It's May Day!

So much for their Utopia...

United 93

I remember 9-11 very well. I left my apartment in the morning to take an organic chemistry exam, and came back to see the entire drama of the attacks unfold. From the very moment I saw the first reports of "some sort of smoke emanating from the World Trade Towers," I had the surreal feeling of knowing that something decidedly world-changing was being broadcast to me in multimedia. Five years later, having moved to the Tri-state area, I found myself watching what I presume to be the first of many September 11th-themed movies, in the presence of people for whom these events weren't just "reported," but seen from the kitchen window.

"United 93" was not so much a film as it was a documentary. There are no particular characters to speak of. It can best be described as a series of theoretical cameras placed in various "sets" from that day. Until the last third of the movie, the scenes from the various air traffic control and military offices tended to be a bit confusing and detail-oriented. The last third of the movie is focused on how the passengers of United Flight 93 fought back and attempt to take the plane back. The Muslim hijackers (ie terrorists) were neither portrayed as fundamentally evil nor especially heroic. Nor was the audience emotionally attached to any of the passengers who staged the last desperate rush to the cockpit. Perhaps the producers of the movie wanted to show an "unbiased" and "balanced" movie sensitive to a diverse range of audiences (Because we're sure that's how Al-Jazeera works). Otherwise, perhaps the movie's producers thought that by simply recreating the events of that day, the audience would be sufficiently engaged in the drama. Judging by the penetrating silence of the New Jersey theater I viewed the movie in by the movie's sudden ending, at least that much was accomplished.

Coming soon, probably a whole batch of 9-11 movies, including Oliver Stone's take on the terrorist attacks (wild conspiracy theory?????).

George Will sends a shout-out to the hydrological engineers!

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I do what Sideshow Bob's brother Cecil did on the Simpsons....

Sideshow Bob: Cecil, no society has ever considered "Chief Hydrological Engineer" a calling
Cecil: *clears throat purposefully*
Sideshow Bob: yes yes...the Cappadocians...FINE

And here's an article about the "watering of Arizona"

Celebrating 100 Years of...whatever this is exactly...???

Starting this weekend, up to 60,000 followers will descend on Los Angeles to mark the movement's 100th birthday, a celebration that begins with a visit to the street corner where the revival church once stood. The Azusa Street location, now in the heart of Little Tokyo, bears a commemorative plaque.
"We see the centennial as a homecoming for the movement, a wonderful memory of what God did 100 years ago," said the Rev. Billy Wilson, executive director of the Center for Spiritual Renewal, the celebration's sponsor. "We want to show the world that Pentecostals are about more than just feeling good and speaking in tongues."
Pentecostals believe in a personalized commitment to Christ and a second experience known as "baptism in the Holy Spirit." That baptism is most commonly accompanied by speaking in tongues, though other "gifts" from the Holy Spirit can include faith healing, the casting out of demons and modern-day prophecies. Followers base the practice on Acts 2:1-4, in which Jesus' apostles were "filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
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-Associated Press

And here's an article from beliefnet.com

and here's an excerpt:

"Mainly, Pentecostals were farthest ahead of the curve in recognizing that people today are seeking a direct experience of God, the holy, or the transcendent mystery. An old Pentecostal saying sums it up: "When a man with an experience argues with a man who has an argument, the man with the experience wins." There is tendency throughout our society and many others to distrust institutions and hierarchies. Even the Roman Catholic Church, the most hierarchical of all, is now faced with widespread rebellion on the part of the laity, demanding more say in the way their church is run. The "Voice of the Faithful" movement in Boston is only one example of this groundswell."

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So much for false prophets, false miracles, and great deceptions (Check out Revelation sometime). Who's to say what is "experience" and who authors your experience? Since you've been given this experience through some exclusive revelation only you and yours received, you've conveniently shielded yourself from any logical...Biblical discourse on the subject. Check out my favorite article on the subject by Fr. Seraphim here. And another about the personhood of the Holy Spirit by Frederica Mathewes-Greene.

It's Earth-Day...quit clubbing your seal and hug a tree

from Foxnews

"WASHINGTON — Parishioners won't find styrofoam at Towson Presbyterian Church, but they will notice shade-grown coffee, an ink cartridge-for-paper exchange and a recycling program led by the nursery school.

This weekend, the church will focus on God's creation for "Earth Day Sunday," a special service many churches now celebrate in conjunction with the secular Earth Day.
Earth Day Sunday is just one part of a faith-based green movement gathering steam in Maryland and churches nationwide, where Protestant churches try to dispel the idea that environmental protection is a leftist activity antithetical to Christian ideology.

The environment has historically taken a back seat to common faith initiatives like the fight against poverty or hunger, local church leaders and experts said. But now, congregations increasingly see a connection between care for God's creation and social issues."
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Whoopee for Earthday! As one of the only environmental engineers I know, I feel the need to comment.

I can't say I remember the part in the gospels or the epistles about the environment. I'll have to go back and check the more obscure sections of the Old Testament one more time, but I'm pretty sure there's not much there about saving the rocks, the trees, and yes, especially the whales. Not that I'm saying that we, Christians, shouldn't be recycling, conserving, and doing our duty to keep our waters pristine and our air breatheable. What I am saying though is that as Christians, any mandate we have to preserve our environment proceeds from mankind's sovereignty over this Earth. In Genesis, God gave Adam charge over all of creation, it was Adam's to eat of the fruit of the Garden, and it was to him the task of naming the animals (whichever spiritual meaning that may have). We keep the Earth clean and in good working order, not because the rocks, trees, and....llamas have any particular "rights" in the human sense, but because in fact we OWN this planet.

I'd consider myself as someone concerned with the environment, but definitely not an 'environmentalist.' Environmentalism, as defined by it's lobbyists and political action groups, advances the cause of nature before all other causes. In this line of thinking we are prevented from opening up the ANWR, and from fully developing our nuclear power resources (incidentally the cleanest most efficient source of power available). We are indeed capable today of reconciling a conservationist impulse with the impulse to preserve our economic progress. However, an abstract ideal that we should be preserving the herds of caribou and elk for "our children and our children's children" will simply result in imposing an artificial scarcity on us today and in the near future. This Earth is not just Biblically, but obviously by inspection, a human dominion. If we owe it to anyone, we owe it to ourselves to keep things in good working order, but land and resources are indeed ours for the use and betterment of that wonderful thing we call....civilization.

So you wanted to change the world...and now you're a mass murderer

A great article posted about Robespierre on Orthodoxytoday, from City Journal

"These atrocities were not unfortunate excesses unintended by Robespierre and his henchmen but the predictable consequences of the ideology that divided the world into “friends” and less-than-human “enemies.” The ideology was the repository of the true and the good, the key to the welfare of humanity. Its enemies had to be exterminated without mercy because they stood in the way. As the ideologues saw it, the future of mankind was a high enough stake to justify any deed that served their purpose. As Loomis puts it, “[A]ll who played a role in the drama . . . believed themselves motivated by patriotic and altruistic impulses. All . . . were able to value their good intentions more highly than human life. . . . There is no crime, no murder, no massacre that cannot be justified, provided it be committed in the name of an Ideal.”

The ideal, however, was simply what Robespierre said it was. And the law was what Robespierre and his followers willed it to be. They changed it at will and determined whether its application in a particular case was just. The justification of monstrous actions by appealing to a passionately held ideal, elevated as the standard of reason and morality, is a characteristic feature of political ideologies in power. For the Communists, it was a classless society; for the Nazis, racial purity; for Islamic terrorists, their interpretation of the Koran. The shared feature is that the ideal, according to its true believers, is immune from rational or moral criticism, because it determines what is reasonable and moral."

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Last night on Conan....

"Fairleigh Dickinson University: We didn't hear about it either until we flunked out of Rutgers."
~"Actual Items"
Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Check out the new sidebar!

New links...more fun...enjoy!!

CHRIST IS RISEN

sorry...I was in Philadelphia for the Feast Day and my computer has been on the fritz (what else is new)....but let us all REJOICE!

check out my pictures here:
http://public.fotki.com/skurian

"We bow before the Cross, by which we received salvation for our souls and with the thief we cry out: Remember us O Christ when You come"
-Good Friday Service

My Orthodoxy and my orthodoxy...

So someone complained that I don't write any of my own material....

"To describe an obligation as transcendent in my sense is not to endow it with some kind of oppressive force. On the contrary, it is to recognize the spontaneous disposition of people to acknowledge obligations that they never contracted. There are other words that might be used in this context: gratitude, piety, obedience–all of them virtues, and all of them naturally offered to the thing we love.

What I try to make clear in my writings is that, while the left-liberal view of politics is founded in antagonism towards existing things and resentment at power in the hands of others, conservatism is founded in the love of existing things, imperfections included, and a willing acceptance of authority, provided it is not blatantly illegitimate. Hence there is nothing oppressive in the conservative attitude to authority.

It is part of the blindness of the left-wing worldview that it cannot perceive authority but only power. People who think of conservatism as oppressive and dictatorial have some deviant example in mind, such as fascism, or Tsarist autocracy. I would offer in the place of such examples the ordinary life of European and American communities as described by 19th century novelists. In those communities all kinds of people had authority–teachers, pastors, judges, heads of local societies, and so on. But only some of them had power, and almost none of them were either able or willing to oppress their fellows."

~excerpt from "The Joy of Conservatism: An Interview with Roger Scruton" at www.newpantagruel.com

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A devotion to tradition? An intimate familiarity with the foundational 'patristic' thought? A world view based on an understanding of history inherited culture? Sounds like Orthodoxy!

No, but I'm rather obnoxious at finding 'orthodoxy' in conservatism. We don't recreate society every successive generation ex nihilo. We can't really make the assertion that this generation or any future generation "knows better" than all previous ones, without already being grounded in the standards of the culture we live in. That is to say, we only know right and wrong, because we are born into a system that has already taught us so...there can be no "new morality" (paraphrase of CS Lewis). To me, that's at the core of conservativism. Now take all that, throw in the words "Church," and "Tradition" (big T), and a bit about "Jesus," and then we can get some good ole' fashion Orthodoxy going.

It's Palm Sunday...now let's talk about the alleged "Gospel of Judas"...

from www.getreligion.org

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My newsroom was all abuzz this week with the revelation of the Gospel of Judas. The media have been going non-stop with the news that a Gnostic tract has been translated that says Judas was helping Jesus rather than betraying him.

Well, where to begin? Before I criticize the ridiculous ignorance of the media in covering this very old story, let me offer a critique of the church. If Christians knew anything about their history, if they knew anything about how the New Testament canon came to be formed, I doubt these stories would be met with more than a yawn.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Christians — and others — think the Bible was delivered to the church in present form upon Christ’s death and resurrection. In fact, the Gospels, which were written soon after Jesus’ time on earth, were fixed into the canon by the last quarter of the second century. Other books were included by 220 A.D. But there were many, many other books that were considered. And then there were some extremely heretical books that were never really considered. Various principles for inclusion were debated, but as a rule the books were tested against each other. So if the Apostles themselves said, for instance, that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, you would be hard-pressed to include a book written by a sect centuries later that said Judas was all good.

The thing is that for those who know their church history, Gnosticism is not news. It is a syncretistic movement with roots in pre-Christian times. It reached its zenith around the time the Judas Gospel was written. And it was based on the very non-Christian idea that its adherents possessed a secret message, bequeathed to a select few, that held the key to higher life.

For crying out loud, Irenaeus condemned the Judas writing in 180 AD in his book Against Heresies. He summed up the Judas tract as follows:

Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.

The Gospel of Judas claims to be a secret discussion between Judas and Jesus. Compare that with the four Gospels of the New Testament where Christ’s preaching is extremely public. The Gospel of Judas claims secret knowledge for a limited few. Compare that with Christ’s teaching that he came for all. The Gnostics tried to rehabilitate every bad guy in the Bible from Cain on down. They thought Yahweh was evil. I mean, is it really that shocking that Irenaeus, and the larger church, condemned these guys?

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Leprechauns...magical flutes...et cetera

It must have been a slow newsday...


and yet I'm still enthralled

2006 NATIONAL CHAMPS (Basketball)

fine fine...I'm a couple days late...but my computer was busted

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I think we'll still be a football school

Prayer has played an important role in U.S. history

by Tony Phyrillas

And the secular left can't explain away the fact that the words "wall of separation" appear nowhere in the Constitution. There's no language in the Constitution that would lead anyone to conclude the United States was established as a secular nation.

Even the Declaration of Independence, which was written by Jefferson, makes references to God. The first paragraph refers to "the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God." The second paragraph refers to unalienable rights "endowed by their Creator." The Declaration ends with a reference to "the protection of Divine Providence."

The Founding Fathers were deeply religious men. They couldn't comprehend a nation where God played no role in the affairs of men, including helping guide the country's elected leadership. The concept of "secularism" was foreign to the Founding Fathers. These were men who believed the United States gained its independence in large measure because of the divine will of God. George Washington, who breathed life into the Constitution as the nation's first president, often mentioned God in carrying out his public duties.

Even the First Amendment, which the secular left often relies as its justification for suppression of religious displays and customs, clearly states that faith has a role to play in public life. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." That's the entire reference to religion in the Constitution.

Clearly Congress cannot establish a national religion. That doesn't mean religion cannot play a central role in how the nation is governed. The First Amendment gives us freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The second half of the sentence — "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — means government has no authority to suppress the expression of religion as long as other laws are not being broken. Why do liberals insist on questioning the motives of the Founding Fathers?

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