Humanities & Culture
Spirituality and FaithBy Aaron
10 days ago
Greetings.
Jewish date: 24 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Wayyaqhel-Fequdhe).
Today’s holidays: Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent (Roman Catholicism), Feast of Israel Regardie (Thelema).
Worthy cause of the day:
Topic 1: There is no way I am going to escape this, since it was on the news yesterday: “Pa. woman charged with recruiting jihadists”. This article deals with Colleen LaRose, an American convert to Islam who became involved with terrorists. One of the things said in this article struck me as notable:
The case "demonstrates that terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause, and it shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance," U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said. |
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Humanities & CultureSpirituality and FaithBy Aaron
3 weeks ago
Greetings.
Jewish date: 9 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Teṣawweh).
Today’s holiday: Feast of Polycarp (Roman Catholicism).
Worthy cause of the day: “Demerit Walmart”.
Topic 1: Caprica, in its latest episode, “Gravedancing”, continues throwing us scraps of theology, and the scraps are not all that appealing. Once again we encounter the cliché of “polytheism good, monotheism bad”, specifically in the form of statements made by a comedian/talk show host who claims that God is a “moral dictator” and a “big destructo-god in the sky”. These are cliché insults. The former is a complaint about the notion of a deity holding us to a moral standard. The alternative would be what? That we can do whatever we want? That we should be allowed to do whatever we want? The comedian is clearly not a moral nihilist; he opposes the “anything goes” attitude of the virtual world |
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Humanities & CultureSpirituality and FaithBy Aaron
4 weeks ago
Greetings.
Jewish date: 7 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Teṣawweh).
Today’s holidays: Anniversary of the death of Mosheh Rabbenu (Judaism), First Sunday of Lent (Roman Catholicism).
Worthy cause of the day:
Topic 1: “The chilling effect of 'lawfare' litigation” by Alan Dershowitz and Elizabeth Samson. This article deals with abuse of the law by Muslims to silence critics of Islam (“lawfare”). The idea is not to win cases per se; rather, the point is to force critics to pay so much in court costs that effectively criticizing Islam is too costly for them to afford. [Enter justified insult mode now.] This is a technique of people who do not wish to play fair. Rather than trying to prove to anyone else that their ideas are true, they try to silence the competition. In effect, the would-be silencers admit that their ideas are without merit, because if they had any good defense to the criticisms, they would use that rather than the dishonorable technique of frivolous |
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Humanities & CultureSpirituality and FaithBy Aaron
4 weeks ago
Greetings.
Jewish date: 4 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Terumah).
Today’s holiday: Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Roman Catholicism).
Topic 1: More anti-Semitism: “Double Standards? Nato's Afghan Errors: Why are Afghan civilian casualties "accidents" but Palestinian civilian casualties are "war crimes"?”. This is even worse than the title suggests. Not only is an Orwellian abuse of language being perpetrated, but also noted is even outright denial of contradictory evidence. Major rule to keep in mind: our universe never changes itself to be as we want it to be. Therefore denying photographic evidence showing that Ḥamas stores weaponry in mosques is just plain stupid. (Yes, I know that is not the most polite terminology possible. But it is the terminology which fits best.) The theme of denial of reality also shows up in “How Christian Were the Founders?”, which deals with the efforts of |
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