Cold showers and The Miracle Maker

Greetings.

Jewish date:  1 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Devarim).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (Judaism), The Nine Days (Judaism), Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Pam Grier (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Grady Louis McMurtry (Thelema).

Topic 1:  Today begins the Nine Days, an intense part of the Three Weeks culminating in the Ninth of ’Av, which commemorates the destruction of both Temples and many other tragedies in Jewish history.  The level of mourning is increased.  No meat, no wine, no fresh clothes, no anointing for pleasure, and no bathing for pleasure.  The last one, while probably not onerous in ancient times, when they did not have so much indoor plumbing and did not bathe as frequently, is a big pain in the neck for a modern human used to showering every single day.  (It was clearly not an epidemiologist who came up with this idea, as an epidemiologist would have objected to any enactment that worked against good hygiene.)  While bathing itself is not forbidden during the Nine Days except for 9 ’Av, one is expected to keep the temperature of the water as low as possible, which makes showering rather unpleasant, especially since it is difficult to step into cold water in the first place.  (While a cold is not so bad if one is feeling overheated, the air conditioning has been working splendidly over here, so this is not the case.)  I am tempted to ask the local rav if there is any way to trade decently warm showers for fasting two days straight, I will not bother because I know full well the answer will be “no”.

Image of unfun morality via Wikipedia

Now, some may be asking why I would ever consider putting myself through ritual mourning and eight days of cold showers.  Is not religion supposed to be about fun activities?  Or if not fun, at least about spiritual highs?  And the answer to these questions is “no”.  Because religion is ultimately about truth, not just theological truth, but the truth about what one is supposed to do.  A lot of morality is anything but fun.  Sure, one may enjoy even sharing and being selfless with friends.  But admitting one has done something wrong and trying to correct one’s mistakes is anything but fun.  Returning lost property is not fun.  Not hitting some jerk who keeps annoying you is not fun.  Self-control and moderation are not fun.  Letting someone jab you in the arm with a needle as part of blood donation is not fun.  And so on.  And why should ritual be any different?  The dark parts of life are to some degree inevitable?  Why should they, too, not be addressed?

Topic 2:  The latest in this series on Gospel-based films, The Miracle Maker (2000):

(Yes, they have it on Hulu.)  Most of the originality in this movie goes into animation and presentation, with an emphasis on miracles and parables.  Theologically, there is little new here.  The usual suspects, depicted as mean-spirited, are after Jesus the Annoyingly Perfect, claiming to fear Pilate’s and Caesar’s wrath.  Pilate is a little craftier and more evil than usual.  Unless you want to see the animation, do not bother with this one.

Topic 3:  More on Islamic stunts:  The Dry Bones cartoon “the Name Game”, which notes correctly that it makes no sense to try to pretend that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, even though this contradicts what terrorists themselves claim.  “The humanitarian show” notes that the “poor” people of Gaza are better off that a lot of the rest of the people on this planet, including having a higher life expectancy that part of Britain, while no aid is sent to far worse off people in Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran.  “Abbas to Arabs: We'd Support a War Against Israel” shows that Mahmoud Abbas is no partner for peace.  And finally, we have the video “WHAT ISLAM IS NOT”, based on the article “What Islam Isn't”, which describes how Islamization works:


Note:  There will be no religious humor during the Nine Days because it is not really appropriate during mourning.

Peace and consolation.

Aaron

The UN only values human life when politically convenient

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Devarim).

Today’s holidays:  The Three Weeks (Judaism), Lailat al Miraj (Islam), Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), St. Ponco Villa (Church of the SubGenius).

Note:  I am not discussing a Gospel-based film today, because I have not yet gotten around to watching The Miracle Maker yet.

Topic 1:  Today’s anti-Semitism update:  “The UN Bias Against Israel and Human Life” is two graphs which shows how much emphasis the United Nations puts on human life with respect to where human lives are lost.  Not only has the UN been outstandingly disproportionately critical of Israel (46,000 dead, almost all due to self-defense, 223 resolutions against; next to lowest death toll listed is Rwanda with 800,000 dead, next to highest most criticized is Yugoslavia with 58 resolutions against), but these graphs make a mockery of the idea that atheism is inherently more moral than more conventional religions.  Four of the countries listed—China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, North Korea, and Yugoslavia—are all communist countries.  The Soviet Union is responsible for over 5 million deaths, and China for 31.5 million deaths.

Also:  The video “When we die as martyrs - Palestinian Children” gives some idea of why real peace between Israel and its enemies is currently impossible:

Yes, this is a children’s video promoting jihad and historical revisionism—behavior and ideology in blatant contradiction to peace and conciliation.  And if “Without Palestine, what meaning is there to childhood?!”, then childhood has been meaningless to Arabs for a long time.  There never has been a country of Palestine.  Before the State of Israel, the territory was controlled by the British, and before that the Ottoman Empire.  And yet there was no push for a “Palestinian” state until 1967, when “Palestine” became an excuse to wage jihad against Jews.  Also note “Trust the Palestinian Authority?”; the Palestinian Authority is saying one thing in English and another in Arabic again.

Topic 2:  More religious oppression:  “Muslim Mob Kills Wife, Children of Christian in Pakistan”, “Sealed Church in Bogor, Indonesia Appeals to UN”, “Punjab soup kitchen forbidden to Christians”.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “If yu seez dis, iz too”:


Peace.

Aaron

None of us has a right to always be right

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Ki Thissa’).

Today’s holiday:  Casimir (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell the FDA to Update Nutrition Label Info - The Petition Site”, “DemocracyForAmerica.com » Become a Citizen Co-Sponsor”, This is how we stop Blackwater for good.“”, and “Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) | Tell Democrats We Have Their Backs”.

Topic 1:  More anti-Semitism:  “Israel Apartheid Week Comes to Town” and “Conjecture vs. Fact Drives Vancouver Sun Reporting on Assassination”.  These articles deal with poisoning the well (working to avoid anyone listening to one’s opponents, usually accomplished through lying) and presenting speculation as if it were fact.  (Again, I acknowledge this topic gets a lot of play.  I plan on stopping harping on it once the problem goes away.)  More interesting is “Opposing the digital pogrom”; the government of Israel has gotten so fed up with anti-Semitic attacks from foreign reporters that it struck back with Masbirim (English translation via Google Translate), a site encouraging Israeli citizens to do pro-Israel PR when abroad.  Foreign reporters are reportedly not pleased with being parodied in the videos as being totally clueless, but considering that said reporters frequently have little or no idea of the context of what they are reporting on, the lampooning is fair.

Topic 2:  “Libya slaps embargo on Swiss, demands U.S. apology”.  Libya in this article illustrates the fallacy that one is always entitled to be right, no matter what.  Libya may not appreciate the Swiss ban on new minarets.  Libya may even feel that it is religiously proper to declare a jihad against Switzerland.  However, it is beyond all reason for Libya to expect the United States or Switzerland (or any other non-Muslim country) to necessarily agree to what Libya (or any Muslim country) wants.  The United States and Switzerland are religiously tolerant countries with civil liberties.  Jihad—the epitome of religious intolerance—is not appreciated in either country, and their citizens are free to criticize anyone, including heads of state.  As such, if Mu‘ammar al-Qaḏāfī’s son broke laws in Switzerland on how domestic help is supposed to be treated, then the Libyans should not expect the Swiss to be anything but displeased.  And if the Swiss feel that Muslim immigrants have been abusing their civil liberties, then Libya should not be surprised if the Swiss get wary or even take measures against abuse.  And if Mu‘ammar al-Qaḏāfī calls for a jihad, then he should not be surprised that a US diplomat does not approve.  And, as a US citizen, I invoke my own right of free speech and suggest that everyone in the US, Switzerland, and elsewhere, counter the Libyan boycott with a boycott against Libyan products; there is no point in rewarding a regime which expects to be kowtowed to at all times.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “Even Basement Cat”:


Peace.

Aaron

The patheticness of jihad by law abuse and “Sixteen Tons”

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 Shevaṭ 5770 (Parashath Mishpaṭim).

Today’s holidays:  Feasts of Jerome Emiliani and Josephine Bakhita (Roman Catholicism).

Topic 1:  More contemporary anti-Semitism:  “BMJ's Selective Editing” and “UN likely to refer Goldstone findings to The Hague”.  The first article things going wrong in medical journals in the UK.  The second deals with a pathetic attempt at jihad by proxy.  Islam does not have a good track record of tolerance (and I mean tolerance in the sense of treating non-Muslims as equals rather than second-class citizens and scapegoats), and there have been regular Muslim attacks on Jews in Israel (even before the current state) since at least the 1920s.  Having utterly failed militarily, the current tactic has shifted to other means, including abuse of legal systems.  And now to heap the abuse on this and all other tactics they have used that they truly deserve, please note that there are over a billion Muslims on Earth, but only about 13 million Jews.  If they really wanted to, Muslims could easily summon the manpower, funding, and supplies necessary to accomplish their stated goal of killing or at least forcing all Jews into dhimmitude; when you outnumber your enemy 77 to 1, this is not hard.  That they have failed to do so multiple times is a display of complete, utter military incompetence and total unmanliness.  The very fact that Muslims have resorted to jihad by PR and abuse of the law only underscores how pathetic they truly are; unable to do the job themselves and putting their military incompetence on display for the whole planet, they try to convince others to do the dirty job for them.  Listen up, jihadists:  you suck.  Be real men, stop wasting your lives on fighting a war you have effectively admitted you cannot win, and do something more worthwhile.

Topic 2:  Recently I watched Joe Verus the Volcano while donating platelets.  The movie opens with a depiction of horrific working conditions, and the song played very appropriately during this is the famous “Sixteen Tons”.  It has occurred to me that there is a bit of the Faust legend in “Sixteen Tons”.  The singer says, er, sings in the refrain “Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go / I owe my soul to the company store”, putting the company metaphorically in the place of Satan.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “basement cat wanted to have ceelin cats power so he hid at the stairs and attacked ceelin cat ceelin cat ceelin cat got up and scratched him by libertymize”:


Peace.

Aaron

V is for “vacancies”

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Ḥayye-Sarah).

Today’s holiday:  Saint Day of Martin of Tours (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “ColorOfChange.org:  Murdoch: Make a choice”.

Topic 1:  “CBC Promotes False Barrier Analogy”.  The PR jihad against Israel goes on, and this article talks about why it makes no sense to compare Israel’s anti-terrorism barrier to the Berlin Wall.  Also in jihad-related sloppy thinking, the Dry Bones cartoon “Face It” deals with the reluctance of many to acknowledge that the Fort Hood shootings were an Islamic terrorist attack, despite the evidence that it is.

Topic 2:  Given some criticism I received on my review of the pilot episode of the new V last week, I think I need to clarify my position on the series.  The plot and characters are not necessarily bad.  For all we know, the writers may have even avoided two major blunders of the original V:  the Vs eat humans, in which case their operation is much more complex than they really need it to be to accomplish this, and there is a human-V mating which produces live offspring, which in real life is almost certainly impossible.  The real problem is that there are huge gaps in the story, the “vacancies” of this post’s title.  While we have some idea what some of the main characters are thinking, we have practically no idea why most of the people in this series believe and act the way they do.  Much of the time, it is not even clear what the Vs are doing other than secretly plotting against humanity.  Without much of a background, it is very hard to appreciate the show as a whole.  If the new V survives past the four episodes planned to be shown this year, I hope they will make an episode dedicated not to moving the plot along but telling us what humans in general are thinking and what the Vs are doing on Earth which makes humans love or hate them; this could be done plausibly in the form of a documentary hosted by reporter character Chad Decker, who already has reported on the Vs.

The latest episode, “There Is No Normal Anymore”, does not introduce any new theological ideas.  It does, however, deal with the moral issue of trust.  FBI agent Erica Evans and Father Jack Landry, who were present in the last episode at a resistance meeting which was infiltrated and attacked by the Vs, are naturally unsure whom they can trust.  There is evidence that Vs have been on Earth for decades, disguised as humans, and knowing who is really human and who is a V without more physical examination than most people would casually submit to is impossible.  This leads to questions of when to hide information or lie.  What they ultimately decide they must keep doing, despite the unanswered trust and deception questions, is to get to the bottom of what the Vs are really up to.

Image via Wikipedia

Topic 3:  Chapters 20-23 of The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) by Philip Pullman.  Chapter 20 deals with Mary Malone, still in the world of the melufa, turning her crude optical device to see Dust into a more proper spyglass and ascending to the tops of the wheel seedpod trees to see why they are slowly dying.  Apparently currents of Dust in the sky have changed and are no longer raining much Dust down on the wheel seedpod tree flowers to fertilize them.  Don’t ask me to explain the physics of this; it makes no sense to me.


Meanwhile, Lyra, Will, and two elf-like beings known as Gallivespians, following Lyra’s death, reach the shore of a river, where they meet the boatman who takes people to the land of the dead proper.  They all go, but in the process, they have to leave their dæmons behind.  This is a huge blunder on Pullman’s part.  The dæmon is supposed to be the soul, and if that is not what goes to the land of the dead, what does?  Furthermore, Lyra and company really do not act differently when they go on to the land of the dead; they just feel horrible.  In any case, the land of the dead itself is as dark and dreary as the waiting area, only it is fenced in and guarded by harpies, who do little more than be insulting.  (Notice the ancient Greek religion theme going on here.)  With the help of Will’s knife, Lyra and company get past the front gate, only to find more of the dark bleakness, inhabited by the physically insubstantial dead, who do little more than sit around quietly and get insulted by the harpies, who know all the bad things everyone has done in life.  Despite promises that the Authority will reward and punish the dead, there is only punishment by the harpies in this domain.  It is so bad that Lyra and Will plot to let the dead out into another world—and even though the result will be oblivion for the escapees, most of the dead prefer it to remaining in the land of the dead.  None of this sounds particularly like the Christian afterlife, so chalk up another demerit to Pullman.


Peace.

Aaron

The Subtle Knife, sleight of hand, and Scientology

Greetings.

Jewish date:  10 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Lekh-Lekha).

Today’s holiday:  Feast Day of Theodor Reuss (Thelema).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Take off Walmart's health care "mask"”, “End So-Called Pre-Existing Conditions!”, and “Health care reform is around the corner”.

Topic 1:  Last night I read chapter 1 of The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman.  Not really much new theologically so far.  Lyra Silvertongue (she has adopted a new last name) and her dæmon/soul Pantalaimon have so far retained physically separate form.  Naturally she finds unusual that the only other person she has met so far, the runaway boy Will Parry, does not have an external dæmon; she concludes that he carries his dæmon inside.  Will, unlike Lyra, managed to reach the universe of their meeting via a barely visible gateway whose origin has not yet been disclosed.

Somewhat off the topics I have discussed previously, so far Pullman’s protagonists have come from broken homes.  Lyra, the product of an adulterous union, was fought over between the neglectful Lord Asriel and the power-hungry psychopath Marisa Coulter.  Will’s father has long been absent, and his mother is mentally ill.  This tendency may simply be to create drama, but intuition suggests there may be something else to it as well.

Topic 2:  “The Obsession With Israel”.

This video asks the question of why there is so much focus on the alleged crimes of Israel when there is so much real, preventable suffering happening.  Perhaps the point is something akin to distraction techniques used by magicians:  to keep the focus off the real, preventable suffering, especially when perpetrated by the enemies of Israel.

Topic 3:  “French Branch of Scientology Convicted of Fraud”.  All those who did not see this eventually happening, stand on your head.

Peace.

Aaron

The cross, censorship, and The Golden Compass

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Noaḥ).

Today’s holidays:  Birth of the Báb (Bahá’í Faith), Feast Day of Sir Richard Francis Burton (Thelema).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Keep Children Safe When They're at Child Care”.

Topic 1:  “Supreme Court debates cross”:  Seventy-five years ago, a cross was set up in memory of US soldiers killed in World War I on public land in the Mojave National Preserve.  Presumably this was done with the noblest of intentions, but considering that the cross is a specifically Christian symbol, there is naturally a valid issue of separation of church and state.  For some reason Justice Antonin Scalia does not understand or refuses to understand something which should be so obvious.

Topic 2:  “The American Library Association’s Stealth Jihad Against Free Speech”:  There is an irony in censoring someone in a celebration of Banned Book Week.

Topic 3:  I have now read chapter 12 of The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, book 1), and I am crying foul.  We finally learn what the devious, dastardly thing the Church is doing to the kidnapped children is:  intercission, which severing a human from his/her dæmon.  Why anyone would want to do such a thing is not yet revealed; I presume that Pullman will reveal that later.  But the results of intercission are inaccurate.  Intercission does not leave the human part of the victim unable to function.  In real life, a human without a soul is brain dead and may only be considered alive by technicality.  For all a human is is contained within the brain; if it were not so, then brain damage would never affect behavior and memory.  The idea of intercised children wandering around and some even surviving is therefore at best based on a bad interpretation of the soul.

Peace.

Aaron