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5月28日 Curing Xenophobia: Making the Unknown Known'We ought to view all monotheistic religions (religions which enjoin belief in one God) in the spirit in which St. Peter viewed them when he said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." [Acts10:34,35] The same is the spirit of the oft-repeated definition of "Muslims" in the Qur'an: "Those who believe and work righteousness" (al-lazina amanu wa amalu-s-salehat) [Qur'an 2:25, 2:62, 2:25 etc.]. And "Trust in the Lord and do good," as the Psalms say. [Psalms 37:3] It is essential that any discussion of Islam as a monolithic religion must begin with its very fundamental concept of unity of God (Tawhid). In this context, it is also important to note that the creed of Islam is very simple. To become a Muslim, one has only to declare in sincerity, and preferably in the presence of a person already professing Islam, "I testify that there is none worthy of worship (god) but God, and that Muhammad is the Prophet of God". The first part of the Muslim creed is a dialectically rigorous rejection of polytheism in favour of monotheism. It underlies the pivotal Muslim doctrine of divine unity (Tawhid), and has historical antecedents in both Judaism and Christianity.' 'Muslims venerate Jesus as a divinely inspired human but never, ever as "the son of God." In the same vein, we treat the concept of the Trinity as a late footnote to Jesus' teachings, an unnecessary "mystery" introduced by the North African theologian, Tertullian, two centuries after Jesus' death. Nor do Muslims view his death as an act of atonement for the sins of humanity. Rather, along with the early Christian theologian Pelagius, Islam rejects the doctrine of original sin, a notion argued into church doctrine by St. Augustine around the year 400. It might almost be said that Islam holds a view of Jesus similar to some of the early apostolic versions condemned by the fourth-century Byzantine Church. Once Constantine installed Christianity as the Holy Roman Empire's state religion, a rage for orthodoxy followed. The Councils of Nicaea (325), Tyre (335), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) were official -- and often brutal -- attempts to stamp out heterodox views of Jesus held by "heretical" theologians. Rulings by these councils led to the persecution and deaths of tens of thousands of early Christians at the hands of the more "orthodox" Christians who condemned them. Most disputes centered on divergent interpretations of the Trinity (God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). For this reason, historians of religion sometimes see in these bloody divisions one of the root causes for early Islam's firmly unitarian outlook. Then and now, no more dangerous religious mistake exists for a Muslim than dividing the Oneness of God by twos or threes. Despite these important differences, however, the Qur'an repeatedly counsels Muslims not to dispute with other monotheists over matters of doctrine. People, it says, believe differently for good reasons. In fact, that is a part of Allah's will.' QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
5月26日 Donnie DarkoI finally got around to watching this (the director's cut), and I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe it wasn't flawless, but it is certainly worth watching a couple of times. It seems to have a few things to say about God, the epic hero, and reality. And even if it doesn't say these things too clearly its still a very interesting film.
Shifting gears slightly, I found an interesting site called 'Column of the Wolf.'
Here are three soundbites from their May archives.
Donnie Darko Director Investigated for Terrorist Links
According to his official biography, Richard Kelly is the director of the acclaimed Donnie Darko, the writer of the less acclaimed Domino and a contender for the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes film festival. According to the Department of Homeland Security he is a suspected terrorist who may now be prevented from travelling to Cannes next week after the morons appear [to have] confused him with another man,
James Kelly, who is on the terrorist watch list. Kelly's full name is James Richard Kelly — via Warren Ellis Vatican Astronomer Denounces Creationism as Paganism
Believing that god created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed. He has also said that the idea of papal infallibility had been a
PR disaster. What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority. It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear,he said — via Warren Ellis Half Grizzly, Half Polar Bear Killed by Fuckwit
A strange-looking bear shot last month by a moronic American sports hunter, Jim Martell, turned out to be half polar bear, half grizzly. Officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid
Stephen Harper Eats Babies
Lakeshore GO Transit rail authority apologised after a mischievous rider hacked into the electronic message board to announce that
Stephen Harper Eats Babies— via Warren Ellis (This was mentioned at a fellow blogger's site as well (lady martini), so I'm diversifying my sources as I practise what is likely either plagiarism or committing copyright infringement. This story just adds weight to a recently developed theory; that while most Americans may be out of touch fuckwits, most Canadians are just sick fucks. Not you or I of course.) MSN Spaces"MSN Spaces is the most widely used blogging service worldwide with more than 100 million unique visitors, according to data released today by comScore Networks Inc. of Reston, Va., an independent Internet audience measurement and consulting company." http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/msn-spaces-has-beaten-blogger.html 5月25日 'Human Lunacy''Humanity is baffling. Sometimes I think our species has a streak of madness. People are friendly, cooperative, kind, even selfless — yet they also can inflict hideous cruelties on each other.'
5月24日 The First TimeMy father is a rich man, he wears a rich man's cloak.
U2, Zooropa 5月19日 Armageddon Appetite or the Appetite for Power'The key to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline policies may not be hidden in his revolutionary past, or in any of the nuclear facilities dispersed across Iran, but in a small farming village near the holy city of Qom.
Here, in what was until only a few years ago a shabby local mosque, Iran's new radical Muslim leader has become the chief sponsor of a messianic cult whose massed followers pray each week for the end of the world as we know it. Since coming to power last year Mr Ahmadinejad has given a reported $US20 million ($26 million) and personal supervision to turning the tiny Jamkaran mosque into a massive complex of prayer halls, minarets, car parks and ablutions. Once completed, it will cater in comfort to the tens of thousands of worshippers who flock here every Tuesday night, hoping for the reappearance of the Mahdi or "Hidden Imam", Shiite Islam's equivalent of the Messiah. When Mr Ahmadinejad sent an 18-page letter to the White House last week lecturing the President, George Bush, on religion and morality, many questioned whether the Iranian President was a religious fanatic, a megalomaniac, or merely playing to an Islamic gallery. Jamkaran is a place to start looking for answers. In Shiite Muslim belief, the 12th Imam or legitimate successor to the prophet Mohammed was only five years old in the year 873 when he vanished beneath the ground in the city of Samarra, in modern Iraq.
Devout Shiites believe some day he will re-emerge to inaugurate a new era of perfect government on earth, which will in turn be followed by the return of the prophet Jesus to judge mankind. And those who flock to Jamkaran believe that this will happen very soon. "We can see the signs of his emergence. Nobody can know the exact date of it, but it will be in the near future," explained Mohammed Mehdi Safariyan, 23, a theology student who travelled from Qom last week for the vigil. "One of the most significant signs is that people feel they have lost something, something they need and they look for and they can't find. This is happening everywhere in the world. Everywhere we go we see new religions, people who are looking for a way to escape." It was dusk, and suitably apocalyptic. Storm clouds hung over the huge blue bulb of the half-finished shrine and lightning flickered as the wind began tossing the fir trees. Beneath the trees the first knots of people were already waiting for nightfall when the vigil would begin. Out on the road fleets of smoking buses beeped and shunted in the gloom, and a rising tide of people flooded through the gates, many having made the 15-kilometre pilgrimage on foot from Qom. Suddenly there were screams, and a large whirlwind whipped through the trees and the startled worshippers and right into the mouth of the newly built shelter which covers the well where pilgrims deposit their wishes to the Mahdi, scribbled on printed prayers. Farzaneh Hosseini said she had come to the shrine because she had heard that numerous miracles were performed there. "This is the place that the hidden Imam likes to be and because of him we are here," said the 27-year-old Afghan refugee from Kabul. "The plans for this mosque were drawn by the Imam and given to a man in a dream, so people have built it here and that is why we come. I believe the dream came to a man a long time ago. I don't know when." According to religious scholars in nearby Qom, the dream in question happened many centuries ago, but until recently the mosque's link to the Hidden Imam remained a purely local tradition, with little backing from the clergy. "This thing at Jamkaran is a very recent and contemporary phenomenon," says Moytaba Lotfi, a senior aide to Iran's leading pro-reform cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. "As far back as I can remember it was only a very simple desert mosque. It wasn't a place that attracted pilgrims. It's only during the last 10 or 12 years, because of the propaganda on the state television and media, that lots of people have come to gather there." A former close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini, Montazeri was suppressed and later placed under house arrest when he began to condemn the increasingly corrupt and autocratic nature of the Islamic Republic. The cult of Jamkaran has become a particular target of his small but influential movement. "They are using it to distract people from paying attention to more serious things," says Lotfi, who is a mullah. He is quite cynical about the choice of Jamkaran as a venue for worship. "In Iraq there is another place dedicated to the Hidden Imam [the holy shrine at Samarra] but this is the only one in Iran, so they've tried to promote it as much as possible." But is Mr Ahmadinejad an artful schemer or a true believer, or is he both at the same time? As the West drifts closer to a showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, attempting to guess Mr Ahmadinejad's real motives and intentions is fast becoming the 21st century equivalent of Kremlinology. There was surprise and dismay in diplomatic circles last year when, having addressed the United Nations for the first time, Mr Ahmadinejad later claimed that the righteousness of his religious harangue had struck dumb the listening assembly. He did not demur when followers claimed to have seen a halo around him on the podium. On the other hand, he recently earned stern rebukes from his supposed backers in the hardline clerical establishment when he suggested that perhaps Iranian women should not be legally compelled to wear the veil. He also said that he believed women should be allowed to attend soccer matches. Some observers point out that his recent messages are not inconsistent with a desire to win broader popularity and use it to extract more power from his rivals in Iran's divided conservative establishment. "He's a populist politician - he doesn't care about strict Islamic rules," believes economic and political analyst Saeed Laylaz. "Of course he's a religious man, but like most people if he had to select either power or religion I'm sure he'll select power, like a lot of other leaders today." Some see Mr Ahmadinejad's aggressive promotion of his predecessors' more surreptitious nuclear program as another manifestation of a populist drive for domination. "He tells ordinary people that the Imam is going to solve all the world's problems. In the same way, he tells them that having nuclear energy will miraculously solve all of Iran's economic problems by freeing up lots more oil for export," remarked one diplomat.' 5月18日 Obligatory Poem of Teenage AngstWe don't taste the same,
It's hard to explain. To you it is bread, To me it is stone. To you it is fish, To me it is snake. And who do we blame? Who made the mistake? Each one is alone 5月10日 'Story of Isaac'The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in, I was nine years old. And he stood so tall above me, his blue eyes they were shining and his voice was very cold. He said, "I've had a vision and you know I'm strong and holy, I must do what I've been told." So he started up the mountain, I was running, he was walking, and his axe was made of gold. Well, the trees they got much smaller, the lake a lady's mirror, we stopped to drink some wine. Then he threw the bottle over. Broke a minute later and he put his hand on mine. Thought I saw an eagle but it might have been a vulture, I never could decide. Then my father built an altar, he looked once behind his shoulder, he knew I would not hide. You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children, you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god. You who stand above them now, your hatchets blunt and bloody, you were not there before, when I lay upon a mountain and my father's hand was trembling with the beauty of the word. And if you call me brother now, forgive me if I inquire, "Just according to whose plan?" When it all comes down to dust I will kill you if I must, I will help you if I can. When it all comes down to dust I will help you if I must, I will kill you if I can. And mercy on our uniform, man of peace or man of war, the peacock spreads his fan. Leonard Cohen, 'Songs from a Room' 5月9日 Various Charts and DiagramsThese statistics come from a site called 'Physicians for a National Health Program' (from the States).
Their official web site is here.
No commentary; I just thought the comparison charts and graphs were really interesting, although they need to be updated.
Wikipedia has a chart that is more up to date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada
The Modern Tyrant'Anonynous journalism is dangerous, and is poisonous in our existing life simply because it is so rapidly becoming an anonymous life. That is the horrible thing about our contemporary atmosphere. Society is becoming a secret society. The modern tyrant is evil because of his elusiveness. He is more nameless than his slave. He is not more of a bully than the tyrants of the past; but he is more of a coward. The rich publisher may treat the poor poet better or worse than the old master workman treated his apprentice. But the apprentice ran away and the master ran after him. Nowadays it is the poet who pursues and tries in vain to fix the fact of responsibility. It is the publisher who runs away.'
G. K. Chesterton, 'All Things Considered' 5月8日 'A Resurgence of Sufism in Saudi Arabia''JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- A hush came over the crowd as the young man sitting cross-legged on the floor picked up the microphone and sang, a cappella, a poem about Islam's prophet Muhammad. His eyes shut tight, his head covered by an orange-and-white turban, he crooned with barely contained ardor of how the world rejoiced and lights filled the skies the day the prophet was born.
The men attending the mawlid -- a celebration of the birth and life of Muhammad -- sat on colorful rugs, rocking gently back and forth, while the women, on the upper floor watching via a large projection screen, passed around boxes of tissues and wiped tears from their eyes.
The centuries-old mawlid, a mainstay of the more spiritual and often mystic Sufi Islam, was until recently viewed as heretical and banned by Saudi Arabia's official religious establishment, the ultraconservative Wahhabis. But a new atmosphere of increased religious tolerance has spurred a resurgence of Sufism and brought the once-underground Sufis and their rituals out in the open.'
5月7日 Exceptionalism'The defect of exceptionalism, then, is that it assumes America's allies and even its enemies will share the special-case reasoning that persuades America it possesses unique extralegal prerogatives based on its exceptional righteousness. Even if there are reasons to think the United States has acted more virtuously in its foreign affairs than most nations, American virtue can hardly be accepted by others as a universal standard, Imagine an international law that read, 'Nations may only resort to war in cases of self-defense, except the United States, which because it is special can resort to war whenever it wants.' It may be difficult for Americans to read their own doctrine in this scpetical manner, but it will be far less difficult for America's adversaries and even some of its friends to do so. Indeed, America's inability to see its own motives through this lens is why it is often viewed as arrogant even by its friends and allies.
But the more serious problem with the argument pointing to America's democratic virtue is not that it provides hypocritical cover for base national interests but that even where virtue can be demostrated the doctrine fails the basic test of intermational legality. Exceptionalism can never meet the Kantian principle which requires that the morality or legality of a precept be measured by its susceptibility to being universalized.'
Benjamin R. Barber, 'Fear's Empire' 5月3日 Fear's Empire"From the plague of HIV to global warming, from global media monopolies to international crime syndicates, every emerging feature of the interdependant world calls for America to look outward; instead, it blinks and turns inward, gazing overseas only to fix its baleful eye on 'enemy' targets defined by an elusive war on terrorism and quixotically selected 'rogue states' meant to stand for terrorists too difficult to locate and destroy. Although it is the 'model' democratic society, America often acts with plutocratic disdain for the demands of global equality, condemning a shadowy 'axis of evil' while ignoring an all too visible axis of inequality. It has elected to pursue a national security stategy I call 'preventive democracy.' Although it is the emblematic multiculural nation, it shows little patience for cultural diversity or religious heterogeneity, especially where they appear to threaten American ideals or to lie outside the compass of the American imagination. It believes that, even as it continues to support dictatorship in nations it regards as friends, it can impose democracy on vanquished enemies at the barrel of a gun. It thinks privatized markets and aggressive consumerism freed of democratic constraints are what it means to forge democracy; it believes others can establish democracy overnight by importing American institutions it took centuries to nurture and grow in the United States. America's current policies for war and for peace, for overthrowing tyranny and for establishing democracy, rest on a defective understanding of the consequences of interdependance and the charater of democracy. Thus does fear's empire produce an empire of fear inimical to both liberty and security."
Benjamin R. Barber, 'Fear's Empire' 5月2日 The Only Thing Worth Fearing"Yet its power makes the United States weak even as it makes it strong, leaving it unloved by those it 'saves', resented by its allies, and despised even more than it is feared by those it effects to conquer. In its unprecedented power lies an unprecedented vulnerability: for it must repeatedly extend the compass of its power to preserve what it already has, and so is almost by definition always overextended. 'To secure my turf,' noted the powerful landholder, 'all I need is the land adjacent to my own.' It must count as friends all who pretend not to be its enemies, so that its allies are more often the enemies of its enemies rather than its real friends. To be opposed to the United States is to belong to, it not the axis of evil, at least to the bad guys; to support the United States is to be a good guy, even if the supportive regime is authoritarian or even trannical...it is hardly a wonder then that the United States obsesses over minor league rogue states...whose threat to American interests, even when magnified by interdependance, is nominal. It has the resources to field military forces around the globe and to fight several wars at once, but it cannot protect its own headquarters at the Pentagon or the cathedral of capitalism on Manhattan because interdependance permits the weak to use the forces of the strong jujitsu style to overcome them. Fear is terrorism's only weapon, but fear is a far more potent weapon against those who live in hope and prosperity than those who live in despair with nothing to lose."
Benjamin R. Barber, 'Fear's Empire' Eagles, Doves, Owls, and Hawks"The administration's most powerful eagle is neither Vice-President Dick Cheney nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, nor the far right wing of the Republican Party, but President Bush himself, a man motivated by an overriding belief in the potency of missionary rationales for and military solutions to the challenges of global insecurity. Presedent Bush has said over and over again since 9/11 that his presidential mandate is defined in his own mind almost exclusively by the war in terms of a vision of exceptional American virtue and a countervision of foreign malevolence that may strike outsiders as self-righteous and even Manichaean (dividing the world into camps of the good and the evil) but which is powerfully motivating within the United States and which gives to its policies an uncompromising militancy invulnerable to world opinion."
Benjamin R. Barber, 'Fear's Empire' |
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