Perfection, Pollard, and pet peeves

Greetings.

Jewish date:  6 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Wayyeṣe’).

Worthy cause of the day:  “To all US Jewish Organizations: Stand with the Land of Israel! Petition”.

Topic 1:  “ Why Barack is Becoming Boring”.  I am not sure Barack Obama has really become boring, and  if he really has, then perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he has been spending his time trying to clean up the gigantic mess left by the Bush administration and thus he does not have much time to spend on dazzle.  And I do not buy into notion that Obama is or has ever been perfect; I voted for him because I thought he would do a better job than John McCain.  While campaigning, Obama honestly admitted that mistakes would be made, and there is no doubt he has made some since.  And this is the point.  Rav Boteach correctly notes that the great figures of the Hebrew Bible are not perfect.  They have character flaws, and they make mistakes, often big ones.  Rather than ascribing greatness to them because of perfection, they are great despite their imperfection.  And this makes them better role models for it.  None of us can hope to become perfect.  But if someone imperfect can become great and virtuous, then we, who are also imperfect, at least have a fighting chance of also becoming great and virtuous.

Topic 2:  “Time for a new attitude in the Pollard case”.  This article is on a major anti-Semitic tragedy in the United States, the continued incarceration of Jonathan Pollard.  Pollard has been jailed for 25 years for passing to Israel, a friendly country, information which the United States was obligated to share anyway.  Correctly noted is that his life sentence is out of all proportion to what other spies—spies for hostile nations—have received and that it was given through government misconduct.  This article ties the life sentence into American coddling of Arab pseudo-allies, such as Saddam Hussein, none of which has done the US any good.  I will not believe any US president, Democrat or Republican, really has the good of Israel and the Jews in mind until he/she pardons Pollard.

Topic 3:  “Top Ten Nazir Pet Peeves”.  This is Jewish religious humor, and it really helps if you know what a nazir is.  The rest of the references are left as an exercise to the reader.

Peace.

Aaron

Nonsectarian prayer is a fantasy; we do not all worship the same god

Greetings.

Jewish date:  5 Kislew 5770 (Parasheth Wayyeṣe’).

Today’s holidays:  Saint Day of Christ the King (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Take Action: Ask for renewable energy that keeps wildlands and wildlife safe”.

Topic 1:  “Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists”.  Creationists, pay attention:  evolution happens in real time, even within a human lifetime.

Topic 2:  “Jesus vs. Allah”.  This article discusses and rightly criticizes the notion of “nonsectarian prayer”.  “Nonsectarian prayer” is an attempt to get around the constitutional prohibition of the government favoring any particular religion in order to have a government-sponsored prayer at a governmental function.  The problem is that there is no single god worshipped by everyone.  No one is going to accept a prayer addressed “to Whom it may concern”, and no name for any deity is going to be acceptable to everyone.  Every name carries with it connotations.  For example, “Allah”, suggested by David Hamilton, screams “Islam” to practically everyone in the West, no matter how much anyone tries to rationalize that it does not.  Even “God” is not a good choice; while commonly used generically, different religions have radically different ideas who “God” is.  It is very easy to misinterpret “God” to refer to one’s own god rather than the god the speaker intended.  People try to bend the notion of “God” to fit their own notions.  For an example, see my recent commentary on His Dark Materials, in which “God” refers to a being bearing only vague surface resemblance to the God of Christianity.  This is why Muslims in Malaysia are going crazy over Christians using “Allah” to refer to the God of Christanity; they cannot accept that “Allah” might refer to anyone other than the God of Islam.  It is also why I have made a concerted effort to not used “God” to refer to the God of Judaism, but rather have taken to using “YHWH” and “HashShem” instead; the latter terms are unambiguous and take a lot more effort to bend to mean anything different.

Topic 3:  More religious humor:  “Prudence”.

All of you who are puzzled:  think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis.  (I have to get around to rereading The Chronicles of Narnia sometime...)  And I do hope to make religious humor a regular feature on this blog, besides serious topics.  I do not want to be completely dour, complaining about bad religion all the time, and sometimes the humor itself can be revealing.

Aaron

Atheist billboards and a possible emerging Twilight paranoia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  3 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holiday:  Friday of the Thirty-Third Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Support Early Education - The Petition Site”.

Topic 1:  “Atheists turn to billboard sites”.  Thus is it written:  “The group behind a controversial atheist bus-poster campaign is urging parents not to label their children with their own religious faith.”  I already mentioned kind of this stunt in my review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and my original comments still stand:

As part of showing off for fellow theist-hating atheists, Dawkins makes proposals designed to help make society more atheistic.  For one thing, he would like people to stop attributing religion to small children, e.g., that we should say “children of Christian parents” instead of “Christian children” (Dawkins 2006, p. 339).  It is correct that small children normally have poor or no understanding of basic religious concepts and cannot truly be said to be believers.  On the other hand, membership in religions is frequently defined in terms other than mere belief.  E.g., because a child is baptized in the name of Jesus, he may be considered Christian, whether or not he/she truly understands Christianity.  One may even be a rabid unbeliever and still be considered a member, e.g., “self-hating Jews”.  Dawkins would also like people to stop indoctrinating their children (Dawkins 2006, pp. 325-340).  The idea that this may be against certain religions has either not crossed Dawkins’s mind or he does not care.  It is also difficult to imagine how this would be done without teaching about religion at all (which he does not seem to favor (Dawkins 2006, p. 340)) or that anyone intelligent and seriously religious would voluntarily comply.

The British Humanist Association should be collectively ashamed of themselves for trying to foist such a bad idea on the public.

Topic 2:  “Twilight is a 'deviant moral vacuum': Vatican slams blockbuster New Moon film”:  I am downright puzzled by this article, with an explanation claimed which is downright opaque due to a severe lack of specifics.  Thus is it written:

'This theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that as ever is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element.

'Men and women are transformed with horrible masks and it is once again that age old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office.

'This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such is something that should be of concern.'

While I have not read the Twilight Saga, the descriptions of it I have encountered seem mild by contemporary standards; it is not every contemporary love story in which the happy couple waits until marriage.  I am so puzzled by what the quote is supposed to mean that I have written the Vatican asking about it, including the question of whether it is even genuine, and I anxiously await a reply.  Intuition suggests this may be another witch-hunt along the same lines of Harry Potter paranoia.

Topic 3:  Some lighthearted stuff to end on:  First, Bizarro’s take on early Christmas commercialism.  Secondly, some of that over-the-top Christmas commercialism:  the USB Fiber Optic Christmas Tree.  And finally, “It’s the End of the World”, a take on the 2012 hype:



Peace, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Is dread Cthulhu a symbol of the Christmas spirit?

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holiday:  Thursday of the Thirty-Third Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Alliance for Climate Protection | Send a message to the EPA: Tell the EPA you support strong fuel efficiency standards” and “Take Action: Will President Obama Attend the Copenhagen Climate Talks?”

Topic 1:  Latest anti-Semitism articles:  “Under Attack: HR Accused by UK TV Documentary” and “What Does "Pro-Palestinian" Really Mean?”.  I like the second one especially since it makes the good point that being anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-Zionist is not the same thing as being pro-“Palestinian”.  Attacking Jews accomplishes spreading hate.  It does nothing that actually benefits the so-called “Palestinians”, who have been treated as pawns by other Muslims in political games and tyrannized by their own leaders.  Aiding and abetting the continuing abuse of the “Palestinians” does nothing to help them.

Topic 2:  A bit of humor:  Even this long before Christmas, Christmas humor has started spreading.  The first of two I have collected so far is “Cthulu Holiday Decorations”.  Cthulhu, you will remember, is a fictional pseudo-deity who does not care for humanity at all.  The other is “Just Who is This Guy?”:

Notice that Santa Claus combines three traits people do not usually appreciate.  This is a bit odd for the symbol of a favorite holiday of love and joy.

Peace.

Aaron

V is for “validation”!

Greetings.

Jewish date:  1 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (Judaism), Dedication of Churches of Peter and Paul and Saint Day of Rose Philippine Duchesne (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Adam Weishaupt and Feast of the First Initiation of the Prophet (Thelema).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell Congress: Being a Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition - The Petition Site”, “Free Press: media reform through education, organizing and advocacy:”, “Take Action: Tell American Funds to become genocide-free | Save Darfur”, and “MoveOn.org Political Action: U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Stop Protecting Rapists”.

Topic 1:  Episode 3 of the new V, “A Bright New Day”.  Theologically the only thing new is Father Jack hearing V-related confessions and feeling very uncomfortable.  Considering he is part of the resistance, I cannot blame him.  He ends up doing grunt-work and leg-work to hunt down people who were at the ill-fated resistance meeting, feeling he needs to do something towards fighting the Vs.

On the bright side, this episode makes a start towards filling in the huge blank spots in the background (the “validation” in the post title).  It is revealed that some of those protesting the Vs are doing so because several thousand humans died in the disturbances which accompanied the arrival of the Vs.  This gives the V leader Anna a public relations disaster to deal with.

Also:  Considering all the revelations they have had already, I am shocked that they have not come out and revealed that the Vs came to Earth to eat humans. Intuition suggests either that the revelation-happy writers had not decided this far into the series what that secret purpose is or that first episode may have been a (rushed) attempt to lull us into making us make bad assumptions so we feel surprised when the assumptions are violated.  What this new secret purpose is is anything but obvious, though the promo for next week’s episode suggests it may involve medical experimentation, which would be an ill-considered ripoff of a Star Trek:  Voyager episode.

Topic 2:  “Gaddafi preaches to Rome beauties”.  This just struck me as a creative form of bait-and-switch.  As it is written:

A group of party girls got more than they bargained for when they were recruited to attend a posh do in Rome on Sunday night.

Instead of canapés and cocktails, the 200 young women found themselves being encouraged to become Muslims.

While an interesting form of attempted proselytism, it runs afoul of the generally accepted virtue of truthfulness.  I will leave it to Muslims to decide whether any rules of Islamic morality were actually violated.

Topic 3:  “Why I Murdered 13 American Soldiers at Fort Hood: Nidal Hassan Explains It All to You”.  This article explains what Nidal Hassan was thinking when he shot his comrades at Fort Hood.  A link to a presentation he gave on Islam is included, complete with references to canonical Islamic source material justifying violence.

Peace and happy new month.

Aaron

The blatant conservative bias of the Conservative Bible Project

Greetings.

Jewish date:  30 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (Judaism), Saint Day of Elizabeth of Hungary (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Jacob Boehme (Thelema).

Image of the alleged embodiment of evil via Wikipedia

Today’s topic:  The Conservative Bible Project.  I have been sitting on this one for a while, trying to decide what to do with it.  The project asserts, among other things, that there is a “translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one”.  Fair enough.  All of us have biases, even if we try to be fair and objective.  But the weird thing is that the people behind this claim that the resulting error of this “requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate”, which should be a warning sign.  Accurate translation is not a conservative or liberal matter but rather a truth matter, and truth is not inherently conservative or liberal.  Their list of ten guidelines betrays the delusion that truth is conservative:

1. “Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias”:  And what is done to avoid conservative bias?  The Word of God should be accepted as what it is, not what anyone wants it to be.
2. “Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)”:  Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek have grammatical gender, like it or not.  Sometimes masculine terms denote males and sometimes they denote both males and females.  The question should be whether a 21st-century English translation makes the distinction properly, preferably noting when it is unclear.  Not sure what references to the unborn are being deleted by NIV.
3. “Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level”:  I am against dumbing down, though I have not been impressed with the Gospels intellectually, and so far this seems to have held true in my reading the New Testament in the original Koine Greek.
4. “Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent; Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".”  I have nothing against reflecting the original intent, but these people do not impress me as understanding the original intent.  Objecting to “comrade” is reading too much into the word.
5. “Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots"; using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census”:  The point of translation is translation, not combating addiction, much as we all are against addiction.  Using specific terminology does nothing to combat addiction.  Casting lots is how people gambled back then, and using “gamble” would be a loss of precision.  And I have no clue how using “register” rather than “enroll” combats addiction.
6. “Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.”:  One does not need to believe at all in a text to translate it properly.  One needs to be honest about what it means.
7. “Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning”:  This is trying to read modern conservative values into a premodern text.  Let the parables mean what they mean without trying to impose another meaning on top of them.
8. “Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story”:  Given the intellectual dishonesty displayed already, I have no trust that these people can distinguish between original and interpolated passages.  And one might even suggest that they might even leave in interpolated passages which conservatives commonly put their own spin on.
9. “Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels”:  Better to be honest and let Mark and John be as open-minded or as close-minded as they really were.
10. “Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."”:  Wordiness is not distinctively liberal any more than conciseness is distinctively conservative.  And the example chosen is preferring a bad translation over something more accurate; “YHWH” better reflects the original Hebrew than “Lord” or any of the alternatives.

Given this project is founded on bad assumptions, I was not surprised by the results when I looked over their translation of Genesis 1.  It came off as a paraphrase rather than a translation, making YHWH come off as a mad general barking orders rather than a calm, composed deity.  The King James Version, despite its deficiencies, came off more accurate.  Furthermore, if these people really are so interested in everyone understanding the Christian Bible right, why are they wasting their time with yet another in a long series of English translations?  Why are they not cutting out the middleman (or to be “liberal”, middleperson) and pushing for everyone to learn Hebrew and Greek so they can read the Christian Bible in the original?  There is never going to be a translation which is going to be perfect.  Among Orthodox Jews, bypassing the need for relying on a translation of the Hebrew Bible by teaching children Hebrew starting very early on is routine.  Why Christians have yet to figure out to do the same is a mystery to me.

Peace, and happy new month.

Aaron

Non-believers, religious persecution, and a mindbogglingly immoral law

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holiday:  Saint Day of Margaret of Scotland (Roman Catholicism).

Topic 1:  “Non Believers”:  This Dry Bones cartoon deals with how wishful thinking about Islamists never, ever works.  Come to think of it wishful thinking never, ever works, and physical reality never conforms itself to what we want it to be.  Human beings are also pretty stubborn in that way, too.  Sometimes even people recognize the truth they may want to cover it up anyway, e.g., “Memorial to Conn. 9/11 victim halted as town refuses to make reference to 'Muslim terrorists'”.

Topic 2:  More religious persecution:  “Egypt's Copts facing persecution”, “BELARUS: "We have Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims – all the others are sects"”, “”KYRGYZSTAN: Why is new Religious Education Law being hurried?”, “KAZAKHSTAN: "They can meet and pray to God, but the Law says they have to register"”.  Governments trying to dictate or censor the truth does not work either.

Topic 3:  “Phoenix Methodist church loses appeal; can no longer offer meals to the needy”:  I cannot make something like this up.  It makes no sense to me.  A church was feeding the homeless, and for some reason this is considered illegal in a residential zone.  This is a disgraceful violation of freedom of religion—yes, helping the needy is a religious duty—and senselessly antisocial.  May the legislators of Arizona change the law soon, and may everyone break it if they do not.

Peace.

Aaron