Religion

Messiah Number 4,872

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I was amused to find a little bundle of booklets in my mail today at work. It was about half a dozen copies of a 39-page “novel” called …And God Created Love, by “Aytekin Kurtaran.” (A 143-page version is available on request.)

I resisted the temptation to read it through but, flipping through the pages, I found it to be the story of a “handsome youth” named Aytekin Kurtaran, and how he (with his beautiful lover), inspired by the true God, overcome all the evil powers that are making war, and establish a worldwide government and a worldwide religion, based on love. The author’s native language seems to be German. I can’t testify to the quality of the German prose, but the English translation is pretty rusty.

Apparently Mr. Kurtaran is confident that if he sends out copies to people all over the world, the simple logic of his program will convince everyone to visit his website (not much going on there) and join his campaign for world government and religious reform.

I’m a little embarrassed to speak so slightingly of the fellow. I’m guessing he’s extremely sincere. Perhaps he thinks his idea (one world government, one world religion) has never occurred to anyone before. Perhaps he imagines that, once we read his story, we’ll all slap our foreheads, say “D’oh!” and sign on.

What Mr. Kurtaran doesn’t understand is that his idea is not new. Far from being fresh and novel, it’s been done to death—lots of people’s deaths. Again and again, highminded and noble efforts to unify mankind in love (or something like love) end up in acres of bloody corpses.

There are few things so fearsome as a lover of mankind who just can’t persuade everyone to get with the program.

What Mr. Kurtaran doesn’t understand is that there’s something wrong with people. People are not good (but deluded), merely awaiting someone to tell them, “Love your neighbor and unite!” People are bad (and deluded). They need radical change.

If Mr. Kurtaran could take all human evil upon himself, be put to death, and rise from the dead, he might have a shot.

But even then, it wouldn’t happen as quickly as he hopes.

Authors, Non-fiction

Sink That Sub!

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Hand grenade According to biographer Terry Mort, Ernest Hemingway hated war, but knew one had to win once they were committed to a fight. So while part of a civilian patrol between the coasts of the U.S. and Cuba, the author would watch for submarines and plan to hit them with hand grenades when he saw one.

Uncategorized

Didn’t That Movie Change Everything?

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Filmmakers said The Dark Knight changed how superhero movies would be made in the future, so why haven’t we seen or heard about those new, influenced movies yet? For instance, where’s a good, dark Shazam flick?

I’ll wait for you stop laughing. No, no–take your time.

Blogs, Socials, Religion

Note: Distorting Scripture is a sin

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Kudos to Dennis Ingolfsland of The Recliner Commentaries for thoroughly fisking a video making the rounds claiming that Barak Obama’s name proves him to be the Antichrist, based on Luke 10:18.

Fourth: Now comes the “slight-of-hand” so to speak. In Luke 10:18 Jesus says he saw Satan fall as lightening from heaven. The video doesn’t give you the Hebrew word for “Heaven.” The Hebrew word for heaven is pronounced like “Shamayim (Shamayah in Aramaic).

Obviously the words “Barack Shamayim” don’t work well with the slander this video is attempting to perpetrate, so instead, the video does a little bait-and-switch by referring the listener back to Isaiah 14:12-19 which refers to the fall of Lucifer (Satan).

If you hold a high view of Scripture, as the person who made this video apparently claims to, you should never, never, never, twist its words and falsify facts in order to make a political point. Shameful.

Blogs, Socials

Hubris alert

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In my ongoing effort to overcome the limits of my shyness disorder, and to put myself squarely in a position where failure and humiliation are inevitable, I’ve accepted an invitation (through the good offices of Hunter Baker, who’s written a book called The End of Secularism, in case you hadn’t heard) to become a blogger at Touchstone Magazine’s Mere Comments blog.

That does not mean I’ll be leaving Brandywine Books (which may be good or bad news for Phil). I expect my blogging at Mere Comments to be fairly occasional, proportionate to the frequency with which I have anything to say worth writing. (This qualification doesn’t bother me here, as you’ve already noticed.)

No point looking for anything from me over there just yet. I haven’t even signed up as of now. I’ll do that later this evening, barring a coronary or a home invasion. My plan is to start with a cross-post of my piece on the Great Minneapolis Tornado. This will doubtless provoke numerous angry comments, which will hurt my feelings; I will then retire to my room and refuse to ever post again, and it will be the last anyone hears of me.

But I feel I need to raise my profile a bit, because as far as I can tell the buzz that greeted the release of West Oversea has dissipated like the waves churned up by a very small stone thrown into very deep water, and is gone as if it never were.

Oh, did you know I wrote a book? You can buy it here.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture