A friend's boyfriend's blog

I vaguely remember a quote from spaceballs:
"I'm your aunts, cousins, father's sister's uncle."
"What does that make us?"
"Nothing"
Then he throws him out of the spaceship.
Not so with Alex though, he's a good guy, check out his blog.
Peace,
Chris

The USSR vs. Islamo-facism

I think this comic does a good job pointing out that the Soviets were not always that rational/deterable etc, and also were a far greater threat than the current folk who are after us.
I read "The End of Faith" and "The Twilight of Atheism" recently. Both of them made me realize how frightening the USSR really was. TTOA says that 100,000,000 people were killed by the USSR. Sometimes we forget how atypical life in America is.
Peace,
Chris

"I want to bring to the attention of the British people that Dr. Brydon won't be returning to India this time."

Ayman al-Zawahiri is no Monty Python, but one has to admit, if what he was talking about wasn't the killing of British soldiers, it would be a rather funny statement.
Peace,
Chris

I now have permission to post about the wedding

And... all I can say off hand is that those two were obviously meant to be together. Congrats guys!
Peace,
Chris

The Temple of Reason

This Sam Harris fellow seems to be an Enlightenment junky, both in the Buddhist sense, and more to the point, in the sense of the historical time period by the same name. This means he is a Modernist of sorts. He views religion as, a dangerous thing filled with irrational absolutes that get in the way of the common good and tolerance, the single most divisive thing in existence, and consequently the major cause of suffering in the world.
To maintain these claims Mr. Harris paints religion with a very broad brush. He tends to define religion on one hand very stereotypically- for example, the threat of hell is the only motivator that forces believers to act morally- and on the other hand very generally- really each time he says religion he should be saying ideology.
He also assumes that at base religion is nothing more than experience (which one must admit is no small thing). He is obviously influenced by Varieties of Religious Experience a book that compiled a lot of different examples of religious experience. In fact, some who follow this line of thought believe that they have found the part of the brain that only needs to be stimulated and a religious experience will occur.
As a sort of side note this line of thinking about religious experience, specifically the universality of religious experience and mysticism, is one of the issues that bible literalists are dealing with when they rely on the infallibility of the text. After all if Christian mystics and Muslim mystics are having the same experiences then it is of paramount importance to establish what is actually from God and what is simply a phenomenon. Their solution is Biblicism.
While Harris’ stated goal is a world where everyone is tolerant, since religion is the main obstacle to tolerance, he seems rather intolerant himself (which he would freely admit). At one point he suggests that fundamentalists should be undercut at all costs, even forcing moderates (in this case Muslims) to go to war against them. He’s saying his utopian atheist world is desirable at pretty much any cost, including inciting civil war. That seems to me to be an irrational absolute.
Being a pre-modern post-critical moderate evangelical Lutheran I can’t agree with Harris. Being pre-modern I believe that myth (properly defined) isn’t a bad thing, narrative is, if nothing else, a more soulful way to express truth than Harris’ cold science. Being post-critical I must concede that Harris is reacting to the realities of a post-9/11 world and attempting to combat what he perceives as the latent cause of those terrorist acts and prevent even more deadly attacks, for that I laud him. Being post-critical I must also affirm that Harris is failing to understand the complexity of faith, the worldview of the believer, and that his stereotypes are little more than paper tigers burnt only to illumine his views, for that I shame him. Being moderate and Lutheran I am horrified by his callous disregard for human life as exemplified by his advocacy of civil war in the Muslim world. Being an Evangelical I feel, to quote Jim Wallis, "the proper way to combat bad theology is good theology, not no theology."
At the end of the day Mr. Harris is pointing out the fact that religion is awful, in the truest sense of the word. It is powerful, it is awe inspiring, it can make a man strap explosives and nuclear fissile material to his chest and blow himself up in a crowded place, or give up all his possessions and feed the hungry.

Where my parents are right now

So my parents are barreling through Canada. They just stopped at the Worlds Largest Mall (see pics above).
Peace,
Chris

Do Terrorists have day jobs?

Last night Jay Leno was making fun of the "American Terrorist" that has recently done a video attempting to compel America to convert to Islam. He said, since the guy is from Orange County he must be doing the tape in his mother's basement.
This got me to thinking about the logistics, relational as well as career wise that would be involved with being a Terrorist. Specifically is terrorism more a job, or a hobby. Is it a "Mild mannered reporter by day, Jihadist by night" sort of thing, or is UBL an economic sonser in more the think tank sense. That is does he provide enough money to terrorists that they are economically able to be a full time Jihadist?
Just some random thoughts.
Peace,
Chris

Descent

I have never seen as scary a movie as Descent. I wish I wasn’t living alone and it wasn’t nighttime right now! I’m literally shaking.
Descent is a horror movie about a group of women who go caving, get trapped in the cave, and find out they are not alone.
Yeah, it might sound rather typical (except that it is an all female cast) but it isn’t.
+++SPOILER WARNING+++



So. I’ve thought about the movie theologically as well. No big surprise there, that is kind of what I do. While Descent is no Pilgrim’s Progress I think there is a definite correlation between the physical descent of the women and their spiritual descent into violent depravity. At one point after the main character (Sarah) finds out one of her friends was killed (accidentally, but she doesn’t know this) by Juno, another of the women (who happens to have tricked the other women into going to this cave instead of another). Sarah then has to fight off one of the nocturnal humans (from now on designate as noc). She kills him, and then a female noc comes out and screams in sadness at the death of her mate. Sarah then gets into a life and death struggle in a pool of blood and mud (like some Mithrian baptism?), is submerged, and when she rises out of it becomes much more willing to kill.
Things get more and more gruesome until she and Juno reach an exit. They dispatch of what seem to be the three alpha nocs. Then Sarah does the unthinkable, she stabs Juno through the leg with her climbing pick and leaves her there as a horde of nocs come. And she escapes finds the Bronco and high tails it out of there. Then I think the last scene finally proves that this kind of descent, treachery and vengence, no matter how seemingly justified, doesn’t pay.
And now I’m going to sit up with all my lights on and read The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986 until I pass out on the couch. Hoping the Noc do not get me and devour me, or Sarah and Juno come and disembowel me in the night.
Peace,
Chris

The Foundation is up again

The September issue is roughly "How have we changed as a country since 9/11." Come on folk, send me some essays!
Peace,
Chris

Thatguy is back up

Remember my old friend Will from my KIDD creative writing class? Well, he's publishing his comic again!
Peace,
Chris

Two pictures of the Akedah

Check out these two pictures of the binding of Isaac, the subject I hope to write about this next year in Cambridge.
Icon
Art

Peace,
Chris

Alaska Pics

Interesting thing to note is the last picture. I'm standing in front of a "Petting Zoo." Nothing too wierd there, at least not for Americans, but the funny joke is that the only use of the word "petting" in British English is more akin to forplay than the act of rubbing Fido's belly.
Peace,
Chris

Bush=French?!?

Well, now that I'm an official anglophile I can call Bush a cheese eating surrender monkey... or something like that. Anyway, check out the Slate article.
Peace,
Chris
PS Unlike Bush I made my Yorky stand on her own two feet...

Gilgamesh vs. Abraham

I just finished reading an article about the Epic of Gilgamesh. At the end of the epic, before Gilgamesh talks with his dead clay/semi-human friend Enkidu, he learns from Utnapishtim, the Sumerian equivalent of Noah, that the gods won't give him immortality so he goes back to Uruk, his town he has left, and realizes, "If we mortals cannot have heaven, we can at least enjoy the comforts of our native city."
I think of Abraham, who did the opposite, left Ur and started out on the journey of Man with God, toward the eventual reintegration of the sacred and the secular, the mortal and the immortal... etc etc etc.
Peace,
Chris

My first Post-CC meeting answer to D+D questions

Well, I'm supposed to be all scholarly and such, so here are some "nuanced" answers to Kevin's D+D questions.

Hey all, here are the questions for tonight! Hope to see you all
there. Kevin.
P.S. Meet at 7:30 at espresso roma on 13th and Alder.
1) Who is Jesus?
2) What are the most important beliefs within Christianity?
3) Does Christianity lend itself to mixing with other religions?
4) Has Christianity changed since the time of the apostles?

1. The ultimate and only earthly manifestation of the Hebrew God YHVH. Through his actions on earth we may know how to properly live a life in right relation as a human. His death on the cross manifests, again ultimately, the "godforsakeness" (I don’t remember the german off hand) humanity naturally feels because of the wrong relationship they have been born into and foster in their daily living. In his resurrection from the dead we have a clear sign that the alienation, decay, and hell that has trapped humanity is at an end. Through his teaching and transcendance YHVH has broken back into human morality and history for good; through his overcoming of death hope of life beyond life is assured; through his healing and his spiritual acts, and the mysterious returning of a balance long ago lost, hell itself no longer is a threat.
2. That the Christ event was God’s decisive act in human history.
3. There are many truth claims within Christianity that do not lend themselves to syncretism. That said, the I-Thou relationship fostered by Jesus’ command to "love your neighbor" necessitates a healthy trust in the importance of other’s subjective experiences. This can in turn allow for Christians to be tolerant, open, and respectful of the beliefs and morals of people of other faiths. So to simplify my answer Christianity does not mix well with other "religions" but does mix well with other people.
4. Yes. The early Jesus movement was founded in a Jewish context and was built upon the assumption that the Messiah had returned and the end is near; Christianity was also considered an esoteric eastern religion by the mainly pagan west. Most Christianity today has become gentile in nature and has become a Western phenomena (baring the new South/East Christianity that is emerging on the tail of the submergence of Western Christianity into a much more secular culture in Europe and is often seen as subservient to the State in North America).
5. This is a very individual/denominational question in some ways. For some people their gender either alienates them from many of the metaphors within the Christian Church or compels them to it(eg. "Father" is not a word that would necessarily make a lot of sense to a woman raped by her father, likewise the image of a "mother-hen" would not make sense to a man who works at a Chicken rendering plant). Further many churches have either official or unofficial roles designated for people of a certain gender. For example, more youth pastors/ child care folk are women; more young adult pastors/workers are gotteed-out late 20- early 30 something men. Some churches do not allow women to be ordained. There are also some "offending" verses found in the pastorals and in some bits of Paul’s writing that create certain gender specific spheres within the everyday life of Christians. Perhaps though I am dealing more with "sex" than "gender" as one being innate the other being an inclination.
   Peace,
   Chris