Michelle Malkin |:
Which could be said of most of the new "immigrants" --legal and illegal--to this Global Third World Homeland Formerly Known As America.
'via Blog this'
Monday, April 22, 2013
Reb Sirota "One of us"?
Re: He who was hoping that the bomber would turn out to be a White American...
The dear lady decries this "crossing of the line" as if it were something novel. Hardly. And she assumes that said Sirota is "one of us." Who, dear lady, might that be? Who be "us?"
PJ Media » David Sirota and the Definition of Hate Speech:
'via Blog this'
Jim Goad notes that Mr White Privilege, Reb Tim Wise got into the act as well, he who is both one of us and not one of us, depending on his mood and advantage. Great line:
When it becomes acceptable to wish in public for people you disagree with to be heinous murderers (and without even the slightest bit of evidence), we have crossed a line that doesn’t allow for a functioning democratic society. I’d like to say that I hope David Sirota isn’t an American citizen, because his words of hate shame me, but sadly, the truth is that he is one of us and if we don’t call out his crime, we are condoning it.
The dear lady decries this "crossing of the line" as if it were something novel. Hardly. And she assumes that said Sirota is "one of us." Who, dear lady, might that be? Who be "us?"
PJ Media » David Sirota and the Definition of Hate Speech:
'via Blog this'
Jim Goad notes that Mr White Privilege, Reb Tim Wise got into the act as well, he who is both one of us and not one of us, depending on his mood and advantage. Great line:
Fuck me with a dreidel if that “destruction” line doesn’t sound somewhat genocidal, Uncle Tim.
What's wrong
with this picture?
The supporting character gets top visual billing over the two actual co-stars. Wonder why...?
[I should say that I am sick to death of seeing and hearing Morgan Freeman. The man is worth $90 million and should stop working. After all, his bro, The Great and Powerful O, did say that "at a certain point, you've made enough money." Obviously he was not thinking of Morgan, or Beyonce or any of his other 1% pals.]
Sunday, April 21, 2013
One who stays
James Alison is a "gay Catholic priest and theologian." An unusual fella. Ex-Dominican. Very English. An original writer, as evident just from the titles of some of his books. The Joy Of Being Wrong. Raising Abel. Undergoing God: Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-In.
He is a priestly rarity: without portfolio, belonging to no order or diocese. Despite his published works and his frequent assertion that homosexuality is "a regularly occurring, non-pathological sexual variant in the human race," he remains unsilenced and un-defrocked.
He is also a Girardian, not a point of view I sympathize with. Smells too much of the ideology of sacred victimhood and the myth of The Great Secret.
His approach to the issue of homosexuality is not simply moral. He takes an usually optimistic but very long view and circles around toward it through a re-thinking of more fundamental theology about sin and nature, grace and truth, as is clear from the brief email exchange I had with him in 2009.
His reply:
Perhaps a part of what brings people like me and people like him to different conclusions is about attachment and hope, capacities for living with confusion. Or wishful thinking.
--
He is a priestly rarity: without portfolio, belonging to no order or diocese. Despite his published works and his frequent assertion that homosexuality is "a regularly occurring, non-pathological sexual variant in the human race," he remains unsilenced and un-defrocked.
He is also a Girardian, not a point of view I sympathize with. Smells too much of the ideology of sacred victimhood and the myth of The Great Secret.
His approach to the issue of homosexuality is not simply moral. He takes an usually optimistic but very long view and circles around toward it through a re-thinking of more fundamental theology about sin and nature, grace and truth, as is clear from the brief email exchange I had with him in 2009.
Hello, James. I am a fellow former Dominican and gay man. I left the Order and stopped the practice of Catholicism because I became convinced that being gay and being Catholic simply doesn’t work, for either side of the equation.
Being asked to regard something so central to my identity, my erotic self, as a sinful mistake was just too much. Sinful I have been and mistakes I make aplenty. But that’s because I am human, not because I am homosexual.
I also came to realize that for the Church to accept my erotic self would mean the eventual unraveling of its sexual ethic, a monumental self-inflicted wound. Within the mountains of writing and talking about morality, the Catholic sex ethic is really quite simple: "the only valid use of the full sexual faculty is between husband and wife, open to the begetting of children."
Once you make an exception to that, especially so huge an exception as two men having penetrative intercourse with each other, what ethical norm remains?
That’s my inquiry. What usable ethical principle, allowing same-gender sex, could replace the current Catholic axiom and still maintain a credible continuity with its tradition?
His reply:
What an interesting question you ask! And it’s one for which I’m not sure that I have any answer. I don’t know what, if anything, you’ve read of mine (I’m guessing something, or else you wouldn’t have found my e-mail address), but I would be hard put to find anywhere where I have even attempted at having a go at talking about sexual morality. In fact, I’ve tried to avoid moral theology all together, not having the patience (or the capacity for exemplary living) for it.
This doesn’t make your question any less pertinent, it’s merely a reflection of why I don’t think I’m going to be very helpful to you. My stuff has been much more concerned with the logical questions of whether the Church’s teaching in this area could possibly be true on general grounds of systematics to do with Creation, redemption, grace, original sin etc. The next question: given that it isn’t true, what on earth are we going to do about it, is one for gay and lesbian catholics over time in their lives, and the question after that: how is the understanding of “what is good” going to fit into whatever we will discover to have been the tradition as what you describe as the current axiom breaks down, is the one for moral theologians. I rather think Mark Jordan has been brave enough to have had a stab at re-thinking sexual morality in this area. Have you come across him and his writing? If not, highly recommended. The Ethics of Sex.
Hmmm. I’m sure that this is not a satisfactory answer, but then I’m also pretty sure that the axiom only “worked” in a world in which people didn’t talk about their sex-lives. When the components of emotional honesty and ability to talk about actual, rather than theoretical practice, become as widespread as they have now, then males engaged in penetrative intercourse with each other are the least of the problems faced by the axiom...Cheers, James
Perhaps a part of what brings people like me and people like him to different conclusions is about attachment and hope, capacities for living with confusion. Or wishful thinking.
--
Blasts from the past
How do I go from watching a 1950's sci-fi movie to finding myself on a website that provides the apostolic succession links of bishops? Damned if I know...
Tis a little known fact that over 95% of the Catholic bishops trace their lineage back to one man, the 16th century Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. Makes him a kind of sacramental Adam.
I checked out the lineage of the bishop who ordained me and in that line are included seven Popes.
--
Referencing Gnosticism yesterday, it's a funny thing about a lot of the contemporary little Gnostic groups that most of them tend to value apostolic succession very highly and go to great lengths to provide proof of their lineages. From the point of view of the Apostolic Churches --Catholic and Orthodox/Oriental-- their ordinations are no more valid than Mormon baptisms because the intention and the content deviate so strongly from the traditional meanings. Hell, for Catholics, even the Anglicans broke the chain by their Protestantism.
And of course one of the earliest witnesses to the hierarchical-dogmatic-sacramental shape that the orthodox Church took was St Irenaeus, whose writings attack "the so-called Gnostics."
Tis a little known fact that over 95% of the Catholic bishops trace their lineage back to one man, the 16th century Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. Makes him a kind of sacramental Adam.
I checked out the lineage of the bishop who ordained me and in that line are included seven Popes.
--
Referencing Gnosticism yesterday, it's a funny thing about a lot of the contemporary little Gnostic groups that most of them tend to value apostolic succession very highly and go to great lengths to provide proof of their lineages. From the point of view of the Apostolic Churches --Catholic and Orthodox/Oriental-- their ordinations are no more valid than Mormon baptisms because the intention and the content deviate so strongly from the traditional meanings. Hell, for Catholics, even the Anglicans broke the chain by their Protestantism.
And of course one of the earliest witnesses to the hierarchical-dogmatic-sacramental shape that the orthodox Church took was St Irenaeus, whose writings attack "the so-called Gnostics."
Saturday, April 20, 2013
She huffed and she puffed
HuffPo worthy Paige Lavender --is that a real name?-- took time out from her busy schedule to chastise two Republican (gee, really?) lawmakers for "questionable" and "insensitive" tweets about the Boston Marathon explosions. Mustn't speak ill of (Muslim and immigrant) murderers. I am so glad that our Liberal masters care that (certain) AmeRicans restrain their politically incorrect language under stress.
---
Another HuffPo article describes the brothers in detail...Chechen Muslims...the brothers showing both anti-American and aggressively Islamic attitudes about a variety of things...and the describes their actions as "an enigma."
---
Another HuffPo article describes the brothers in detail...Chechen Muslims...the brothers showing both anti-American and aggressively Islamic attitudes about a variety of things...and the describes their actions as "an enigma."
They're Muslim, but, like, so what?
Boston Bombing Suspects' Muslim Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing
Pretty funny stuff from Jaweed Kaleem.
Yeah, it's so, like, you know, incidental. According to, ahem, "Jaweed Kaleem."
So try this one on for size:
Atlanta Church Bombing Suspects' White Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing.
'via Blog this'
Pretty funny stuff from Jaweed Kaleem.
Yeah, it's so, like, you know, incidental. According to, ahem, "Jaweed Kaleem."
So try this one on for size:
Atlanta Church Bombing Suspects' White Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing.
'via Blog this'
More BS from BO
Lecturing us today from the pulpit of the First Church of Non-Discrimination, Minister Barry Hussein:
Or what if, as happened, there was a White police office "acting stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates or if Trayvon Martin happened "to look like my son?"
Do you think that the Great and Powerful O would still be reminding us to discipline our bigoted bad selves?
_____
PS. The surviving brother became a US citizen on Sept 11th of last year. You can't make this stuff up. Wanna bet on who he voted for in November?
"When a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important we do this right. That’s why we have investigations that’s why we relentlessly gather the facts, that’s why we have courts. That’s why we take care not to rush to judgement, not about the motivations of these individuals and certainly not about entire groups of people.”Now supposed the two bomber "suspects" had not been immigrant Chechen Muslims, one of whose YouTube page is full of videos praising jihad and sharia. Suppose they had been Harry Jones and Peter Marshall, two native White guys who belonged to the Tea Party.
Or what if, as happened, there was a White police office "acting stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates or if Trayvon Martin happened "to look like my son?"
Do you think that the Great and Powerful O would still be reminding us to discipline our bigoted bad selves?
_____
PS. The surviving brother became a US citizen on Sept 11th of last year. You can't make this stuff up. Wanna bet on who he voted for in November?
A Saturday morning esoteric aside
I have a longstanding interest in Gnosticism, orthodox Christianity's most ancient enemy. Fighting against it, in fact, gave the Christian faith much of its shape. The Gnostics lost. As Jorge Luis Borges wrote in his 1932 preface to their mythologies, The Defense Of Basilides The False:
Someone characterized it as "the religion of dissatisfied theologian-poets," a description which once would have applied to me [1]. The only thing which has ever really driven me in the direction of atheism is the problem of Job, especially when it became so focused and personal during the AIDS years. Gnosticism is sparked by this problem, too: How can you look at the massive suffering in the world and believe that it was created and is ruled by a God who is omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient?
Gnosticism does not really solve this problem but it certainly alleviates it --at least for dissatisfied theologian-poets. It splits the creator-god of this world from the True God who is utterly beyond and alien to it and then identifies the human trueself with that God. Much reframed mythology ensues.
the serpent in the garden is the hero, not the villain.
Gnosticism is not a unitary phenomenon. Given how it locates the process of salvation in the individual human consciousness, that could hardly be otherwise. But one of its distinguishing characteristics is dualism, the splitting of existence into two opposing and incompatible parts. This dualism can be played out on a spectrum, but if you're gonna be a Gnostic, you have to come to terms with it.
In fact, I find Gnostic dualism pretty consoling. It lets you release your pointless and anxious striving to "build the Kingdom of God" in this world by telling you that this world is inherently and essentially un-savable, the broken creation of a flawed and deranged creator.[2] It understands the human condition as a condition, a dilemma, an insoluble predicament in which one finds oneself and which is not of one's own making. Or of Adam's.
The local Gnostic bishop is a quite unusual woman and we became friends. The local run of Gnostics, however, were not unusual at all. As with Jungians, I found that they had a predictable group tendency simply to take their quite circumscribed cultural and political beliefs and project them into Gnosticism. Liberal world-saving Obama-lovers, all. Their religion made them feel even more like special victimized outsiders without having the least dent on their actual do-gooder world-view. Which was, to me, bizarre. Even a standard Jewish conservative like Jonah Goldberg knows for sure that politics is not a redemptive activity.
Anyhow, I got a Gnostic link this morning where yet one more practitioner was urging us to sign on board for yet one more progressive political project to fix the world through expanding the power of the federal government. Head-shaking. I guess I am not the only inconsistent man in the world.
[1] I remain dissatisfied, and something of a theologian, but my sense of poetry is much diminished.
[2] Gnosticism is therefore the precise opposite of what philosopher Eric Voegelin described. In a strand of Rightwing thought, "gnostic" is the term of opprobrium for movements or attitudes which seek "to immanentize the eschaton", to find, through special knowledge, salvation within the structures of this world. Gnosticism certainly claimed special knowledge, but that knowledge was the truth that salvation cannot be found in this world! What he describes is better likened to Islam.
The Gnostics were vanquished in their battle with the Christians.
But we can imagine their possible victory. If Alexandria had triumphed
instead of Rome, the bizarre and confused stories that I summarize here
would be coherent, ordinary, majestic”.
Someone characterized it as "the religion of dissatisfied theologian-poets," a description which once would have applied to me [1]. The only thing which has ever really driven me in the direction of atheism is the problem of Job, especially when it became so focused and personal during the AIDS years. Gnosticism is sparked by this problem, too: How can you look at the massive suffering in the world and believe that it was created and is ruled by a God who is omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient?
Gnosticism does not really solve this problem but it certainly alleviates it --at least for dissatisfied theologian-poets. It splits the creator-god of this world from the True God who is utterly beyond and alien to it and then identifies the human trueself with that God. Much reframed mythology ensues.
Gnosticism is not a unitary phenomenon. Given how it locates the process of salvation in the individual human consciousness, that could hardly be otherwise. But one of its distinguishing characteristics is dualism, the splitting of existence into two opposing and incompatible parts. This dualism can be played out on a spectrum, but if you're gonna be a Gnostic, you have to come to terms with it.
In fact, I find Gnostic dualism pretty consoling. It lets you release your pointless and anxious striving to "build the Kingdom of God" in this world by telling you that this world is inherently and essentially un-savable, the broken creation of a flawed and deranged creator.[2] It understands the human condition as a condition, a dilemma, an insoluble predicament in which one finds oneself and which is not of one's own making. Or of Adam's.
The local Gnostic bishop is a quite unusual woman and we became friends. The local run of Gnostics, however, were not unusual at all. As with Jungians, I found that they had a predictable group tendency simply to take their quite circumscribed cultural and political beliefs and project them into Gnosticism. Liberal world-saving Obama-lovers, all. Their religion made them feel even more like special victimized outsiders without having the least dent on their actual do-gooder world-view. Which was, to me, bizarre. Even a standard Jewish conservative like Jonah Goldberg knows for sure that politics is not a redemptive activity.
Anyhow, I got a Gnostic link this morning where yet one more practitioner was urging us to sign on board for yet one more progressive political project to fix the world through expanding the power of the federal government. Head-shaking. I guess I am not the only inconsistent man in the world.
[1] I remain dissatisfied, and something of a theologian, but my sense of poetry is much diminished.
[2] Gnosticism is therefore the precise opposite of what philosopher Eric Voegelin described. In a strand of Rightwing thought, "gnostic" is the term of opprobrium for movements or attitudes which seek "to immanentize the eschaton", to find, through special knowledge, salvation within the structures of this world. Gnosticism certainly claimed special knowledge, but that knowledge was the truth that salvation cannot be found in this world! What he describes is better likened to Islam.
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