MetaCatholic

First, I acknowledge I’ve plagiarised the title of this post, from this video.

Fun though that be, I really want to comment on this event Jim draws attention to. There is something about this that reminds me rather of the way some Christians collect celebrity believers. So-and-so’s a Christian and they’re cool, ergo you should become a Christian because it makes you cool. X is a brilliant footballer, and he’s a Christian: shouldn’t you be one also.

So it is with Alan White, holder of a PhD in organic chemistry, Harvard Grad and author of 18 scientific publications. (Given that the only publication I’ve tracked down is an article on the “compostablity of cellulose acetate films”, I’m not entirely clear what expertise he might claim in evolutionary biology or cosmology.) Wow. Look, he believes in creation like the book of Genesis tells it, so that must be a proper scientific belief. He’s a scientist, so his opinions must be science.

Er … No. He’s just this guy, you know. The only relevance “being a scientist” has is that he appears to fit the stereotype of someone with no literary or poetic sensitivity, and so reads Genesis literally. But isn’t there something about this idea of “being a scientist” that seems to owe something to Hollywood images of men in white coats who will either solve every conundrum or else blow up the world.

I’s say it again. Scientist’s opinions are not science.

Feeling completely stumped about what to say at a school Ascension Day service this week, I tried Googling for some ideas. After all how do you explain the ascension to young children in a fresh and stimulating way? I did come across some ideas for visual aids that could help. But typing in various search phrases including “ascension” and “explain” proved to be a big mistake.

I have decided that, after looking at pages like this one, or this one, that I have been mercifully innocent of the crazy whacko world of DIY religion and pseudo-scientific spirituality.

We are AMBASSADORS OF LIGHT who serve as the “BRIDGE” between consciousness paradigms by assisting others into the higher dimensional system of new earth energy.
We live and love from the Unified Field of Higher Consciousness. Children of the Sun is an organization of people that are dedicated to Self Mastery while serving in impeccable integrity and self responsibility. We are the Avatars and Christed Ones, emerging in collective power.

No love, you’re a bunch of deluded people who’s lives must be really boring to make up stories like this.

In addition to each chromosome’s 2 strand double helix of DNA, there are an additional 10 etheric strands of DNA available to each human, which have been dormant since the beginning of recorded history. … This is the Original Divine Blueprint, what man USED to be. It has been written that Jesus had 12 strands of DNA activated.

Not, however, written by anyone who knew what they were talking about.

It is hard, I think, to know whether to laugh or cry.

Why are you conspiring against me?

• You don’t talk about Shakespeare in my nursing course
• You don’t talk about tectonic plates in my cookery class
• You don’t talk about cosmology in my judo lessons
• And you WON’T talk about God in my biology class.

Kevin Sam posts with some questions on the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11)and Tim Ricchuiti offers a firm opinion.

While I fully agree on its lack of authenticity as a part of the fourth gospel, I entirely disagree with Tim (and note some evidence of early retellings of this story) on its canonicity, since as far as I’m concerned there is ample evidence of the church having read it as scripture for a very long time. Then again, I’m all for fuzzy edges to the Bible. (Not for nothing are the top two Google hits on fuzzy-edged bible from this blog.)  However, that’s not the point of this post.

No, what I find baffling is the obsession with “originality”. Let’s work with the reasonably common article of faith that our texts of the Old and New Testament are inspired, without enquiring too precisely into the nature of inspiration, or the precise texts to be included in the term “Old Testament”. It must be noted that the ways in which some of those texts use other of those texts pay very little attention to whether it is original. Rather, out of the available options, the most convenient or appropriate text is chosen. Paul, whom we may safely judge to know the texts in both their Hebrew and Greek version, is a serial offender.

The inspired use of texts is thus uncaring of original form. The scriptures that inform, shape and guide our faith rewrite and use rewritten versions and translations of earlier scriptures. Where then, especially among those who are most concerned to put the Bible first, does this insistence on the original text (even assuming we know what it is) as the only inspired text come from?

Come to think of it, when we are discussing the canonicity of a text that has, actually, inspired people, challenged and changed them and been a vehicle for God’s speaking to them words of both forgiveness and rebuke … what do we think “inspired” means when we talking about texts anyway. If (according to one inspired text, which is a heavily revised version of an earlier inspired text ) God could deliver a prophecy to Josiah through Pharaoh Neco (2 Chronicles 35:21) how bothered is he likely to be about which texts he can and can’t use.

This is weird. I reckoned the most significant post I made today was this one. According to my stats no-one (or possibly one person only) has visited it. Did I just choose a boring title? Oh, the mysteries of blogging. (If it doesn’t get at least one visit after this anguished plea I may have to adopt an extreme strategy which will include advising Lingamish to avert his eyes from some strong language.

Today’s chattering class news from the Westminster politico-media village was that Tony Blair thought Gordon Brown would lose the next election. A spokesperson for Blair has denied this. I wonder though, how many people will believe the denial. Either they will want Blair to have said this, or believe that it sounds all too plausible, or simply follow the basic political rule: “Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.”

Thinking about this I recalled a recent post on Windows Vista. Responding to this comment: “Microsoft, of course, has fumbled the launch of Windows Vista” Paul Thurrott points out:

I do not agree that Microsoft has “fumbled” the launch of Windows Vista, however. That is all perception that was driven by the media. Windows Vista has sold at a rate higher than its predecessor, and it has done so without any mathematical gymnastics: After one year on the market, 10 percent of the installed base was running Vista. That’s higher than was the case with XP. So much for perception.

There is the same issue of perception trumping reality, and it is one that crops up everywhere. Consider the ways in which the debate over recent days about Expelled has fuelled the (already common) perception that religion and science are enemies. Those of us who feel compelled to make the opposite case sometimes feel as if we are pissing into the wind.

No doubt the modern media world has intensified this phenomenon. Once something becomes the established story, it is hard to shift perception, whether by denial, argument or the production of facts. I suspect this is similar to what military strategists mean by “the initiative”. When you feel things are running your way they start running your way even more strongly. Somehow your own mistakes cease to mater as much, and your enemies mistakes are magnified. You are running the show and they are reacting.

Historically, I find myself wondering if this wasn’t also the case with the rise of Christianity. The really big persecutions, the Decian and Valerian in the mid third century, and the Great Persecution at the start of the fourth, are perhaps reactions to the growing sense that pagan Rome is on its way down, and the initiative is with the Great Church.

If this is so, then I suspect that the challenges to the Church today are far deeper and more devastating than we are generally prepared to think. Remember this is not about truth and reality, this is about perception. Where is “the initiative” in today’s world, and who has it? I suggest it is with those who trumpet the free untrammelled individual, and see State and Church alike as potential enemies of that freedom to live an unconstrained and fulfilled life.

I’m afraid I must resist being tagged by John Hobbins. I’m far too stupid to have heard of some of these people. I think the list is far too biased in favour of political scientists. I think that by being biased in terms of being active in public life, the list ignores some of the real intellectuals who drive those in public life. (What no Alisdair MacIntyre?!) I simply don’t think some of the people on the list are intellectuals. Dawkins is a very clever man and a polemicist, Chomsky a pseudo-intellectual whose reputation rests on linguistic obfuscation, and a predilection for being outrageously stupid in his support for totalitarian regimes wherever they are to be found. So, sorry, John, I don’t like this list, and I’m not showing up my ignorance by playing the game.

Sometimes you can’t help feeling a book title says more than it intends to.

De la difficulté d’évoquer Dieu dans un monde qui pense ne pas en avoir besoin

Don’t be surprised if you see a few changes here and there. David wanted to see this theme again. I’m still after “the look”. Will probably go back to the Mac theme soon. (I’m looking for the right bit of css to alter the main post texts with this one.)

Update 27 April Back to the previous look

I wish I could believe with a clear conscience that Matt Taibbi is exaggerating in this report. (HT Andrew Brown) Unfortunately, I’ve come across, or had friends who’ve come across, similarly bizarre and scary stuff done in God’s name.

We don’t get to see the utterly batshit world they live in, when the cameras are turned off and their pastors are not afraid of saying the really dumb stuff, for fear of it turning up on CNN. In American evangelical Christianity, in other words, there’s a ready-for-prime-time stage act — toned down and lip-synced to match a set of PG lyrics that won’t scare the advertisers — and then there’s the real party backstage, where the spiritual hair really gets let down.

To fit in, Matt invents the most wonderful problem past

“Well, uh, OK, then,” he said. “Matthew, do you want to tell your story?”  …
“Hello,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My name is Matt. My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversize shoes.”
“He’d be sitting there in his costume, sucking down a beer and watching television,” I heard myself saying. “And then sometimes, even if I just walked in front of the TV, he’d pull off one of those big shoes and just, you know — whap!”

The trouble is, this is far less bizarre than the kind of stuff that happens on “deliverance camp”:

“In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast out the demon of cancer!” said Fortenberry.
“Oooh! Unnh! Unnnnnh!” wailed a woman in the front row.
“Bleeech!” puked the bald man behind me.
Within about a minute after that, the whole chapel erupted in pandemonium. About half the men and three-fourths of the women were writhing around and either play-puking or screaming. Not wanting to be a bad sport, I raised my hand for one of the life coaches to see.
“Need . . . a . . . bag,” I said as he came over.
He handed me a bag.
“In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of handwriting analysis!” shouted Fortenberry.
Handwriting analysis? I jammed the bag over my mouth and started coughing, then went into a very real convulsion of disbelief as I listened to this astounding list, half-laughing and half-retching.
“In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I cast out the demon of the intellect!”

You really couldn’t make it up.

That last phrase seems to say it all: “the demon of the intellect”. It is exactly this kind of dangerous nonsense that the church needs to be delivered from, and a healthy application of our God-given intellect is the best way forward. No wonder these idiots think the intellect is dangerous: the exercising of the intellect is the exorcising of this dreadful and demonic drivel.