Celebrities' Real Names: for all of you who really wanted to know that John Wayne's real name was Marion Morrison.
H/T: Ayyyy!
Sumerian Bar Joke
17 hours ago
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Top 100 Films Meme, Part II
I'll bite on Darwin's Top 100 Films Meme.
1) Your favorite five movies that are on the list.
Vertigo
Amadeus
To Kill a Mockingbird
Patton
Bringing Up Baby
Honorable Mention: Ben-Hur (a sentimental favorite 'cause I watched it over and over again as a youngster)
2) Five movies on the list you didn't like at all.
E.T.
Annie Hall
Doctor Zhivago
2001
The Graduate
3) Five movies on the list you haven't seen but want to.
All About Eve
Birth of a Nation
Duck Soup
The Jazz Singer
Schindler's List -- maybe.
(I would remind Darwin that we have seen, and liked, Double Indemnity.)
4) Five movies on the list you haven't seen and have no interest in seeing.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Raging Bull
Clockwork Orange
Goodfellas
Platoon
5) Your favorite five movies that aren't on the list.
The Thin Man
Fellowship of the Ring
The Incredibles
Gladiator
This Is Spinal Tap
1) Your favorite five movies that are on the list.
Vertigo
Amadeus
To Kill a Mockingbird
Patton
Bringing Up Baby
Honorable Mention: Ben-Hur (a sentimental favorite 'cause I watched it over and over again as a youngster)
2) Five movies on the list you didn't like at all.
E.T.
Annie Hall
Doctor Zhivago
2001
The Graduate
3) Five movies on the list you haven't seen but want to.
All About Eve
Birth of a Nation
Duck Soup
The Jazz Singer
Schindler's List -- maybe.
(I would remind Darwin that we have seen, and liked, Double Indemnity.)
4) Five movies on the list you haven't seen and have no interest in seeing.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Raging Bull
Clockwork Orange
Goodfellas
Platoon
5) Your favorite five movies that aren't on the list.
The Thin Man
Fellowship of the Ring
The Incredibles
Gladiator
This Is Spinal Tap
Top 100 Films Meme
I have a co-worker who is semi-obsessed with the American Film Institute list of the top 100 films. He's been working through the whole list on NetFlix and, when a movie is mentioned, invariably asks, "But is that one of the top 100 films?"
This same co-worker recently watched Princess Bride for the first time and announced it to be "the dumbest, shallowest movie I've ever seen." As support for this, he pointed out that it was not on the top 100 films list.
Your authors here enjoy a good movie as much as the next fellow, though our chances to watch movies are drastically curtailed these days. (Most good movies are either unsuitable or uninteresting to the girls at this age, and starting a movie at 9pm or later when the kids are sound asleep is usually such a tiring prospect that we just pick up our books and head for bed.) Still, I don't have the respect for critical authority that my co-worker does, and so I'm going to stoop to creating a meme for all and sundry.
Go to the AFI Top 100 list and pick:
1) Your favorite five movies that are on the list.
The Third Man
Amadeus
Vertigo
Schindler's List
Patton
2) Five movies on the list you didn't like at all.
The Graduate (like the closing song, found the movie pointless)
E.T. (which I've always found curiously annoying)
Annie Hall (a few bits of good writing, but Woodie Allen was so annoying)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Forest Gump
3) Five movies on the list you haven't seen but want to.
Double Indemnity
Casablanca (how I've missed this all these years I'm not sure...)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Bridge on the River Kwai
One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest
4) Five movies on the list you haven't seen and have no interest in seeing.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Midnight Cowboy
Platoon
Tootsie
Some Like It Hot
5) Your favoritve five movies that aren't on the list.
Lion in Winter
O Brother Where Art Thou
Brazil
Gosford Park
Man for all Seasons
Tagging: JulieD, Matthew Lickona, John Farrell
This same co-worker recently watched Princess Bride for the first time and announced it to be "the dumbest, shallowest movie I've ever seen." As support for this, he pointed out that it was not on the top 100 films list.
Your authors here enjoy a good movie as much as the next fellow, though our chances to watch movies are drastically curtailed these days. (Most good movies are either unsuitable or uninteresting to the girls at this age, and starting a movie at 9pm or later when the kids are sound asleep is usually such a tiring prospect that we just pick up our books and head for bed.) Still, I don't have the respect for critical authority that my co-worker does, and so I'm going to stoop to creating a meme for all and sundry.
Go to the AFI Top 100 list and pick:
1) Your favorite five movies that are on the list.
The Third Man
Amadeus
Vertigo
Schindler's List
Patton
2) Five movies on the list you didn't like at all.
The Graduate (like the closing song, found the movie pointless)
E.T. (which I've always found curiously annoying)
Annie Hall (a few bits of good writing, but Woodie Allen was so annoying)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Forest Gump
3) Five movies on the list you haven't seen but want to.
Double Indemnity
Casablanca (how I've missed this all these years I'm not sure...)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Bridge on the River Kwai
One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest
4) Five movies on the list you haven't seen and have no interest in seeing.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Midnight Cowboy
Platoon
Tootsie
Some Like It Hot
5) Your favoritve five movies that aren't on the list.
Lion in Winter
O Brother Where Art Thou
Brazil
Gosford Park
Man for all Seasons
Tagging: JulieD, Matthew Lickona, John Farrell
Hope Springs Eternal
Rick Lugari sends me news of a not-so-upstanding young man who tried to make a million dollars -- and is being charged with forgery. It seems that this con man, like the more musical Harold Hill, does not know the territory. 
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Sterilizing for a Greener Planet
Jay Anderson links to an article from the UK Daily Mail about women (and their boyfriends/husbands) who get sterilized because their environmental convictions lead them to the belief that adding more people to the world's population would be selfish and destructive.
The ironic thing in all this is that in elevating the world's ecosystem to something so sacred that it must feel no impact from humans, such extreme environmentalists turn humans into an exception from the rules that govern other species. Most species, if provided with vast unused resources, will reproduce in order to exploit them as rapidly as possible. If later the species population runs out of resources, famine reduces the population back down to sustainable levels.
Humans, having the intellectual capacity for forsight and not liking the idea of maxing out resources and experiencing a major dying-off, wisely wish to avoid consuming resources in this sort of unthinking fashion. We seek both to avoid a situation in which resources suddenly run out, and to avoid turning the regions we inhabit into unpleasant places.
And yet, this idea that we should actively seek to erase our impact on the world by erasing (or vastly reducing) ourselves as a species seems to deny the physical part of our nature. As well as being thinking creatures, we are also a species, and for what do species exist other than to be fruitful and multiply?
Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.I've run into milder forms this myself, from "replacement only" people who consider having more than two children to be a crime against future humanity. I suppose this is only taking things one step farther.
At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".
Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.
While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.
"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.
"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."
While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.
The ironic thing in all this is that in elevating the world's ecosystem to something so sacred that it must feel no impact from humans, such extreme environmentalists turn humans into an exception from the rules that govern other species. Most species, if provided with vast unused resources, will reproduce in order to exploit them as rapidly as possible. If later the species population runs out of resources, famine reduces the population back down to sustainable levels.
Humans, having the intellectual capacity for forsight and not liking the idea of maxing out resources and experiencing a major dying-off, wisely wish to avoid consuming resources in this sort of unthinking fashion. We seek both to avoid a situation in which resources suddenly run out, and to avoid turning the regions we inhabit into unpleasant places.
And yet, this idea that we should actively seek to erase our impact on the world by erasing (or vastly reducing) ourselves as a species seems to deny the physical part of our nature. As well as being thinking creatures, we are also a species, and for what do species exist other than to be fruitful and multiply?
Voting and the Heap Paradox
One feels foolish basing a post around a comment made on another blog since it is just this sort of ingrown quality which often gives online discourse a bad name. And yet, it's hard to resist at times, so I'm about to indulge myself. Last week I ran across a comment made by this fellow, on this post, which ran as follows:
The heap paradox is as follows. Say you have one grain of sand. You add another grain of sand to it. Do you now have a heap? No. You add yet another grain of sand. Do you have a heap of sand now? No. And yet, if you continue adding grains of sand you will eventually find that you have a heap of sand. Similarly, if you have a heap of sand and you remove one grain, you still have a whole heap; you don't have heap-1.
A heap is, thus, an entity with a definition which is not strictly quantitative, and yet relies on having at least some minimum (though unspecified) number of constituents. There is no specific number of grains of sand which clearly marks the borderline of "heap" and yet it is nonetheless clear that some numbers do constitute a heap (126,452) and others do not (6).
Some similar things seem to be at play in regards to voting. Clearly, in most elections the margin of victory is sufficiently large that if any one person, or any dozen or hundred or thousand had not voted, the outcome would have been the same. But imagine we have an election in which the results are one million votes for candidate A and one million and one votes for candidate B. Whose vote decided the election?
Well, no one vote did. If I voted for candidate B, one could say that without my vote he would not have won, but it is not my vote in specific that decided the issue, because if any one of the million other voters who cast a vote for B had not voted, he not have won. Thus, A was defeated by one vote, and yet no one voter cast that vote, A was defeated by the sum of the actions of all two million and one voters who voted.
Thus, it is in a certain sense true that no person's individual vote has "any effect whatsoever on the outcome of the election", in that no specific vote is "the deciding vote" in an election. Except in the sense of being chronologically the last vote cast, not single vote ever is a deciding vote.
And yet, clearly, if some given number (varying depending on the closeness of the election results) of voters had not voted, or had voted differently, the outcome of the election would have been different. It seems non-sensical to say that the casting of any one vote has no effect, when the sum of several of these "no effect" events could be "effect". It we take "no effect" to be 0 and "effect" to be 1, then if we say that individual votes have no effect we are suggesting that 0+0+0+0+0+0=1
Thus, while it is in a certain sense true that an individual person's vote does not matter, it is true in a sense which arguably doesn't matter. Because while it's true that the vote itself is not by itself decisive, the cumulative (and at times even the individual) effect of not making votes is in fact quite decisive. To suggest that it doesn't matter if you vote because your vote will not "matter" in the above sense makes no more sense than to claim that one can have a heap of sand without actually having any sand grains.
What I say is that a person’s individual vote doesn’t matter, in the sense where “matter” refers to having any effect whatsoever on the outcome of the election. It does of course matter in terms of what it does to the person voting.The interesting thing about this is not, I think, the author's wider claim that voting is merely a training ground for moral relativism (which I find both uncompelling and uninteresting), but rather that it seems like an interesting variation on what is called the "heap paradox".
The heap paradox is as follows. Say you have one grain of sand. You add another grain of sand to it. Do you now have a heap? No. You add yet another grain of sand. Do you have a heap of sand now? No. And yet, if you continue adding grains of sand you will eventually find that you have a heap of sand. Similarly, if you have a heap of sand and you remove one grain, you still have a whole heap; you don't have heap-1.
A heap is, thus, an entity with a definition which is not strictly quantitative, and yet relies on having at least some minimum (though unspecified) number of constituents. There is no specific number of grains of sand which clearly marks the borderline of "heap" and yet it is nonetheless clear that some numbers do constitute a heap (126,452) and others do not (6).
Some similar things seem to be at play in regards to voting. Clearly, in most elections the margin of victory is sufficiently large that if any one person, or any dozen or hundred or thousand had not voted, the outcome would have been the same. But imagine we have an election in which the results are one million votes for candidate A and one million and one votes for candidate B. Whose vote decided the election?
Well, no one vote did. If I voted for candidate B, one could say that without my vote he would not have won, but it is not my vote in specific that decided the issue, because if any one of the million other voters who cast a vote for B had not voted, he not have won. Thus, A was defeated by one vote, and yet no one voter cast that vote, A was defeated by the sum of the actions of all two million and one voters who voted.
Thus, it is in a certain sense true that no person's individual vote has "any effect whatsoever on the outcome of the election", in that no specific vote is "the deciding vote" in an election. Except in the sense of being chronologically the last vote cast, not single vote ever is a deciding vote.
And yet, clearly, if some given number (varying depending on the closeness of the election results) of voters had not voted, or had voted differently, the outcome of the election would have been different. It seems non-sensical to say that the casting of any one vote has no effect, when the sum of several of these "no effect" events could be "effect". It we take "no effect" to be 0 and "effect" to be 1, then if we say that individual votes have no effect we are suggesting that 0+0+0+0+0+0=1
Thus, while it is in a certain sense true that an individual person's vote does not matter, it is true in a sense which arguably doesn't matter. Because while it's true that the vote itself is not by itself decisive, the cumulative (and at times even the individual) effect of not making votes is in fact quite decisive. To suggest that it doesn't matter if you vote because your vote will not "matter" in the above sense makes no more sense than to claim that one can have a heap of sand without actually having any sand grains.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
When Daddy Gets Bored During Read-alouds
It's been raining for the last two days here in central Texas, much to the dismay of yours truly, who wanted to spend the long weekend finishing up the playhouse out back. (Half the rafters are up, but that's sure not enough to keep the rain out.)
We went to the library yesterday, so this afternoon saw me sitting down with a stack of picture books and the girls -- who until offered read-alouds had been been fighting tooth and claw. By book four in the stack Daddy was getting a bit bored, as displayed by inside parent jokes like this, directed at MrsDarwin across the room:
We went to the library yesterday, so this afternoon saw me sitting down with a stack of picture books and the girls -- who until offered read-alouds had been been fighting tooth and claw. By book four in the stack Daddy was getting a bit bored, as displayed by inside parent jokes like this, directed at MrsDarwin across the room:
(from The Fire Cat by Esther Averill)Yes, when the fire cat rescuing a kitten from a tree becomes innuendo, it's time for Daddy to head back to the office.
Darwin: "He picked her up and took her gently..."
MrsDarwin: "Hey, now."
Darwin: "...down to Mrs. Goodkind. Mrs. Goodkind thanked Pickles."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
All Quiet on the Darwin Front
Well, so far no more monkeys are sick, nor is either one of us. This seems like a good sign. (Though mom and dad could still use another catch-up night of sleep.)
Work should have me running in rapid circles through up until the holiday (though hopefully not during the holiday) since there is a lot of pricing analysis to do in order to make sure we have all the right things on sale the right amount for the holiday weekend, while not losing all sorts of money.
After that, I'm hoping to do some heavy duty relaxing, reading and working on the playhouse. So while we may end up posting once or twice, things are going to be pretty quiet till next week.
I hope that all of you in here in the States have a great Thanksgiving, and those of you not, feel free to over-eat on Thursday as a sign of international unity.
Work should have me running in rapid circles through up until the holiday (though hopefully not during the holiday) since there is a lot of pricing analysis to do in order to make sure we have all the right things on sale the right amount for the holiday weekend, while not losing all sorts of money.
After that, I'm hoping to do some heavy duty relaxing, reading and working on the playhouse. So while we may end up posting once or twice, things are going to be pretty quiet till next week.
I hope that all of you in here in the States have a great Thanksgiving, and those of you not, feel free to over-eat on Thursday as a sign of international unity.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
As the Stomach Turns
A child vomiting at half-hour intervals all night: tired parents the next morning.
The same thing happening two nights later: mildly delirious parents the next morning.
Anticipating that the third child will be sick all night tonight: wild-eyed parents decending into madness.
On the plus side: now there's lots of clean laundry.
The same thing happening two nights later: mildly delirious parents the next morning.
Anticipating that the third child will be sick all night tonight: wild-eyed parents decending into madness.
On the plus side: now there's lots of clean laundry.
Digital Camera Bleg
The Darwin family is hesitantly getting ready to step into the modern age by buying our first digital camera. (It's a lot easier to comparison shop the holiday sales online when part of your job is analysing the prices for all major players on consumer electronics.)
Question for those of you who for whom this brave new world is already old hat: Do you need a SD memory card reader in order to get the pictures from the card onto your computer, or can you just use the USB connection from the camera to the computer to move pictures off the card and onto your hard drive? (the camera itself has a certain amount of memory, but it looks like with high resolution it would only be a couple dozen pictures, so I'm thinking a 2GB card would be a good move.)
Here's the prospective new family member.
Question for those of you who for whom this brave new world is already old hat: Do you need a SD memory card reader in order to get the pictures from the card onto your computer, or can you just use the USB connection from the camera to the computer to move pictures off the card and onto your hard drive? (the camera itself has a certain amount of memory, but it looks like with high resolution it would only be a couple dozen pictures, so I'm thinking a 2GB card would be a good move.)
Here's the prospective new family member.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Ten Bits of Latin Every Catholic Should Know
I was kicking around earlier the idea of there being certain key phrases that all Catholics should know (as in recognize and know the meaning of) in Latin. I've been wondering what the most important phrases for all Catholics to know in our universal language would be -- not that it's my business to decide these things, but hey, we all have a few spare braincells on the weekend.
Now, I've been known to throw up some "everyone should know" lists that others found deeply unrealistic. So let me preface this by saying I do not have all of these memorized in Latin (or exactly memorized in English) nor am I suggesting that everyone should. What I'm thinking of here is the sort of liturgical half-memorization which allows you to repeat a phrase along with everyone else or anticipate what the priest is going to say next. With the longer mass parts especially, I think the goal would to be know what you're saying or hearing, and be able to follow the basic meaning phrase by phrase.
A few key words to keep in mind:
Deus (Dei, Deum, Deo -- Latin endings change according the purpose of the word in the sentence) means God
Dominus (-i, -um, -o) means Lord
1) The sign of the cross: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
2) Dominus vobiscum. R: Et cum spitiru tuo. (and varients thereon such as Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum - may the peace of the Lord be with you always)
This exchange of "The Lord be with you", R: "And with your spirit" is used throughout the mass, and is a great catchphrase for Catholics to know.
3) The Gloria -- this may look dauntingly long, but with the knowledge that -mus indicates a verb in the first person plural and that "te" means "you", you can figure nearly the entire thing out with cognates. It's a good part of the mass to know because it's one of the standard parts of any sung mass. (Also, not the translational problem with our current liturgical version in regards to the second line.)
Gloria in excelsis Deo -- Glory to God in the highest
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. -- and on earth peace to men of good will
Laudamus te, -- we praise you
benedicimus te, adoramus te, -- we bless you, we adore you
glorificamus te, -- we glorify you
gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, -- thanks we give to you because of your great glory
Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, -- Lord God, King of the heavens,
Deus Pater omnipotens, -- God the Father omnipotent
Domine Fili Unigenite, Iesu Christe, -- and to the Lord, only-beggotten Son, Jesus Christ,
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, -- Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; -- you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. -- you who take away the sings of the world, recieve our petition.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. -- You who sit at the right-hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
Quoniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dominus, -- Because you alone are holy, you alone, Lord,
tu solus Altissimus, -- you alone are the Most High,
Iesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu: in gloria Dei Patris. -- Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit: in the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
4) The Sanctus is another standard mass part, and it has the distinction of being one of those sections which preserves pre-Latin liturgical language in the Roman Rite (Sabaoth and Hosanna from Hebrew via Greek).
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. -- Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. -- heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. -- Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in excelsis. -- Hosanna in the highest.
5) The Agnus Dei/Lamb of God: The third standard Latin sung mass part (the Kyrie I'm not counting since it's in Greek), this one is short and easy.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.
6) The Our Father -- an essential part of the mass, the divine office and personal devotion, the prayer that Our Lord taught us is a good one to know in Latin.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: -- Our Father, you who are in heaven:
sanctificetur nomen tuum; -- may your name be holy;
adveniat regnum tuum; -- may your kingdom come;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. -- may your will be done, just as in heaven, so on earth.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; -- Our daily bread give to us today;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra, -- and forgive us our debts (sins)
sicutet nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; -- just as we forgive our debtors (those who have wronged us);
et ne nos inducas in tentationem; -- and do not lead us into temptation;
sed libera nos a malo. -- but free us from evil.
7) The Confiteor
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti et vobis, fratres, -- I confess to God omnipotent and to you, brothers,
quia peccavi nimis -- that I have sinned excessively
cogitatione, verbo, opere et omissione: -- in thought, in word, in deed and in omission:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. -- through my fault, through my fault, through my greatest fault
Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, -- Therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-virgin
omnes Angelos et Sanctos, -- all the angels and saints
et vos, fratres, orare pro me -- and you, brothers, to pray for me
ad Dominum Deum nostrum. -- to our Lord God.
8) The elevation of the host and chalice
ACCIPITE ET MANDUCATE EX HOC OMNES: -- Receive and eat (lit: chew) from this, all [of you]:
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM, -- This is truly my body,
QUOD PRO VOBIS TRADETUR. -- which for you is offered up.
ACCIPITE ET BIBITE EX EO OMNES: -- Receive and drink from this, all [of you]:
HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI -- This is truly the cup of my blood
NOVI ET AETERNI TESTAMENTI, -- of the new and eternal testament,
QUI PRO VOBIS ET PRO MULTIS EFFUNDETUR -- which for you and for many is poured forth
IN REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM. -- for the remission of sins.
HOC FACITE IN MEAM COMMEMORATIONEM. -- Do this in my remembrance.
In addition to mass parts, it seems like there are some passages of the Vulgate so famous that one should recognize the phrases. These are the first that occurred to me:
9) Genesis 1:1
In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. -- In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
10) John 1:1-5
1 In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. -- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.
2 Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. -- This was in the beginning with God.
3 Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est; -- All things through this same one were made, and without this one nothing would have been made that was made;
4 in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum, -- in this one was life, and this life was the light of men
5 et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. -- and the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand him.
Conspicuous ommissions: The Creed and the Hail Mary. I left these out because it seems to me that there's a great value to reciting the creed in the vernacular (these are definitions we should all have memorized) and the Hail Mary because I think of its main place being the rosary, which seems to me a devotion more suited to the vernacular than Latin.
Now, I've been known to throw up some "everyone should know" lists that others found deeply unrealistic. So let me preface this by saying I do not have all of these memorized in Latin (or exactly memorized in English) nor am I suggesting that everyone should. What I'm thinking of here is the sort of liturgical half-memorization which allows you to repeat a phrase along with everyone else or anticipate what the priest is going to say next. With the longer mass parts especially, I think the goal would to be know what you're saying or hearing, and be able to follow the basic meaning phrase by phrase.
A few key words to keep in mind:
Deus (Dei, Deum, Deo -- Latin endings change according the purpose of the word in the sentence) means God
Dominus (-i, -um, -o) means Lord
1) The sign of the cross: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
2) Dominus vobiscum. R: Et cum spitiru tuo. (and varients thereon such as Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum - may the peace of the Lord be with you always)
This exchange of "The Lord be with you", R: "And with your spirit" is used throughout the mass, and is a great catchphrase for Catholics to know.
3) The Gloria -- this may look dauntingly long, but with the knowledge that -mus indicates a verb in the first person plural and that "te" means "you", you can figure nearly the entire thing out with cognates. It's a good part of the mass to know because it's one of the standard parts of any sung mass. (Also, not the translational problem with our current liturgical version in regards to the second line.)
Gloria in excelsis Deo -- Glory to God in the highest
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. -- and on earth peace to men of good will
Laudamus te, -- we praise you
benedicimus te, adoramus te, -- we bless you, we adore you
glorificamus te, -- we glorify you
gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, -- thanks we give to you because of your great glory
Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, -- Lord God, King of the heavens,
Deus Pater omnipotens, -- God the Father omnipotent
Domine Fili Unigenite, Iesu Christe, -- and to the Lord, only-beggotten Son, Jesus Christ,
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, -- Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; -- you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us;
qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. -- you who take away the sings of the world, recieve our petition.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. -- You who sit at the right-hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
Quoniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dominus, -- Because you alone are holy, you alone, Lord,
tu solus Altissimus, -- you alone are the Most High,
Iesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu: in gloria Dei Patris. -- Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit: in the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
4) The Sanctus is another standard mass part, and it has the distinction of being one of those sections which preserves pre-Latin liturgical language in the Roman Rite (Sabaoth and Hosanna from Hebrew via Greek).
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. -- Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. -- heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. -- Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in excelsis. -- Hosanna in the highest.
5) The Agnus Dei/Lamb of God: The third standard Latin sung mass part (the Kyrie I'm not counting since it's in Greek), this one is short and easy.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem. -- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.
6) The Our Father -- an essential part of the mass, the divine office and personal devotion, the prayer that Our Lord taught us is a good one to know in Latin.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: -- Our Father, you who are in heaven:
sanctificetur nomen tuum; -- may your name be holy;
adveniat regnum tuum; -- may your kingdom come;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. -- may your will be done, just as in heaven, so on earth.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; -- Our daily bread give to us today;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra, -- and forgive us our debts (sins)
sicutet nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; -- just as we forgive our debtors (those who have wronged us);
et ne nos inducas in tentationem; -- and do not lead us into temptation;
sed libera nos a malo. -- but free us from evil.
7) The Confiteor
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti et vobis, fratres, -- I confess to God omnipotent and to you, brothers,
quia peccavi nimis -- that I have sinned excessively
cogitatione, verbo, opere et omissione: -- in thought, in word, in deed and in omission:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. -- through my fault, through my fault, through my greatest fault
Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, -- Therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-virgin
omnes Angelos et Sanctos, -- all the angels and saints
et vos, fratres, orare pro me -- and you, brothers, to pray for me
ad Dominum Deum nostrum. -- to our Lord God.
8) The elevation of the host and chalice
ACCIPITE ET MANDUCATE EX HOC OMNES: -- Receive and eat (lit: chew) from this, all [of you]:
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM, -- This is truly my body,
QUOD PRO VOBIS TRADETUR. -- which for you is offered up.
ACCIPITE ET BIBITE EX EO OMNES: -- Receive and drink from this, all [of you]:
HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI -- This is truly the cup of my blood
NOVI ET AETERNI TESTAMENTI, -- of the new and eternal testament,
QUI PRO VOBIS ET PRO MULTIS EFFUNDETUR -- which for you and for many is poured forth
IN REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM. -- for the remission of sins.
HOC FACITE IN MEAM COMMEMORATIONEM. -- Do this in my remembrance.
In addition to mass parts, it seems like there are some passages of the Vulgate so famous that one should recognize the phrases. These are the first that occurred to me:
9) Genesis 1:1
In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. -- In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
10) John 1:1-5
1 In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. -- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.
2 Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. -- This was in the beginning with God.
3 Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est; -- All things through this same one were made, and without this one nothing would have been made that was made;
4 in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum, -- in this one was life, and this life was the light of men
5 et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. -- and the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand him.
Conspicuous ommissions: The Creed and the Hail Mary. I left these out because it seems to me that there's a great value to reciting the creed in the vernacular (these are definitions we should all have memorized) and the Hail Mary because I think of its main place being the rosary, which seems to me a devotion more suited to the vernacular than Latin.
Natural Law and the Hostile Audience
It is at times claimed that Catholic bloggers exist in a sort of echo chamber, where they can vent their views in completely undiplomatic terms to the cheers of those who already agree with them. I've no doubt there is some of this, though since I tend to restrict my reading to what interests me, I don't run into much.
However, sometimes you run into something so clearly an exception to this that it deserves to be singled out for praise. David of Cosmos Liturgy Sex writes about an experience I suspect many of us would rather bow out of: providing a brief exposition on Catholic teaching on sexuality to a campus PRIDE group, as part of an evening on presentations by various campus religious/ethical groups (as the token voice against the lifestyle decisions of the audience). His account of the event is a good example of how politely and simply presenting Church teaching through natural law can help even a potentially hostile audience to at least understand where Catholics are coming from.
However, sometimes you run into something so clearly an exception to this that it deserves to be singled out for praise. David of Cosmos Liturgy Sex writes about an experience I suspect many of us would rather bow out of: providing a brief exposition on Catholic teaching on sexuality to a campus PRIDE group, as part of an evening on presentations by various campus religious/ethical groups (as the token voice against the lifestyle decisions of the audience). His account of the event is a good example of how politely and simply presenting Church teaching through natural law can help even a potentially hostile audience to at least understand where Catholics are coming from.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Matthew Lickona's New Diggs
Apparently Matthew Lickona's old Godsbody blog is experiencing technical difficulties, but there's a new way to get your Lickona fix: The Godsbody Pledge
And you'll have to visit that to find out what the pledge is, and how this picture ties into it.
And you'll have to visit that to find out what the pledge is, and how this picture ties into it.
God, Cause and Free Will
An interesting exchange has been going on down in the Problem of Sin post in regards to the relation between God's will and our actions. Sapientiae amator says:
Now, I confess, when we start to talk about whether actions are beings, we're starting to get out of my accustomed depth. I'm pretty sure I read a bit about this view back in college, but as it's not necessarily the way I think about things myself, I'm rusty.
If we think of our actions as beings (or whatever they are -- they're clearly something) then I think we must think of our own wills as their primary cause. (I did some thinking and reading and eventually decided I'm not up enough on Aristotelian/Thomistic causality to try to couch this in those terms, so be aware I'm specifically not doing that. If a real Aristotelian or Thomist has a moment, perhaps he can do us that service.) Since God created each of us, and hold us in existence, and created us with the ability to make decisions freely, he must be the ultimate cause of our actions, to the extent that God keeps in existence through his will creatures who do whatever it is that we do. (I'm intrigued by the notion of fictional character's having free will, though in a certain sense I'm not sure what it means. I would say, though, that I think a good author "allows" characters to behave as people naturally would in the situations they are placed in, while poor authors "force" characters to go through the motions like puppets.)
However, the sense in which we say God is the cause of our actions is not, I would tend to think, the sense in which we normally use "cause" in everyday conversation, simply because God does not will us to sin -- definitionally, since sin is acting contrary to God's will. This is where I seem to run into problems talking to some Evangelicals -- some of them see it as impossible to act contrary to God's will, saying that since God is all powerful, clearly nothing could happen that is contrary to his will.
This is where I clearly part company with those who see the Problem of Sin as, well... a problem. It seems to me not out of keeping with God's omnipotence to see him as creating beings (in his image) that have the free will to either act in accordance to his will, or act otherwise. (In that sense, I don't see how you could have free will and yet not be capable of sinning, though obviously you could have free will and always use your will correctly and not sin.)
Two points: first, regarding the statement that God holds all creatures in existence. This is true, but more than this, he is the cause of every existing thing. This does not include merely substantial creatures, but also every other kind of being. In other words, it is not enough to say that God causes me to exist and then I go out and do stuff that God does not cause. This is because my actions are also beings, and therefore must reduce to him as first cause just as much as I myself, as a being, must reduce to him as first cause. When I snap my fingers, God is the cause of that act just as he is the cause of me. The same applies to every act, even acts of sin. What we can say about those is that insofar as they are evil, they are not beings, since evil is a privation of being; but no act is purely an evil. It always has some actuality, some being, to it, and must therefore be produced by God. So God is the cause of acts even of sin, although not insofar as they are sins but insofar as they are beings.And Anothercoward adds:
The second point is really more of a question, and is the more important. It appears that your reason for rejecting the above idea is that it would seemingly remove free will. I don't see why this is the case. That is, it would only followed if freedom included in its very definition the fact of not being caused by another. It's not clear to me that this is necessary in order for an act to be free. To give an example, are the acts of fictional characters free? It seems that they are, despite the fact that they are products of the author. God stands to us as an author to his characters--even though he "writes" the story of the universe, we the characters are nevertheless free and responsible for our actions.
sapientiae - so far, I'm sold. But what of choice? It's one thing to say that God upholds us and upholds our actions ... but does God uphold us in such a way that we freely choose absent the compulsion of His determinism between options/possibilities/good+evil?All this may seem a bit abstruse, but although your average joe may not think of these questions in these terms, I think there is a great deal of real relevance to this kind of discussion. One of the things I find whenever I talk religion with my Evangelical co-workers is that the relationship between free will, God's knowledge and power, sin and salvation is still very much an debated question among Christianity as a whole, although from a Catholic point of view it may at times seem like an issue which is settled except for a few scholastic fine points.
In other words, we know that God is not compelled to do anything. Yet when dealing with this topic, we get very dangerously close to ignoring that fact. And as an extension, I think we forget that whatever we are, we are in His image. And I do believe that extends to the nature of the compulsion of will - that God has created us to be (largely) free in our decisions - which means that before there are decisions/actions, there are very real possibilities to choose between. Now God being unimaginably perfect and perceptive, it's hard to imagine how that works - but I think it's more difficult to imagine that it's beyond Him, particularly given all that the faith teaches.
Now, I confess, when we start to talk about whether actions are beings, we're starting to get out of my accustomed depth. I'm pretty sure I read a bit about this view back in college, but as it's not necessarily the way I think about things myself, I'm rusty.
If we think of our actions as beings (or whatever they are -- they're clearly something) then I think we must think of our own wills as their primary cause. (I did some thinking and reading and eventually decided I'm not up enough on Aristotelian/Thomistic causality to try to couch this in those terms, so be aware I'm specifically not doing that. If a real Aristotelian or Thomist has a moment, perhaps he can do us that service.) Since God created each of us, and hold us in existence, and created us with the ability to make decisions freely, he must be the ultimate cause of our actions, to the extent that God keeps in existence through his will creatures who do whatever it is that we do. (I'm intrigued by the notion of fictional character's having free will, though in a certain sense I'm not sure what it means. I would say, though, that I think a good author "allows" characters to behave as people naturally would in the situations they are placed in, while poor authors "force" characters to go through the motions like puppets.)
However, the sense in which we say God is the cause of our actions is not, I would tend to think, the sense in which we normally use "cause" in everyday conversation, simply because God does not will us to sin -- definitionally, since sin is acting contrary to God's will. This is where I seem to run into problems talking to some Evangelicals -- some of them see it as impossible to act contrary to God's will, saying that since God is all powerful, clearly nothing could happen that is contrary to his will.
This is where I clearly part company with those who see the Problem of Sin as, well... a problem. It seems to me not out of keeping with God's omnipotence to see him as creating beings (in his image) that have the free will to either act in accordance to his will, or act otherwise. (In that sense, I don't see how you could have free will and yet not be capable of sinning, though obviously you could have free will and always use your will correctly and not sin.)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Coming Soon to Your TV
With the screenwriters on strike, Geoffrey Chaucer has decided to cross the picket lines and see if he can make it in holywood. Here's one of his concepts:
Sectes in the Borough: This hot and explicit showe wil handle religious dissent yn a more free and open way than evere bifor. Carrie Baxter is an underground writer of Lollard tractes in Norwich and the oonly thynge she loveth moore than questioning the validitie of the institucional church is her III best freendes: sexie Samantha, who seduceth many a preeste, intellectuale Charlotte, who speketh out ayeinst women being unable to preche, and Miranda Kempe, who receiveth visiouns from God. Thei meet every week to rede of the Bible in Ynglisshe and talke smacke about pilgrymage sites. Carrie is alwey resistinge the temptaciouns to submit to the orthodoxie of the Church, personifyed by Archbishop Thomas Arundel, whom she clepeth “Mr. Big.” (Paraventure for a cabel network, by cause main-streme audiences aren not redi for frank depicciouns of heretical practice?)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
New English Translation of the Mass
Zenit provides an interview with the chair of ICEL about the upcoming (slowly) new translation of the mass. One section that struck me as particularly interesting was this one about one of the phrases that I'm sure some will assail as "awkward" in the new translation:
Now, to me it seems like if you want to preserve a precise wording as a identity-phrase we might to better to use the universal language of the Church and say, "Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre nostro et Domino Iesu Christo," but hey, that's just me.
While I think there are definite advantages to having much of the mass in the language of the people, I think it would be a great universalizing factor if certain phrases (maybe only a half dozen) were known in Latin by all Catholics world wide. For instance, while I appreciate the accuracy of the "Peace be with you" "And with your spirit" exchange which is in the new translation, it seems like "Pax vobiscum" "Et cum spiritu tuo" would be a great universal exchange for everyone to know. (So if you're at world youth day and meet this really hot girl who unfortunately is Hungarian and doesn't speak English, you can get a smile and reply out of her by saying, 'Pax vobiscum.' This may not be my sort of problem anymore, but I'm sure there are some nice Catholic boys out there who need some help.)
Or more seriously, it seems like it would be a beautiful all liturgies everywhere in the world contained the:
And the similar key lines for the chalice. While there's a beauty to the idea of these words being spoken in many languages, all over the world, while participating in the same sacrifice, there's also a certain appeal to the universality of knowing that every Catholic, everywhere in the world would hear the same words -- and that no one can ever feel a stranger to this most sacred moment in the mass. (As opposed to the tri-lingual, quad-lingual and penti-lingual masses one occasionally gets on major holy days that leave everyone feeling left out.)
Q: Can you comment on some of the principal differences between the translation of the 2002 Roman Missal, and that of the one translated more than 30 years ago?This is an interesting explanation of something that I probably would have reacted to by thinking, "Okay, getting a little over excited about word-by-word literalism here, guys."
Bishop Roche: When the present English missal was published back in the 1970s, it was readily accepted by the bishops of the day that the translation would need to be revisited, because the translation had been done speedily in order to supply an English text, as quickly as possible, for the revised liturgy.
The new English translation of the now third edition of the Latin "Missale Romanum" will be a fuller and therefore a more faithful translation. We have endeavored to ensure a nobility of language as well as faithfulness to the Latin words and to the origins of the prayers themselves. A great deal more time and expertise, from a very wide range of scholars as well as bishops, has been employed producing the new translation.
So, for example, the new English texts will show more clearly the relationship between the liturgical texts and their scriptural origins. Let me give you an example in order to demonstrate this as well as the painstaking scholarship that goes into the translation of a text.
Sometimes at Mass we hear the priest greet us with these words: "The grace and peace of God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, be with you all." ICEL is proposing this: "Grace to you and peace from God, Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
Some will wonder "why make such a trivial change, what difference does it make?" Well, that greeting, "Grace to you and peace from God, Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," comes eight times in those exact words, in the letters of St. Paul. Outside the writings of St. Paul in the New Testament, the phrase, "Grace to you and peace," occurs in the First and Second letters of St. Peter and in the Book of Revelation. It is a slightly odd form, "Grace to you and peace from God," with the two nouns, "grace" and "peace," and the "to you" between them.
Wouldn't it be more natural to say, "Grace and peace to you?" I think it probably would be. But the fact that it occurs so often in the New Testament, no less than 11 times, suggests that that distinctive form of words has been a greeting among the Christian people from the very earliest times.
And you know the way it is sometimes, when you greet somebody or somebody greets you, the way they greet you tells you what sort of person they are, where they come from, from where they belong. Sometimes it's a secret sign, maybe a handshake or a wink. Or it might be a particular way of speaking, like "G'day sport." If you hear someone speak to you that way you would assume that the person came from Australia.
Well that slightly quirky form of words, "Grace to you and peace" seems to be an indication from the earliest times of the way Christians have greeted each other. The Greek, as well as the Latin, translation keeps that same word order: "Grace to you and peace."
Even Martin Luther, one of the first translators of the Bible into the vernacular in modern times, kept that order of words, "Grace to you and peace." And in the King James Version, produced for the Church of England, your find the same: "Grace to you and peace." It's the same in the Douay Bible, the Catholic version that was made in the 16th century: "Grace to you and peace." Then if you come up to more recent times, the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, those two also have that form of the words, "Grace to you and peace."
So across 2,000 years, translators have thought it wise to preserve that distinctive pattern, the distinctive word order, that distinctively Christian greeting, "Grace to you and peace." ICEL is proposing that this word order continue to be used in the Christian assembly, 2,000 years on. It puts us in touch with a very early stratum of Christian tradition.
There are lots of other examples, too: e.g., "The Lord be with you. And with your spirit" (Galatians 6:18; 2 Timothy 4:22); "Behold the Lamb of God" (John 1:29); and "Blessed are those called to the banquet of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9).
Now, to me it seems like if you want to preserve a precise wording as a identity-phrase we might to better to use the universal language of the Church and say, "Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre nostro et Domino Iesu Christo," but hey, that's just me.
While I think there are definite advantages to having much of the mass in the language of the people, I think it would be a great universalizing factor if certain phrases (maybe only a half dozen) were known in Latin by all Catholics world wide. For instance, while I appreciate the accuracy of the "Peace be with you" "And with your spirit" exchange which is in the new translation, it seems like "Pax vobiscum" "Et cum spiritu tuo" would be a great universal exchange for everyone to know. (So if you're at world youth day and meet this really hot girl who unfortunately is Hungarian and doesn't speak English, you can get a smile and reply out of her by saying, 'Pax vobiscum.' This may not be my sort of problem anymore, but I'm sure there are some nice Catholic boys out there who need some help.)
Or more seriously, it seems like it would be a beautiful all liturgies everywhere in the world contained the:
ACCIPITE ET MANDUCATE EX HOC OMNES:
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM,
QUOD PRO VOBIS TRADETUR.
And the similar key lines for the chalice. While there's a beauty to the idea of these words being spoken in many languages, all over the world, while participating in the same sacrifice, there's also a certain appeal to the universality of knowing that every Catholic, everywhere in the world would hear the same words -- and that no one can ever feel a stranger to this most sacred moment in the mass. (As opposed to the tri-lingual, quad-lingual and penti-lingual masses one occasionally gets on major holy days that leave everyone feeling left out.)
Imagine a World...
Patrick of Orthonormal Basis weighs in on the discussions of the Problem of Evil which have gone on in scattered fashion over the last several weeks. Seeing this last night, I formed a virtuous intention to sit down the next morning and compose some words in reply, only to find this morning that Scott Carson has already done so at some length. This initially raised the question of whether I should bother to add anything more to the conversation, since it has been established that Scott's writing is Genius-level. However, after reading Scott's entry, I'm going to go ahead and stick my oar in as well, since I think what I was going to say took something of a different tack.
Patrick is addressing specifically the question of sin, rather than of suffering in general, and he says:
On first pass, it seems that Patrick is suggesting that, given that it is a logical possibility that a being with free will choose the good in any given situation, and thus given that a being with free will may choose the good every single time, that therefore God, being omniscient, could foresee whether any given creature he was about to create would ever sin, and only create the ones that wouldn't.
This strikes me as running afoul of the classic "how does God's omniscience square with our free will" question, as well as casting God in the role of Oedipus' father: Uh, oh. Prophesies look bad on this kid. Please put him out for the wolves before he does anything wrong. (A reader of mythology will know that whether you are Priam or Laius or some other mythological character, exposing the child who is prophesied to bring problems is not the best solution.)
Basically the question is, if we posit this view of God pausing before each person is created to foresee whether that person will sin, how exactly does he know without that person making those choices? If God's knowledge is predictory (is that a word?) then that suggests a deterministic view of the human person -- that given enough knowledge one can predict every choice the human person will make. And that would seem to violate the idea of free will.
If, on the other hand, we take my preferred view that God, being eternal, exists in a sort of Eternal Now and thus knows all things past and future because he experiences all things as present (and thus, experiences all the actions I choose in my life from conception to birth through life to death and judgement in a single instant) then the idea of God foreseeing whether a person would sin and then not creating him if he would ceases to make any sort of sense. That would suggest a situation in which God sees a person sin, and thus retroactively uncreates him. (Every crime a capital crime in that world.)
But perhaps there is some other conception of God's omniscience that I'm not taking into account?
Writing this, I'm struck again by how unappealing the idea of a world in which we don't suffer is. This is rather counter-intuitive, so perhaps it merits another post to try to look into that a little more.
Patrick is addressing specifically the question of sin, rather than of suffering in general, and he says:
I do want to expand, though, on something which Dr. Liccione remarks and which I think others have missed: that the free will of created beings is not a defense against the problem of evil, because we could have been created to freely choose the good. Liccione writes that our free will might have been circumscribed to choose between good alternatives, rather than between good and evil; I assert something stronger- that we could have been equipped with the full range of free will (whatever that is supposed to mean) and yet created such as to always freely choose the good.It seems to me that Patrick is perhaps touching on several different ideas here, though perhaps I am reading too much in to a small number of words.
If it is logically possible for a being with free will to always choose the good (as Christians generally affirm), and if an omniscient, omnipotent God knows in the act of creation whether a free-willed being will in fact do so, then it is perfectly possible for such a God to create a being who always freely chooses the good (and in fact Catholics believe that their God has done so- ever heard of Mary?). It is thus possible for such a God to create a cosmos full of freely innocent beings, rather than freely fallen beings.
So arguing that God allows moral evil out of respect for free will is a red herring, since respect for free will does not preclude a universe without sin....
On first pass, it seems that Patrick is suggesting that, given that it is a logical possibility that a being with free will choose the good in any given situation, and thus given that a being with free will may choose the good every single time, that therefore God, being omniscient, could foresee whether any given creature he was about to create would ever sin, and only create the ones that wouldn't.
This strikes me as running afoul of the classic "how does God's omniscience square with our free will" question, as well as casting God in the role of Oedipus' father: Uh, oh. Prophesies look bad on this kid. Please put him out for the wolves before he does anything wrong. (A reader of mythology will know that whether you are Priam or Laius or some other mythological character, exposing the child who is prophesied to bring problems is not the best solution.)
Basically the question is, if we posit this view of God pausing before each person is created to foresee whether that person will sin, how exactly does he know without that person making those choices? If God's knowledge is predictory (is that a word?) then that suggests a deterministic view of the human person -- that given enough knowledge one can predict every choice the human person will make. And that would seem to violate the idea of free will.
If, on the other hand, we take my preferred view that God, being eternal, exists in a sort of Eternal Now and thus knows all things past and future because he experiences all things as present (and thus, experiences all the actions I choose in my life from conception to birth through life to death and judgement in a single instant) then the idea of God foreseeing whether a person would sin and then not creating him if he would ceases to make any sort of sense. That would suggest a situation in which God sees a person sin, and thus retroactively uncreates him. (Every crime a capital crime in that world.)
But perhaps there is some other conception of God's omniscience that I'm not taking into account?
Writing this, I'm struck again by how unappealing the idea of a world in which we don't suffer is. This is rather counter-intuitive, so perhaps it merits another post to try to look into that a little more.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
In Which I Find No Rational Explanation
Darwin had a long-standing plan to take an overnight trip to Houston last Friday. The young ladies wept copiously at learning that Daddy was abandoning us for an entire night, which sobbing could only be soothed by my setting up the ancient tv/vcr on a dresser in my room and digging out an old videotape of Bringing Up Baby. Screwball comedy, it seems, is easily accessible to the under-six set, especially if it features a leopard, a dog, and a brontosaurus skeleton.
I didn't have the heart to disturb the pile of sleeping girls at the end of the movie, so I made room for myself on the edge. I slept lightly all night, thanks to kicks, murmurs, and the stupid cat crying to be let back in at 3 AM (at which point I made sure that yes, I had locked all the doors). At dawn, fed up with baby's hand grubbing up my sleeve, I detached her and made my way downstairs. Our staircase is the repository for all sorts of items in transition: any clothes found downstairs are thrown on the landing or draped over the banister, and the second stair is usually reserved for a stack of old newspapers awaiting the trip to the garage (all of two feet away). I'd been unusually virtuous a day or two before and had finally packed up the three-foot pile of newspaper in the garage to haul down to the recycling bin at church, so as I passed the newspaper sitting neatly on the edge of the stair I paused to see what section I'd missed.
And there, in my cheerful, sun-lit kitchen, I stood transfixed as I gazed down at that morning's paper.
I was the first one up; I would have noticed if one of the girls had gotten out of bed and gone outside to get the newspaper (which she would have thrown, wrapped, on the living room floor, not opened and placed tidily on the stair). It had not come bundled in with the Friday paper, because I got the Friday paper myself. All the downstairs windows were shut and the doors were locked -- and who would break into a house to bring in the paper? And if someone did enter the house, how would he know that we put our paper on the stair, especially since I'd taken away the pile that normally sits there? I don't recall if it was there at 3:00, when I let the cat in, but I relocked the back door, and we keep our back gate locked so that the girls won't run into the front yard. I asked Darwin if he'd brought in a paper Friday evening, but he had not.
Can anyone give me a rational explanation for how Saturday's newspaper turned up on my stair before anyone had been out of the house Saturday morning?
I didn't have the heart to disturb the pile of sleeping girls at the end of the movie, so I made room for myself on the edge. I slept lightly all night, thanks to kicks, murmurs, and the stupid cat crying to be let back in at 3 AM (at which point I made sure that yes, I had locked all the doors). At dawn, fed up with baby's hand grubbing up my sleeve, I detached her and made my way downstairs. Our staircase is the repository for all sorts of items in transition: any clothes found downstairs are thrown on the landing or draped over the banister, and the second stair is usually reserved for a stack of old newspapers awaiting the trip to the garage (all of two feet away). I'd been unusually virtuous a day or two before and had finally packed up the three-foot pile of newspaper in the garage to haul down to the recycling bin at church, so as I passed the newspaper sitting neatly on the edge of the stair I paused to see what section I'd missed.
And there, in my cheerful, sun-lit kitchen, I stood transfixed as I gazed down at that morning's paper.
I was the first one up; I would have noticed if one of the girls had gotten out of bed and gone outside to get the newspaper (which she would have thrown, wrapped, on the living room floor, not opened and placed tidily on the stair). It had not come bundled in with the Friday paper, because I got the Friday paper myself. All the downstairs windows were shut and the doors were locked -- and who would break into a house to bring in the paper? And if someone did enter the house, how would he know that we put our paper on the stair, especially since I'd taken away the pile that normally sits there? I don't recall if it was there at 3:00, when I let the cat in, but I relocked the back door, and we keep our back gate locked so that the girls won't run into the front yard. I asked Darwin if he'd brought in a paper Friday evening, but he had not.
Can anyone give me a rational explanation for how Saturday's newspaper turned up on my stair before anyone had been out of the house Saturday morning?
Is the Church Indifferent to Science?
Science writer and blogger John Farrell wrote a very solid article dealing with the relationship between the Catholic Church and science, and asking whether the former had become too indifferent to the latter in recent years. In an ironic twist, none of the Catholic magazines were interested in the article, but his misfortune has become our fortune, because John has turned it into a blog post and made it available to us all on his blog.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Be a Drink Snob for Under $10: Drink Beer
Call it pride or call it an appreciation for The Good and The Beautiful, but I'm always a sucker for a certain snort of snobbery. Not the "Oh dear, my boy, you mustn't be seen reading that. Not done at all, my boy," sort of snobbery, but simply the desire to seek that that which is best whenever possible.
Of course, one area in which seeking out that best can be particularly pleasurable is when it comes to drink, as our Savior showed when he felt it necessary not only to assure that the wedding feast did not run out of wine, but that they were provided with the best. However, seeking the best can be an expensive proposition when it comes to drink. While there's much very drinkable wine in the ten-dollar-a-bottle set these days (and that's what we drink here at Darwin manor) to get into what's really considered the best wine, you're often looking at spending over a hundred dollars a bottle.
Scotch and brandy both suffer from similar price challenges, though at least a bottle can be expected to last you months rather than just one evening. Still, putting down $60+ for a bottle of Scotch is something I'd feel bad about when it came to totally up accounts, and don't even ask about brandy: prices for Cognac start high and simply go higher.
However, there is thankfully, one area in which you can treat yourself to the very best that the world has to offer without spending more than ten dollars a bottle, and that is the world of beer. That noble and nourishing drink made of malted grain is not only the working man's drink, but the very best examples of the brewer's art are available at working man's prices.
Everyone has his own favorites, but I'm going to cover a few of the highlights of beer snobbery -- at least to my own mind and palette.
Trappist Ales:
Simply the best beers on the planet, to my mind, are brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium and the Netherlands. The most easy to find is Chimay, which offers three varieties of beer: Red, White and Blue.
Of course, one area in which seeking out that best can be particularly pleasurable is when it comes to drink, as our Savior showed when he felt it necessary not only to assure that the wedding feast did not run out of wine, but that they were provided with the best. However, seeking the best can be an expensive proposition when it comes to drink. While there's much very drinkable wine in the ten-dollar-a-bottle set these days (and that's what we drink here at Darwin manor) to get into what's really considered the best wine, you're often looking at spending over a hundred dollars a bottle.
Scotch and brandy both suffer from similar price challenges, though at least a bottle can be expected to last you months rather than just one evening. Still, putting down $60+ for a bottle of Scotch is something I'd feel bad about when it came to totally up accounts, and don't even ask about brandy: prices for Cognac start high and simply go higher.
However, there is thankfully, one area in which you can treat yourself to the very best that the world has to offer without spending more than ten dollars a bottle, and that is the world of beer. That noble and nourishing drink made of malted grain is not only the working man's drink, but the very best examples of the brewer's art are available at working man's prices.
Everyone has his own favorites, but I'm going to cover a few of the highlights of beer snobbery -- at least to my own mind and palette.
Trappist Ales:
Simply the best beers on the planet, to my mind, are brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium and the Netherlands. The most easy to find is Chimay, which offers three varieties of beer: Red, White and Blue.
Chimay is sometimes found in roughly standard-size beer bottles (as show above with the traditional Chimay chalice) but you're much better off looking for the 750ml (wine bottle) size. These retail for $7-9 and are the right size for two to share and enjoy a great deal.
Chimay Red is a Belgian "double" style -- a brown, malty beer about 6% alcohol with hints of fruit and spice in the background. Chimay White (shown) is a Belgian "triple" style, a strong, straw-to-amber-colored ale which has some sweetness still in it, and a yeasty, estery, spicey blend of tastes. (Beer snobs do not use nearly as much weird terminology as wine snobs, but the "estery" quality of a beer is hard to describe any other way. Some have described these as being "banana-like" which somehow fits, though it's nothing like the taste of real bananas.) Chimay Blue is a Grand Cru style ale, very strong, dark (not like a stout, but very, very dark brown) with yeast, spice, malt and a port-like aged taste all rolled into one powerful whole.
The beers brewed by the other trappist monasteries are harder to find, but equally good. "Trappist" is a legally controlled term in regards to beer. Only beers actually brewed in the monastery by the monks can be labeled as such. Any beer you see that says "Trappist" (not "trappist-style", which some unscrupulous American brewers have tried) is going to be something very special.
Orval, shown below, is another of the Trappist brews.
Abbey Ales and Belgian-Style Ales
As monks have become harder to come by (and high quality brewing has come to require more expensive equipment) many of the monasteries scattered throughout Belgium which used to brew beer have licensed their traditional recipes (or even just their names) to local commercial breweries. These, and other beers simply brewed in similar styles, for the vast constallation of abbey ales, most of which are very much worth your attention. The standard Belgian styles of "double" and "triple" are often represented here, as are other more unusual types. Maredsous is one such:
Here too, most beers are available in both standard size and 750ml bottles -- the larger bottles are generally a better deal price-wise and keep longer, plus it's a great excuse to share a beer with a friend. (Friends don't let friends drink alone, right?)
Also worth noting is the wide variety of Belgian-style beers brewed throughout the world. The stand-out among these is the Unibroue brewery of Quebec. Their beers are relatively easy to find and I have yet to try one that isn't good.
German Beer
Belgium is certainly the place for exotic beers, but one can't do a list of top brews without mentioning Germany. Lagers are not necessarily wholly to my taste, but I'm very much partial to the dopple-bocks: dark, strong lagers with a strong malt profile. Best among these are Celebrator and Salvatore. The latter of these comes from the Pauliner brewery, which has good to outstanding beers available in every German style.
British Ales
And finally, how could one forget British beer? The "real ale" movement in Britain was one of the inspirations for the craft beer and homebrewing renaissance in the US. My personal favorite among the British breweries is Samuel Smith:
Home of the Taddy Porter and an excellent Oatmeal Stout, perhaps the finest Samuel Smith offering is their Imperial Stout.
What about Irish beer, you may be asking? Well... Traitor to my blood that I am, I don't have any Irish favorites right now. So far as I can tell, the Irish market is pretty dominated by Guinness and Murphey's, both of which are good, but neither one of which strikes me as quite in the league of the ones I've listed off here. However, I'd be very happy to be wrong on this. If you know about the great Irish beer I need to seek out, let me know!
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