.
Chronic Bush-hater John Podhoretz also notes some of the difficulties currently plaguing the the Administration and politely suggests that chalking it all up to a spiteful MSM is less than helpful.
Amy Welborn Get a Promotion!
She's graduated to arch-conservative because she agrees with the teaching of the Church.
This tidbit emerges in the midst of Andrew Sullivan's ongoing cow-having session over Rome's prudential judgment not to admit men to the seminaries if they are battling homosexual temptation. As this graphic scientifically demonstrates, Sullivan is currently:
As I noted last week, the sacrament under discussion here is Holy Orders not Baptism, Confirmation, or Eucharist. But you'd never know it from reading Sullivan. The way Andy tells it, you'd swear Benedict was ordering all people with homosexual temptations out of the Church--and possibly into concentration camps--not simply saying, "We think it would be a reasonable idea not to put the parish AA group in charge of buying the communion wine."
As a man who is just as barred from the priesthood as any person with homosexual temptation (because Rome likewise deems that my situation as a married man would interfere with the task of the priesthood), I continue to agree with Arch-Conservative Amy that *nobody*, gay or straight, should look at the priesthood either as a civil right or as a vehicle for working out their personal issues. It is a sacrament ordered to the service of the Eucharist.
By the way, as a layperson who does not feel himself to be thereby be half a Catholic, I would also add that the breathtaking clericalism which equates "being a priest" with "being a member of the Catholic Church" says volumes about Sullivan's stunning ignorance of the Catholic Faith. A layperson with SSA who lives a holy life is called a saint, and that's way more important than being a priest.
She's graduated to arch-conservative because she agrees with the teaching of the Church.
This tidbit emerges in the midst of Andrew Sullivan's ongoing cow-having session over Rome's prudential judgment not to admit men to the seminaries if they are battling homosexual temptation. As this graphic scientifically demonstrates, Sullivan is currently:
As I noted last week, the sacrament under discussion here is Holy Orders not Baptism, Confirmation, or Eucharist. But you'd never know it from reading Sullivan. The way Andy tells it, you'd swear Benedict was ordering all people with homosexual temptations out of the Church--and possibly into concentration camps--not simply saying, "We think it would be a reasonable idea not to put the parish AA group in charge of buying the communion wine."
As a man who is just as barred from the priesthood as any person with homosexual temptation (because Rome likewise deems that my situation as a married man would interfere with the task of the priesthood), I continue to agree with Arch-Conservative Amy that *nobody*, gay or straight, should look at the priesthood either as a civil right or as a vehicle for working out their personal issues. It is a sacrament ordered to the service of the Eucharist.
By the way, as a layperson who does not feel himself to be thereby be half a Catholic, I would also add that the breathtaking clericalism which equates "being a priest" with "being a member of the Catholic Church" says volumes about Sullivan's stunning ignorance of the Catholic Faith. A layperson with SSA who lives a holy life is called a saint, and that's way more important than being a priest.
Here's my latest at Catholic Exchange
In case anyone wonders, "Greg" is not Greg Krehbiel. The names have been changed to protect the confused.
In case anyone wonders, "Greg" is not Greg Krehbiel. The names have been changed to protect the confused.
Good Morning! It's Day 6 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week
We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, exterminator, plumber, IRS collector, kids and mortgage really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have two more days to go and can use much more oomph as we approach the finish line!
Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and eight year old Sean get his cavities filled. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
Today's your day. All this week, other people have been pitching in to help out. Now the little angel on your shoulder (you know the one that looks just like you with the little tinfoil halo?) is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!"
Remember, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get a piddly amount. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, exterminator, plumber, IRS collector, kids and mortgage really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have two more days to go and can use much more oomph as we approach the finish line!
Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and eight year old Sean get his cavities filled. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
Today's your day. All this week, other people have been pitching in to help out. Now the little angel on your shoulder (you know the one that looks just like you with the little tinfoil halo?) is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!"
Remember, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get a piddly amount. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
A worthy cause
A reader writes:
A reader writes:
Please pray with us as we work to free minors who are held against their will in prostitution in brothels in India.
More information is available at: http://www.restoreinternational.org/
Darwin and Wittgenstein
A reader sends this along:
A reader sends this along:
The debate on your blog seems to raise questions of Philosophy of Science.
I thought you might find the following quote provocative. I posted it in a
comment box. At least it shows that one isn't a blithering idiot to look at
Darwin's theory and wonder "why"?
Thus, I would offer up this quote of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous 20th
century philosopher of logic, language and science. It comes from student
notes taken during his lectures at Cambridge. He was discussing one of his pet
peeves – the “charms” of theories. He felt they could literally “cast a
spell”. His target was often mathematical theories (“pure math”), but he
would discuss many examples. In this excerpt he is discussing Darwinism:The Darwin upheaval. One circle of admirers who said: “Of course”, and
another circle [of enemies] who said: “Of course not”. Why in the Hell should a
man say “of course”?(The idea is that of monocellular organisms becoming
more and more complicated until they became mammals men, etc.) Did anyone see
this process happening? No. Has anyone seen it happening now? No. The
evidence of breeding is just a drop in the bucket. But there were thousands of
books in which this was said to be the obvious solution. People were certain
on grounds which were extremely thin. Couldn’t there have been an attitude
which said: “I don’t know. It is an interesting hypothesis which may
eventually be well confirmed.” But people were immensely attracted by the unity of
the theory, by the single principle- which was taken to be the obvious
solution. The certainty (“of course”) was created by the enormous charm of this
unity. People could have said “…perhaps sometime we shall find grounds.” But
hardly anyone said this; they were either sure that it was so, or sure that
it was not so. This shows how you can be persuaded of a certain thing. In
the end you forget entirely every question of verification, you are just sure
it must have been like that.
From Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious
Belief, page 26.
My last post reminds me...
Since I've spent so much time annoying people this week, I thought I'd ask a simple question:
What (or who) is it you enjoy about being Catholic?
I find it hard to pin down, because there's so much I enjoy. I like the humanness of the place. I like belonging to a communion of slobs like me (a big relief when you are coming from a tradition whose emphasis on holiness takes on a sort of quasi-Darwinian quality).
I like the balance. I like the breadth. I like the Dickensian love of *characters* that the Church has. The Church has a soft spot for kooks. I like the ability the Church has to love Nature without worshipping it. I love the coolness of the Blessed Sacrament sanctuary on a hot day. I love the warmth of the sanctuary on a cold night in winter. I love being able to take my sins to confession and then forget about them. I love meals in common with our friends. I love that sex is a sacrament. I love that eating is a sacrament. I loved the sound of my friend's voice the morning he made his first confession and I asked him how it went: "I feel.... clean!" he said. I love being able to pray for my Dad, who has been dead for 20 years. I love that Chaucer was Catholic. I love being able to say that the smell of salt air on Puget Sound is what the freedom of the Spirit is like, and knowing that there is a real sacramental connection there and not simply a subjective projection on the idiotic face of matter.
I could go on but... what do you love?
Since I've spent so much time annoying people this week, I thought I'd ask a simple question:
What (or who) is it you enjoy about being Catholic?
I find it hard to pin down, because there's so much I enjoy. I like the humanness of the place. I like belonging to a communion of slobs like me (a big relief when you are coming from a tradition whose emphasis on holiness takes on a sort of quasi-Darwinian quality).
I like the balance. I like the breadth. I like the Dickensian love of *characters* that the Church has. The Church has a soft spot for kooks. I like the ability the Church has to love Nature without worshipping it. I love the coolness of the Blessed Sacrament sanctuary on a hot day. I love the warmth of the sanctuary on a cold night in winter. I love being able to take my sins to confession and then forget about them. I love meals in common with our friends. I love that sex is a sacrament. I love that eating is a sacrament. I loved the sound of my friend's voice the morning he made his first confession and I asked him how it went: "I feel.... clean!" he said. I love being able to pray for my Dad, who has been dead for 20 years. I love that Chaucer was Catholic. I love being able to say that the smell of salt air on Puget Sound is what the freedom of the Spirit is like, and knowing that there is a real sacramental connection there and not simply a subjective projection on the idiotic face of matter.
I could go on but... what do you love?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Perry Lorenzo at Blessed Sacrament!
For those of you in the Western Washington area, here's a real treat! Perry Lorenzo is the Education Director for the Seattle Opera. His lectures are absolutely fascinating and fun (and a guy who can make opera interesting to me is one gifted teacher). But he doesn't just talk about opera. He's also a very gifted teacher on things Catholic. Last year I heard him give a terrific lecture on Lewis and Tolkien and this October, for three Mondays in a row, he will be speaking at my own beloved home parish, Blessed Sacrament, in Seattle.
Topic: Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Don't miss it if you can! Check our bulletin (warning evil PDF format) for details.
Lorenzo is one of the people I think of when people ask my why I like being Catholic so much.
Update: Lorenzo has a blog!
For those of you in the Western Washington area, here's a real treat! Perry Lorenzo is the Education Director for the Seattle Opera. His lectures are absolutely fascinating and fun (and a guy who can make opera interesting to me is one gifted teacher). But he doesn't just talk about opera. He's also a very gifted teacher on things Catholic. Last year I heard him give a terrific lecture on Lewis and Tolkien and this October, for three Mondays in a row, he will be speaking at my own beloved home parish, Blessed Sacrament, in Seattle.
Topic: Hans Urs von Balthasar.
Don't miss it if you can! Check our bulletin (warning evil PDF format) for details.
Lorenzo is one of the people I think of when people ask my why I like being Catholic so much.
Update: Lorenzo has a blog!
A reader asks
In the words of Mark Twain: "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly: 'I don't know.'"
For myself I tend to empathize strong with the Eastern approach to such questions here and say, "It's a mystery." There have been times in the past when I have felt I was "carrying" somebody else with the help of the Holy Spirit. And I'm familiar with the phenomenon of "victim souls". Padre Pio, for instance, bore the stigmata of Christ his life long in a conscious sacrificial offering for others. But how all that "works" is beyond me. I simply note that it seems to be at the heart of the gospel and of our walk as disciples that we are to "fill up what is lacking with regard to the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church." (Col 1:24).
C.S. Lewis once remarked of the atonement that it was like vitamin theory. For thousands of years, people ate their dinners and felt better. Then they discovered vitamins and people still eat their dinners and feel better. If, tomorrow, they prove vitamins don't exist, people will go on eating their dinners and feeling better. In the same way, people have interceded and sacrificed for one another since the beginning of the Church. Somebody (not me) may come up with a dandy theory of how it all works and people will go on praying and sacrificing for each other. And if the dandy theory is debunked the prayer and sacrifice will continue.
I, in the meantime, will only know that it matters, not how it works. Sorry!
Something has been bugging me - a Catholic theology question, really - that I can't seem to find the answer to.
IF you get a chance, and think it's something you want to give time to, I was hoping that you might try to answer this on your blog.
As you know, some folks are saying that Hurricane Katrina was a purification sent by God because of sins such as abortion. Such stuff irritates me to no end because I think that they CAN'T definitively know what God is thinking. But it got me wondering about suffering in general. I know the Church says that through suffering we participate in Christ's saving work. Is "participation in the saving work of Jesus" the same thing as "taking on the punishment of the sins of other people"? In other words, would those who believe that Katrina was a deliberate purification sent by God be wrong about the idea that innocent people had to die in such a scenario because Christ already took on the punishment for the sins of everyone for all time? Can God directly punish the innocent for the sins of others even though the Perfectly Innocent already did that 2,000 years ago? Or is Church teaching about suffering only talking about the meaning of suffering in general?
I hope this makes sense. I'm having a really hard time grasping this whole thing...
Thanks for any time you might give these questions.
In the words of Mark Twain: "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly: 'I don't know.'"
For myself I tend to empathize strong with the Eastern approach to such questions here and say, "It's a mystery." There have been times in the past when I have felt I was "carrying" somebody else with the help of the Holy Spirit. And I'm familiar with the phenomenon of "victim souls". Padre Pio, for instance, bore the stigmata of Christ his life long in a conscious sacrificial offering for others. But how all that "works" is beyond me. I simply note that it seems to be at the heart of the gospel and of our walk as disciples that we are to "fill up what is lacking with regard to the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church." (Col 1:24).
C.S. Lewis once remarked of the atonement that it was like vitamin theory. For thousands of years, people ate their dinners and felt better. Then they discovered vitamins and people still eat their dinners and feel better. If, tomorrow, they prove vitamins don't exist, people will go on eating their dinners and feeling better. In the same way, people have interceded and sacrificed for one another since the beginning of the Church. Somebody (not me) may come up with a dandy theory of how it all works and people will go on praying and sacrificing for each other. And if the dandy theory is debunked the prayer and sacrifice will continue.
I, in the meantime, will only know that it matters, not how it works. Sorry!
Praise be to Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, for his Sensible and Sane Son, Jimmy Akin
I offer my prayer through Issa ibn Miryam, Our Lord, Allah's only begotten Son.
I offer my prayer through Issa ibn Miryam, Our Lord, Allah's only begotten Son.
Good Morning! It's Day 5 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week
Has this blog been a source of good for you that you can't find anywhere else? Then please consider a gift to and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and our kids get fed, dentalficated, and so forth. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
To all who have given and/or bought my wares: THANKS! From the bottom of my heart, THANKS! To those who have not yet contributed to the Pledge Drive: Don't think somebody else will do it. Lots of people thought that yesterday. So help my pledge drive go out with a bang, not a whimper. I promise, no more mention of money stuff for three months after Pledge Week ends on Thursday.
By the way, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get about a nickel. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
And don't forget: I'm available to come speak to your parish or other Catholic gathering. Need a referral on whether hiring me is a good bet? Ask Fr. Phil Bloom!
I've got essays to write today, so I'll be scarce, but will check in.
Has this blog been a source of good for you that you can't find anywhere else? Then please consider a gift to and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and our kids get fed, dentalficated, and so forth. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
To all who have given and/or bought my wares: THANKS! From the bottom of my heart, THANKS! To those who have not yet contributed to the Pledge Drive: Don't think somebody else will do it. Lots of people thought that yesterday. So help my pledge drive go out with a bang, not a whimper. I promise, no more mention of money stuff for three months after Pledge Week ends on Thursday.
By the way, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get about a nickel. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
And don't forget: I'm available to come speak to your parish or other Catholic gathering. Need a referral on whether hiring me is a good bet? Ask Fr. Phil Bloom!
I've got essays to write today, so I'll be scarce, but will check in.
Tell me again that dogmatic materialism and atheism are not part and parcel of the Darwinian worldview
Darwin certainly seems to have that impression.
And note the agitprop words used to describe this worldview: "Bold!" "steely intellect" "brave".
The LA Times continues this little catechetical instruction in Heroic Clear-Eyed Materialism with this homily from James Watson:
Watson, when you boil it all down, is once again making the only other argument one can make against the existence of God besides the problem of evil: namely, "Nature seems to work fine without God, so there's no God."
What puzzles me, however, is why folks who scream at the top of their lungs about ID's sinister intrusions in the sacred realm of Science with their theological and philosophical claims are not screaming equally loud about Watson's far more dogmatic intrusions of materialism and atheism into that same realm. To the unschooled observer, it's hard to avoid the impression that there is a strong bias in favor of excusing Watson's dogmatic pronouncements and a hyper-sensitivity toward the danger of acknowledging the possibility of theism. It's almost as though they agree with Darwin that philosophical materialism and atheism are part and parcel of Darwinism or something.
Darwin certainly seems to have that impression.
And note the agitprop words used to describe this worldview: "Bold!" "steely intellect" "brave".
The LA Times continues this little catechetical instruction in Heroic Clear-Eyed Materialism with this homily from James Watson:
We can only hope that a time will soon come when rational, skeptical thought renders the creationists’ stories as what they are — myths.
One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural, and it was a lesson that my father passed on to me, that knowledge liberates mankind from superstition. We can live our lives without the constant fear that we have offended this or that deity who must be placated by incantation or sacrifice, or that we are at the mercy of devils or the Fates.
Watson, when you boil it all down, is once again making the only other argument one can make against the existence of God besides the problem of evil: namely, "Nature seems to work fine without God, so there's no God."
What puzzles me, however, is why folks who scream at the top of their lungs about ID's sinister intrusions in the sacred realm of Science with their theological and philosophical claims are not screaming equally loud about Watson's far more dogmatic intrusions of materialism and atheism into that same realm. To the unschooled observer, it's hard to avoid the impression that there is a strong bias in favor of excusing Watson's dogmatic pronouncements and a hyper-sensitivity toward the danger of acknowledging the possibility of theism. It's almost as though they agree with Darwin that philosophical materialism and atheism are part and parcel of Darwinism or something.
Fr. Carr Delivers the Secret Handshake to a Fellow Member of the Universal Brotherhood of Podcasters
Speaking of which, here's today's Rock Solid.
Speaking of which, here's today's Rock Solid.
On the other hand, Dom's absolutely right here
You just knew the Lavender Mafia would attempt some lame excuses like this.
You just knew the Lavender Mafia would attempt some lame excuses like this.
Must be my week for disagreeing with Dom
Well, *semi*-disagreeing. I agree that we are a nation of hair-trigger wimps obsessed with our victimhood. But I still think this priest was a clueless chucklehead. If he'd tried that with my kid I'd have reamed him out.
Well, *semi*-disagreeing. I agree that we are a nation of hair-trigger wimps obsessed with our victimhood. But I still think this priest was a clueless chucklehead. If he'd tried that with my kid I'd have reamed him out.
Cindy Sheehan Continues to Demonstrate Truth of the Nancy Kerrigan Principle
Just because you're a victim doesn't mean you can't be a jerk too.
Just because you're a victim doesn't mean you can't be a jerk too.
The intuition of human experience that there is intelligent design in the universe is so overwhelming that only ideology would deny it a hearing alongside any other theories about the origin of life.
Complete nutter Bp. Wuerl joins irrational kook Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn, wild-eyed anti-intellectual Thomas Aquinas and pre-scientific boob Paul of Tarsus in pointing out the obvious.
I'm really not getting the attempts to say, "If you intuit design at work in the universe you are exactly the same as Robert Sungenis demanding we all believe geocentrism." That strikes me, frankly, as a rather cheap attempt to shout down discussion. I don't get it when I'm told "Chambers' beautiful passage has nothing to do with science. The Argument from Design is a perfectly legitimate and inspiring position from a human/common sense point of view. No one is questioning that (well, I'm not). But why do you keep suggesting that this is somehow a scientific conclusion?" That strikes me as an honest attempt to help me "get it" but as apparently hearing things I'm not trying to say.
I begin to suspect we're all talking past each other. Or that we none of us have very clear ideas of what we mean by "science" and "philosophy". FWIW, I haven't been arguing that ID is science so much as I have been arguing that it strikes me as common sense. For the life of me, I don't see ID saying anything different than what Chambers said. Yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, Chambers' epiphany is beautiful and ID is laughable. I don't get that. I'm not trying to be snarky here. I simply don't get what the problem is.
Complete nutter Bp. Wuerl joins irrational kook Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn, wild-eyed anti-intellectual Thomas Aquinas and pre-scientific boob Paul of Tarsus in pointing out the obvious.
I'm really not getting the attempts to say, "If you intuit design at work in the universe you are exactly the same as Robert Sungenis demanding we all believe geocentrism." That strikes me, frankly, as a rather cheap attempt to shout down discussion. I don't get it when I'm told "Chambers' beautiful passage has nothing to do with science. The Argument from Design is a perfectly legitimate and inspiring position from a human/common sense point of view. No one is questioning that (well, I'm not). But why do you keep suggesting that this is somehow a scientific conclusion?" That strikes me as an honest attempt to help me "get it" but as apparently hearing things I'm not trying to say.
I begin to suspect we're all talking past each other. Or that we none of us have very clear ideas of what we mean by "science" and "philosophy". FWIW, I haven't been arguing that ID is science so much as I have been arguing that it strikes me as common sense. For the life of me, I don't see ID saying anything different than what Chambers said. Yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, Chambers' epiphany is beautiful and ID is laughable. I don't get that. I'm not trying to be snarky here. I simply don't get what the problem is.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Good Day! It's Still Day 4 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week
In the past on this blog, you've gotten to hear discussions of the history of the Church in Eastern Europe after WWII, discuss Santa Claus and supernatural vacuums, and find out what "stroppy" and "chundering" meant. Meanwhile we Sheas are going to the dentist yet again to add to our whopping $4000 bill. So we are continue to be desperately short of money. Therefore, as you enjoy the convivial atmosphere of the comments boxes and the fruits of my scriptoriariaristic labor, please consider helping us out with a donation. It isn't everywhere you can promulgate your theories, discuss paragraph 841 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and watch the Blessed Virgin beat the Commies to the Moon!
Wouldn't you gasp with hideous sucking sobs of grief if you lost that? Dry your eyes and click on the PayPal button to the left and help C&EI stay on the air and our roofing bill get paid. You can actually, literally, help a Catholic father keep a roof over his kids heads as the cold weather sets in. Positively Dickensian!
You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes (autographed even!). Imagine the happy face of your loved one on Christmas morning: "Here dear, it's autographed by the author! Merry Christmas!" And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
I'll be scarce tomorrow, spending vast quantities on more dental bills and scrambling to write in order to makes some cash.
In the past on this blog, you've gotten to hear discussions of the history of the Church in Eastern Europe after WWII, discuss Santa Claus and supernatural vacuums, and find out what "stroppy" and "chundering" meant. Meanwhile we Sheas are going to the dentist yet again to add to our whopping $4000 bill. So we are continue to be desperately short of money. Therefore, as you enjoy the convivial atmosphere of the comments boxes and the fruits of my scriptoriariaristic labor, please consider helping us out with a donation. It isn't everywhere you can promulgate your theories, discuss paragraph 841 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and watch the Blessed Virgin beat the Commies to the Moon!
Wouldn't you gasp with hideous sucking sobs of grief if you lost that? Dry your eyes and click on the PayPal button to the left and help C&EI stay on the air and our roofing bill get paid. You can actually, literally, help a Catholic father keep a roof over his kids heads as the cold weather sets in. Positively Dickensian!
You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (something beyond this blog that you've come to love and depend on, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes (autographed even!). Imagine the happy face of your loved one on Christmas morning: "Here dear, it's autographed by the author! Merry Christmas!" And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
I'll be scarce tomorrow, spending vast quantities on more dental bills and scrambling to write in order to makes some cash.
And Yet One more Reason to Hate Television
Preying on the wounded and vulnerable. Loathsome. Utterly loathsome.
Preying on the wounded and vulnerable. Loathsome. Utterly loathsome.
Want to be a writer?
A real one, I mean. Not some ASCII-stained blogging wretch like me. Then submit your work to Dappled Things, a new journal of Catholic literature.
A real one, I mean. Not some ASCII-stained blogging wretch like me. Then submit your work to Dappled Things, a new journal of Catholic literature.
A Distant Thunder
It's an interesting new film about a botched partial birth abortion. After Abortion has the story.
It's an interesting new film about a botched partial birth abortion. After Abortion has the story.
Whittaker Chambers and Kathy Shaidle Endorse Intelligent Design Movement
Little did Chambers realize that in making that common sense observation he was teetering toward Sungenis territory and would have to be derided as a kook.
My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I like to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear -- those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: 'No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design.' The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.
Little did Chambers realize that in making that common sense observation he was teetering toward Sungenis territory and would have to be derided as a kook.
A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets...
On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still searching for the answers to life's difficult questions:Guy Noir Chris Johnson, Anglican Investigator.
On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still searching for the answers to life's difficult questions:
Geography Lesson
Dunno who cooked this bit of genius up, but I'm honored to have an entire coastline named after me.
Update: The genius is Oengus Moonbones
Hat tip: Christ-Haunted.
Dunno who cooked this bit of genius up, but I'm honored to have an entire coastline named after me.
Update: The genius is Oengus Moonbones
Hat tip: Christ-Haunted.
Please be as generous as you can on Day Four of the Quarterly Fund Drive
To those who have given: Thank YOU! We at Chez Shea deeply appreciate it!
To those who haven't yet: We're not out of the woods yet. If you like this blog, then please help me maintain it by making it possible for me to justify the time I spend writing it. Time spent here is time not spent writing for other publications. And that means it's time I'm not earning money we desperately need to pay the bills.
Please click on the PayPal button on the left rail. Or if you like just drop me an email and I'll give you my snail mail address.
If you want more for your money than simply a good blog, please consider ordering my books and tapes, or hiring me to come speak.
To those who have given: Thank YOU! We at Chez Shea deeply appreciate it!
To those who haven't yet: We're not out of the woods yet. If you like this blog, then please help me maintain it by making it possible for me to justify the time I spend writing it. Time spent here is time not spent writing for other publications. And that means it's time I'm not earning money we desperately need to pay the bills.
Please click on the PayPal button on the left rail. Or if you like just drop me an email and I'll give you my snail mail address.
If you want more for your money than simply a good blog, please consider ordering my books and tapes, or hiring me to come speak.