It’s Friday! I know you want to feel great about the weekend, but you don’t have to with products from Despair.com. Keep yourself from getting overly excited with The Pessimist’s Mug, which lets you know exactly when your glass is half empty.
'God Delusion' Helped by Reading the Word
Frank Wilson reviews Richard Dawkins’ complaint about faith in God, entitled The God Delusion. He says Dawkins doesn’t mind teaching the Word of God in classrooms for its cultural value and somehow believes this will undermine faith instead of build it. Frank notes:
As for teaching the Bible as literature, that might be the best way of communicating its spiritual message. If the scriptures were treated with the respect and attention we give to poems and novels and plays, with an appreciation for their often rich ambiguity, they would touch readers – in the way poems and novels and plays do.
I agree, but, Frank, why the complaint about people who take the Bible literally (which can be read at the end of his review)? Are you saying I shouldn’t believe Joshua really fought the Battle of Jericho several centuries ago?
"If a conservative order is to return . . ."
If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.
—Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind
SR directed my attention to ISI.org, and I found this quote which opens a pamphlet called, “Ten Books That Shaped America’s Conservative Renaissance.”
More from Pamela Aidan
Don’t want you to miss the praise Will Duquette has given the second book in the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series. I noted earlier that he enjoyed the first book, An Assembly Such As This. The second, Will says, takes place outside the scenes written by Jane Austen, “and frankly, it’s all the better for it.”
Look for Aidan’s other novels on Alibris.com.
Do Books Cost Too Much?
Interesting quotes from people on the Killjoy Express by way of The New Yorker: “Our wasteful consumer society buys, reads, and discards more brand-new hardcover fiction in a single day than the rest of the industrial world combined. I find that statistic staggering.”
Now, I don’t understand this man testimony: “People don’t seem to care where they start or stop in a book nowadays, so long as they’re reading. . . . And the minute they finish one novel they toss it aside and start another. I’ve seen people on the freeway flip through a novel to the dénouement, read it, and throw the book out the window. Then they’ll swing by a bodega, buy a new novel or two or a dozen, and be on their way. No one bothers to pick up the old novels, so they’re scattered all over, as we know, backing up in storm drains. The excess of it appalls me.”
Where does that happen?
Why can't we get more stories like this from Christian writers?
Here’s a story that made me laugh, and will probably offend half our readers. It’s another excerpt from Vol. II of The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis. It comes from one he wrote to his brother Warren on Nov. 5, 1939, when Warren had been recalled to active service in the Second World War:
I heard as good a story as I know this week about old Phelps the Provost of Oriel [College]—you probably remember him, with the beard and the black straw hat. Jenner was a fellow of Jesus [College], a high-minded dissenter and fanatical tee-totaller. He was dining at Oriel and the Provost asked him to take wine with him:
Jenner: Sir, I would rather commit adultery than drink a glass of that.
Provost: (in a low, stern voice) So would we all, Jenner; but not at the table, if you please.
Jihadist is a Good Term. Stop Whining.
Harrison Scott Key at World Magazine’s blog points out an NPR series on political words and terms used in the last few years. From NPR:
Take “jihadist,” for example. To most non-Muslim Westerners, a jihadist would be defined as an Islamic extremist who uses violence for religious reasons. Indeed, built into the 7th century notion of jihad is the idea of warfare. But it’s not so simple, because Islam treats violent jihad as a regulated endeavor, governed by very strict laws of conduct.
Then there’s the other problem: Jihad has a multiplicity of meanings — so many layers, in fact, that its meaning lies largely in the mouths of those who use it.
If someone with whom I feel comfortable talking about real issues says something like this, my first response is to tell them to shut up. Sure, Jihad is a complicated idea, but that doesn’t make it unusable. If a knowledgeable, faithful Muslim disagrees the terrorists who abuse Islam by calling for a jihad against Western countries, then the term “jihadist” makes all the more sense to me. The terrorists are fighting a legitimate jihad; they are using religious language to cloak their barbarian campaign. Adding -ist to their term is a good way to communicate that.
The same reasoning applies to “Islamofascism,” which a teacher at UCLA thinks should be changed to the more accurate label “fascist-like al-Qaida extremists.” Just slips off your tongue, doesn’t it? Makes you want to put in a rhyme. Peter Piper picked a peck of fascist-like al-Qaida excrement. Did I say that right?
The long and the short of discussions like this is that scholars and experts will disagree on terms all day long. If Muslims are offended at these terms, they should address their complaints to the terrorists, not the freedom fighters. (There’s a use of terms for you.)
Ahoy! The Pixel Viking
Photoblogger Pixel Viking has gorgeous photos from his home town, Odense, Denmark. Wednesday’s image is striking, common, and quiet. I like the selected color use. It feel different than this one, also a street scene, in full color. This one called “Viking jewelry” may be of interested too.
And just in case those don’t float your boat as it were, how about this photo from Diane Varner of the sea breaking against the boundaries set for it by the Lord who spoke it into being?
The best battle cry I've seen today
By way of Blue Crab Boulevard, from Eject! Eject! Eject! Make a Choice.
Going out and coming in
The temperature got up to 70 today, just to mock my depression (of course if it had been cold and rainy, I’d have thought that was mocking my depression too. I have an extremely broad mockery threshold).
Congratulations to any Democrats who wander in here. You won fair and square, and you’ve earned your celebration.
I myself find comfort in the following thoughts:
1. In any story, you’ve got to have setbacks. That’s what builds the plot. That’s what keeps interest up. In real life, setbacks are what keep us from being complacent. And the Republicans have been pretty stinking complacent over the last couple years.
2. Think of who the new congressional leadership will be. These are people eminently qualified to hang themselves, given adequate rope. And they’ll have rope a-plenty now.
My prospective renter came to look at the house today. He strikes me as a pretty good fit, a quiet guy, around my age, with professional credentials, who works with a Christian service organization. Likes to read. Likes to mow lawns.
He’s going to pray about it and get back to me. If you’re not overwhelmed with more important stuff to pray about, you might shoot up a quick prayer over this decision.