Double dactyl

Grommity Grammity

How anonymity

Gives me the license to

Spout like a fool

Maybe quite typic’lly

Brooking no cavil, I

Rest on the dictum of

My blog, my rule.

My people don't work

The notion that the word liturgy means 'work of the people' seems to be popular among a certain type of liturgical progressive not so intent on returning the Mass to the people as on putting his own personal stamp on it. The larger problem with the formulation is that it is not strictly true. While the word leitos for people or public and ergo for “to do” form its Greek roots, the word liturgy was not cobbled together from its roots by early Christians, but taken whole in the word leitourgia from Greek culture. In that context, the word meant “public work” actually of an elevated or rich person, for (not by) the public. What the progressive seem to have in mind is more a new coinage, demourgia—ringing uncomfortably close to the Gnostic concept of the demiurge. Considered seriously, we must humbly admit that the liturgy is not the work of the people, but the work of Christ given through his Spouse the Holy Catholic Church for the benefit of the people. This consideration should be enough to quell any temptation we have to engage in any such tinkering with the Mass as for example (as I have heard recently) altering the words of the Agnus Dei.

a quarter century

She took me, damaged goods as they say, without reservation some twenty-four years ago--I'm almost certain she never, even at the end, knew just how damaged--and slowly and painstakingly went a long long way toward fixing me. I never even realized what she was doing (she was no scold); sometimes she even allowed me to think it was she who was in need of repair.

The project, however, is still far from complete. I pray she may still give it some of her attention.

Our last conversation

I asked her, "Are you afraid?"

She said, "No."

Conflicting requests

The Church prays:

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace.
Amen.

But I ask that she experience (among many other things) an everlasting falling into joy, an eternal coronation like unto and only a little less than that of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, an exquisite cardinal moment of perfection on which all creation--time, space and matter--hinges.

Am I wrong? I cannot quite reconcile these prayers. The Church's plea seems to be for a sublime sort of sleep. But sleep, to me

(as, it would seem, to the Psalmist, For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee, {6:6 Vulg} as well as to the Preacher, For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing more, {Eccl. 9:6}),

means forgetfulness; and eternity, to me, subsumes the notion of an expected future universal resurrection. What's more I'm praying through the intercession of men and women who also have gone down to eternal forgetfulness, praying that she knows even as she has been known.

If I am not wrong and our prayers are not incompatible, then the answer lies surely in the gaps in my understandings of words like eternity or perpetuity, experience, repose, peace and... and the list doesn't end, really. This is what I hope.

I'm wearing it now.

I just found out this morning that I have a shirt that has buttons on the cuffs that I'd never before buttoned myself.

40th Day

Well, she did it. What's more, she made it look easy.

Do I need a new prescription? Is that all?

The horizon that seemed so near I pleased to obscure with a clutter of vanity heaped upon vanity now seems immensely distant and the space between barren.

Ero ism o sono ism.

"She is in a better place now," are words meant to console. But, to say nothing of their being taken together, each of the seven words taken separately easily might underlie ten thousand words of contentious and disturbing debate. Well, perhaps not "a", but, then again, maybe so.

Olympic Coverage on Mother Corp.

I won't say it's explicitly part of the mission statement of the CBC automatically to exclude Christ and Christianity from the airwaves, but in their radio coverage of the winter games recently I heard their announcer give details of an Olympic awards ceremony at "BCE Place".

Sad music in my parish.

Our new priest has instituted a music program in which Chant and Latin hymns are forbidden and in which the music draws heavily from post-Vatican II American sources. A few months ago, fearing from things that I had heard that he would take this very step, I wrote him a letter. He seemed pleased to receive it and told me the following Sunday that he was working on a reply. I have received no reply from him in writing, but only the appearance of a new modern (pronounced "godawful") Hymnal in the pews, the almost complete abandonment of the organ, and way - way more electric piano at mass. I mean no disrespect, but if this is what he intended as his reply, I take it to be the equivalent of the raised and extended middle finger. For posterity and with identifying info removed, I reproduce the letter here. If he ever does reply in writing, I will attach it to this post. I welcome criticism from my many readers.

Dear Father
While I was unable to attend the parish music information meeting held last Saturday, it would seem that mine is one of the voices for whose return you made an appeal on Sunday. I note further your undoubted enthusiasm for the establishment of a body of some form or forms of sacred music along with musicians and singers able to draw from it for the enrichment of the liturgy. With this in mind, I hope I might offer my personal thoughts.

I have been a parishioner of St X for the last {a number more than ten} years after having attended for several years from outside the parish. As much as I appreciated in many ways the pastoral care of Fr. Y, as a music lover, the one thing that was often a source of dismay was the state of sacred music both in the parish and in the Church as a whole.

Inspired by a certain understanding of the aims of the Second Vatican Council, a rich and still fruitful patrimony of ancient sacred music had been set aside, as it seemed to me, for the mostly insipid tunes and sometimes profane or heterodox lyrics of a small cadre of 1970’s composers. Even when older hymns and chorales were tapped—a great many of them imported directly from Protestant hymnodical traditions—performances frequently were suited more to nightclub or campfire than to church. This is not to say that there were no bright spots: many examples of musicians and singers sounding truly Catholic hymns both old and new in the vernacular with voices raised to the glory of God and not to their own; just that there were these disappointments and so much of our treasured Catholic musical inheritance simply missing.

So when I was asked about four years ago to help found a choir in the parish that would have as its aim—secondary of course to adoration and worship of God—the revival of chant and polyphony and the return in that context of music truly integrated into the liturgy, I leapt at the opportunity. Since that time we have been working hard to cultivate a command of the media of chant and polyphony while at the same time striving to remain obedient to the wishes of the parish priest and respectful of the sensibilities of the congregation. It was not a case of foisting chant and Latin on the parish, but rather of slowly and painstakingly reintroducing the parish to their richness, beauty and importance and allowing them to take their proper place along side the standard English repertoire.

If the proper interpretation of Vatican II required the summary jettison of music essential—not just incidental—to centuries of liturgical practice, the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium would not, as I am sure you are aware, have granted Gregorian chant “pride of place” as “proper to the Roman liturgy” and would not have singled out polyphony especially as “by no means excluded”. If Latin were meant to be suppressed in the post-conciliar Church, the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram would not have provided that “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved”, and Pope Paul VI of blessed memory would not under its auspices have provided the church with the 1974 document Jubilate Deo (see http://www.ceciliaschola.org/pdf/jubilateb.pdf) allowing even small congregations to enjoy the manifold blessings of the tradition of plainsong.

As for that tradition, the value of chant in worship must not be underestimated. Its transcendental qualities are known to non-Christian faiths as they were in pre-Christian traditions. It is well known that many chant melodies predate their score-notation by many years, and it is theorized by some that a few are nearly as ancient as the psalms themselves. Certainly the roots of chant lie firmly in the Hebrew tradition of psalmody which was carried into the early Christian Church.

One might reasonably argue that the remoteness and difficulty of chant preclude the “active participation” in the liturgy called for by Vatican II, by hampering the ability of the congregation to “sing along”. It must be admitted there is an element of validity to this argument for some; naturally it is desirable that there continue to be offered masses at which music is sung entirely in the vernacular with as much vocal participation as possible from the congregation. However, for many others the dynamic will be just the opposite.

The objection is answered in part by considering the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI’s writings focusing on the more important internal dimensions of “active participation”: a level of involvement in prayer, a focus on the Holy Mysteries taking place at the altar, uniting one’s intentions with the priest’s, recollecting oneself before Holy Communion and making thanksgiving afterwards. Without these and like levels of participation, singing along to the hymns is useless. It can even be maintained that as much as our joining in the singing of folk and pop style songs excites the emotions, our listening to chant—even if the words are not understood—elevates the spirit not only by the melodies themselves soothing the passions that the soul may be lifted, but by the authentic voice of the Church being raised up to God in the words. In this way chant is able actually to enhance active participation in the liturgy truly lending itself to powerful use as a sacramental.

I believe this benefit obtains even granting that understanding of the words be nil. But I would not concede that much: if Latin chant were introduced into the ordinary of the Mass in a systematic way, very quickly the words Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi would be exactly as accessible to the congregation as the words Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world. Truthfully, in either language the greater import of the words remains a profound mystery, as it must. Two advantages of choosing to enunciate the former over the latter are 1) that we speak in the mother tongue of the Church and join in her catholic voice and 2) that the Latin words and melodies of chant are so inextricably bound as to form one organic whole much as our own bodies and souls form whole persons.

A second objection that one might raise is that our particular schola was simply not accomplished enough to realize the myriad benefits of chant. This objection has a great deal more power and not a little truth. But the solution is not to suppress chant and Latin, which would clearly be contrary to the will of the Church, but to foster it: first, I would humbly suggest, on the part of the pastor both by educating the congregation as a whole and by encouraging greater participation in chant by musicians from within the congregation; and secondly on the part of the choir itself both by self study and by practice, practice, practice.

Yours in Christ,

Euclid meets God (or doesn't)

In a letter to my Protestant friend (MPF) (cc'd to my atheist friend (MAF)) concerning MAF I said,

it would be fruitful, if possible, more precisely to spline the curve of that twisted notion of the Divine from the roots of disbelief to the point where its tangent becomes true, that is to say orthodox.

Some discussion ensued in which MAF opined,

Believers are asymptotic to God (growing ever closer but never actually meeting). Non-believers are parallel to God (in the Euclidian sense).

He seems to have been implying nobody ever meets God. With this, MPF disagreed, saying,

The un-believer is obviously not parallel to God, since his distance from God is increasing... The believer is parallel to God, as the two lines meet in infinity.

(which Euclid might have found surprising, but never mind). After some discussion in which I did not join about the meanings of the word parallel, I replied at length,

As you all know, I love to beat dead metaphors as much as the next cretin. So, preposterously hoping this nag'll gallop a little further let me try this.

I like the notion that believers travel an asymptotic path toward God, never (in this life) meeting. What's more, we always view God around our own individual curve, so when we look toward God we don't see Him. Those greatly advanced in holiness travel through life so close to God they might almost turn and touch. Yet they're in the same position as anyone, seeing God around a curve, though they can more profoundly experience in this way that dark night ably described by the mystics: They run or are carried and so they look not at but in the same direction (nearly) as God; thus suddenly they can find Him absent as a child does when his father runs along beside and just behind his first two-wheeler.

At our deaths we must all hop the gap between our own curves and the True at which point our own paths will be trued. This, of course, is the function of Purgatory, and, the farther we are from the asymptote at our deaths the more jarring this correction will be--as through fire, for some. One of the frightening things about death is that it seems we will be losing a dimension of our existence, as the happy little locus free to range across the fruited cartesian plain views eternal imprisonment on the y-axis as a limitation. But those on the increasingly straight and narrow path so close to the asymptote will begin dimly to perceive the truth in the promise of an unfolding of vast and manifold dimensions of which the dreaded axis death is only the visible edge.

Where we go wrong is in assuming that it's different for unbelievers. No, the unbeliever is on the same species of asymptotic curve (this has the happy consequence of obviating debate on the meaning of parallel), he's just looking in the other direction. When he does look over his shoulder checking for God, he doesn't see Him, He's around the curve, same as for the rest of us. Unlike believers he is unpracticed in following the curve round in his heart and mind where his eye does not reach. {The preceding sentence, of course, refers to prayer} If the angle of his curve is very steep he won't even recognize a hint of God. I used the verb "spline" to describe sounding out another's curve (without, naturally, knowing its parameters) as perhaps a "fruitful" step in helping to bend it toward the limit (this itself a spiritual work of mercy). But it is the wicked not the unbeliever, pace {MPF}, who is actually traveling in the other direction; who is willingly steepening his curve and further obscuring God and goodness, making unbelief ever easier, ever more plausible; who, when he hops the gap, will crash and burn, unable to be trued. This is why wickedness will foster unbelief and why unbelief can also lead to wickedness. It is also why metanoia is so often characterized simply as a turning around.

What {MAF} in his heart of hearts recognizes, if I may be quite bold, is that the plane, or space if you will, in which we are all swimming these paths is at least a moral space; that reality has an intrinsic (non-constructed, non-culturally programmed, non-arbitrary, but real) moral character, giving the path itself, real meaning. {MAF}'s problem is not so much that he doesn't believe--for he does and by that I mean he doesn't think it is "superstitious" to love his neighbor as himself--but that he erroneously thinks it is of any consequence that when he looks for God he doesn't see anyone, and what he does see--others' conceptions of God--he (rightly) sees as fairly ridiculous. He knows, or has a fair idea when he is traveling in the Good direction, though he despairs of seeing God--for the moment anyway. Of course our mortal span is a mere moment, but I see no reason not to hope that some beauteous (if distant) day he will ask in wonder, "when did I see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink?"

COEXIST

I personally love the COEXIST (2nd person plural imperative) sticker and would have one on my car (next to my old "nuclear plants are built better than Jane Fonda" sticker) if I could find the right one. For me it conjures up the image, in the one issuing the mandate, of a one assuming all power and authority unto himself and charging all kingdoms to quake before him. It freshens my day in a lovely Ozymandias moment, one with a gentle twist of irony.

I'd be in a bad mood today, if I weren't in a subjunctive mood.

Whenever I see one of those My karma ran over your dogma bumper stickers, I always picture a little toy car running over the back of a St Bernard. If I could photo-shop, I would have one myself.

I wish I'd said this:

Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.

but it was Joseph Ratzinger. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 198]

The much maligned parasite

We scorn the lowly parasite and we make it a great insult to call our brethren by that name, yet we kill to survive, all of us. That is to say we presume upon the very lives of our benefactors in plant and animal kingdoms. Meanwhile, our friend the cuddly parasite merely presumes upon the hospitality of its host. Or perhaps it is better to kill than to sap. Is it?

What this world needs is more sadness.

Fortunately, there appears to be a new retail outlet in the shopping center (we call "The Mall") of the suburban acreage on which I domicile. I would surmise it to be a provider of any type of exquisite mental anguish from the slightest hint of nostalgia down to the deepest existential sorrow. It's called Dolorama, although, come to think of it, I may have that spelling wrong.

Thesis: There is no good news that is not Heavenly.

The word "cancer" is actually quite beautiful. We most of us can recall some time in our lives when a respected figure of authority has challenged us to perform a new and difficult task with, "can you you do it?" and the jubilant confidence with which we replied, "yes, I cancer!" Similarly the word "tumor" invokes memories of, in our salad days, sitting in the bistros and cafes just off campus discussing philosophy with friend and mentor Dr.-----, between times raising a hand and a pair of digits calling out, 'tumor! Waitress, please, tumor!"

You want a really ugly word? “Neoplasm”–it encapsulates everything that is ill about novelty in this life.

More on my letter.

After the press printed it we had a little fun in the comment box at the paper. I cut and paste it here just to remember the good times. I've only reversed the order because I prefer oldest to newest and changed names to protect our precious Internet anonymity.

Posted by: W.E. Sep 30 8:02 AM

cricket’s sermon begs for response. Every sentence cobbled into this pontification is devoid of truth or logic and stands as a testament to why so many atheists simply shake their heads and say nothing. Firstly, the book review in question cites the fact that around 40% of Americans believe that the earth was created, magically, less than 10,000 years ago. I hardly consider 120 million people in an educationally advanced nation to be a 'straw windmill'. Secondly, the tired argument that the support for scientific fact is somehow the same as 'steadfast faith' is contradictory to the point of silliness. Science is faithless. Scientists carefully research and confirm before supporting a theory and, if that theory should later be proven wrong, they acknowledge, learn and move on. And why disparage Fundamentalists? At least these 'bible thumpers' have the courage to stand behind their beliefs instead of ignoring or paraphrasing those parts of the holy books that are inconveniently ridiculous or inhumanly cruel. 'Signs of a creator'? Give me a break. There is a hundred times more proof in the existence of invisible quarks than there is for any 'god'. And, finally, I must dispute cricket' musical analogy. It is the atheist who hears the amazing symphony of life and the universe. The melodic and off-key. The harmonies and dis-chords. The theists hear one conductor with the same sheet of music... afraid to turn the page.

Posted by: J.C. Sep 30 10:07 AM

Allow me to second W.E's cogent remarks cricket recycles the tired canard that evolution is all a process of chance, but anyone with an elementary knowledge of Darwin's writings knows this is untrue. Here's what Richard Dawkins says in a recent interview in Maclean's: "If it [evolution] was all a theory of chance ... you would be right to disbelieve it. People will say, 'You're never going to convince me that something as complicated as an eye could come about by sheer chance.' And the answer is that natural selection is the very opposite of sheer chance. Natural selection is a non-random process."

So, please cricket, do a little more reading. Either Darwin or the wonderfully accessible books on evolution by Dawkins will do the trick. That's much more fruitful than relying on the embarrasing argument by design - an argument conclusively refuted by David Hume over 300 hundred years ago.

Posted by: rt Sep 30 10:30 AM

Well said, W.E.!

Posted by: cricket Sep 30 1:45 PM

Thank you W.E. for your critique of my letter. It allows me to elaborate a little.
1) It doesn't matter how many people hold that the earth was created (supernaturally not magically) since 10,000 BCE. It remains straw man for the atheist since proving them wrong does nothing to disprove the existence of God.
2) I did not say support for scientific fact/method is the same as steadfast faith, but that it is only in blind faith that one can hold the position that science can reap answers from the field of metaphysics--particularly the answer they require, viz that God does not exist.
3) I had hoped that my "disparagement" of B-thumping fundies would be taken rather as gentle ribbing. Certainly many fundamentalist Christians are to be admired for their courage and for their selfless goodness which is beacon to all--just as many atheists are to be admired. That doesn't make them right though.
4) I did not cast doubt on the existence of the quark as you seem to think, but what remains unexplained is the real intelligibility of the Universe.
5)Again you return to your straw men. Yes, there are Christians afraid to explore science honestly. But there are others beginning with the Church father Gregory of Nyssa, continuing through medieval scientists and philosophers Albert Magnus and Aquinas, through to this day, who look at God's creation every bit as clearly as any atheist. We see and hear all the chords and cacophonies you do--and by Grace honor the Composer of your "symphony".

Posted by: J.C.Sep 30 5:51 PM

cricket: Atheists do not claim that it is possible to disprove God's existence in the same way that evolutionists claim it is possible to disprove Intelligent Design. These are separate questions. There is a mountain of evidence, much of it catalogued by Dawkins, that exposes the threadbare nature of anti-evolutionary arguments. When it comes to God's existence, all that atheists point to is the suspicious lack of evidence that he is there at all. Of course, science can't "reap answers from the field of metaphysics", since metaphysics is as bogus a field of human inquiry as theology.

Posted by: cricket Sep 30 6:32 PM

I would like to point out with respect that . J.C. has misinterpreted my letter. I nowhere stated that evolution is (necessarily) a matter of chance. As a matter of fact I conceded, arguendo, that evolution may proceed to its end via the very pathways that Dawkins suggests in his book. Further implied in my note is that even though evolutionary theories say nothing as to the origin of life, I might even allow that it may in future be discovered to have begun in a series of naturalistic processes as well. It remains that an intelligible universe in which even the tiniest particle has meaning (think about the word "meaning"), and the aggregate of which even such an atheist as W.E. refers to agreeably as a "symphony", can only have come about in the first instance either through mere chance or through some outside Agent, and only the latter actually "accounts" (in my letter, I chose that word quite categorically) for it. To stubbornly insist it is rather the former thus takes great faith. None of W.E.'s "carefully researched" science can lead to this conclusion, nor can it be reached by philosophy. Hence it is irrational--though please note I do not use "irrational" as a term of disparagement but merely descriptively.

Having written, I see now . J.C. has posted a second response. I wish we could find a way to discuss this that didn't involve the delay imposed by "comment moderation". I will try to answer him later.

Meanwhile, May God Bless J.C. and W.E. both.

Posted by: Darsh Sep 30 7:01 PM

Thank you cricket for standing up for our Creator, Odin! It's obvious to us that the world was created by the powerful Odin, and we all hear His wonderous orchestra of swords and shields on the battlefield!

May Odin rain many blessings on you and your family, cricket, and allow you to reap the rewards of many battles to come!

Posted by: J.C. Sep 30 7:28 PM

cricket: In your original letter you disparage those who believe that "godless chance accounts for not only the existence of both life itself but of ends and purpose in life's rich garden." I assumed you were referring to evolution in the last part of that sentence and suggesting that evolutionary theory means believing that everything that currently exists came about through accident. If you didn't mean that I apologize, but surely I wasn't the only one who had difficulty with your phrasing.

At present, we cannot tell what took place at the beginning of time, although Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" provides some tantalizing conjectures about the period starting about five seconds after. But to say that only God "accounts" for all that we see around us is to say, with all due respect, precisely nothing. We are once more back to the most easily refuted of all theological arguments: the argument from design. I won't bore readers by going over what so many philosophers have said about this "proof" over the last 400 years, but if anyone wants to examine this argument more closely they need only purchase a copy of Hitchens' "God Is Not Great."

Anyway, I have to go since I am a bit late performing my daily rituals for the gods Zeus and Hera.

Posted by:W.E. Oct 1 8:14 AM

Nothing quite electrifies the 'soul' as spirited debate! Such arguments do always tend to reel and do-se-do, however, because two different languages are being spoken. If belief in any ‘god’ were approached from a purely scientific position, it would have been discarded as nonsense two centuries ago. Religion, of course, places itself beyond scientific proof. Theists have been brainwashed since childhood to simply accept that their bibles / korans / whatever, are simply, unquestionably 'true'. Faith dictates that the words of the gods cannot be disproven. This ensures that there are very few people who will be swayed from their beliefs, even when (from a scientific perspective) such beliefs should be in the same corner of the history books as tarot cards and astrology. If we remove blind faith from the equation, the argument for religion cannot even stand up on the moral / philosophical level (as more eloquent men than I have demonstrated!) As a young teen, I recall asking myself a simple question : The god of the bible is an active god. He DOES things. His reported actions in, for example, helping Moses' tribe escape from Egypt are very 'hands on'. The question remains ... Where was he at Auschwitz? Were the Jews of Moses' time more important? I would have given my life to save even one child from the Holocaust. Why hadn't this super-magical god lifted a finger to help a million children? Am I morally better than god? Heaven forbid!

Posted by:rt Oct 1 9:01 AM

Clueless. {cricket's note: I think he means me but I'm not sure because rt was commenting on another letter as well}

Posted by: cricket Oct 12:45 PM

So much to say, so few "characters left".
Re J.C.@5:51
1) With respect, I have no eggs in the intelligent design or anti-evolution basket so you're wasting your own "characters left" swatting at it.
2) The evidence is the music that is reality in many thousands of ways we can draw out for days. My tone-deafness theory still stands.
3) Metaphysics may be bogus as you say but unfortunately whenever we look out on the world in wonder we bump our heads against metaphysical questions. Unfortunately whenever we make a moral decision it is fraught with metaphysical assumptions as well. "How does the world work" is a scientific question, but "how is it that the world works" is a metaphysical. In the end, though, if metaphysics is bunk you cannot say, "God does not exist," for that is a conclusion in the very field you deny. You CAN say, "I just don't know if God exists--maybe he does; maybe not." But then you might be forced to examine the claims of people who met a man who said he was God, was crucified, died and (they say) rose from the dead--people who then strangely died martyrs' deaths rather than just admit they were lying or mistaken about him.

Re Darsh@7:01
I would thank you if I didn't strongly suspect you're simply being sarcastic at my expense. However, if you think there's a good argument in juxtaposing God with Odin, it can only be (and, please, I have no desire to offend you) that you've not gone beyond a child's understanding of God as big bearded man in the sky.

Posted by:cricket Oct 1 1:10 PM

Re J.C.@7:28
1) The source of your difficulty may be that you have written “but” where I wrote “and”. The “but”, and hence the real focus, comes after the passage you quoted. Secondly, I did not mean to “disparage” anyone, only to point out that their position is one of faith not of reason.
2) Bryson’s conjectures may provide valuable insight into how meaning was infused into the universe sometime before 5 seconds (a very long time in Creation), but they cannot say why, and the assumption that there exists meaning with no one to have meant it remains an assumption of faith.
3) It is not so much from design that I am arguing but from reality. You are correct that philosophers have refuted Aquinas’ five proofs beginning with their own assumptions (and those taken on faith), however continued drawing out of their arguments has resulted in their leading by modern times inexorably to nihilism and Nietzschean ethics—a denial of reality itself and of truth including moral truth. These may be reasonable positions but they are counter-intuitive given the reality in which we presume to live our day-to-day lives. For example, they're really not the positions I want the guy dating my daughter to live by.
4) Hitchens’ invective against religious people is beneath contempt and his arguments puerile.

Posted by: J.C. Oct 1 2:02 PM

cricket: I appear to have touched a nerve.

1. Thank you drawing attention to my error regarding "but" and "and". This is, however, a distinction without a difference. Even with "and", your phrasing is highly ambiguous.

2. You try to collapse the difference between scientific and religious attitudes by claiming that both depend on faith. This gambit has been tried many times before, and it is as wanting now as it was then. Scientists - and atheists - believe in the principle of falsifiability. In other words, if compelling evidence forces them to reconsider their views they will do so. You claim that "the music that is reality in many thousands of ways" constitutes that evidence. I'm sorry for having to beat a dead horse, but this is the same tired argument from design I alluded to in my last post. At the very least, you have to admit that many intelligent people do not accept "the music of reality" as proof of a deity, and to accuse these people of being "tone deaf" adds insult to injury.

3. Atheists are not nihilists, and it is outrageous to say so.

4. It isn't enough for you to argue for the existence of a deity; you argue that a specific man was God. And the "evidence"? His followers died because of that claim. Oh, my.

5. Your swipe at Darsh is unfair, since there is no more evidence for Jehovah than there is for Odin.

6. Spare me the ad hominems. Instead of referring to Hitchens as "puerile", perhaps you could address his arguments.

Posted by:cricket Oct 1 3:30 PM

Re W.E.@8:14
I don't have time to answer all your points, W.E. and this will be my last comment here. We can continue at my own blog if you like. I'm sure you can find it.
1) It is not that religion places itself beyond scientific proof but rather that it is by its nature beyond scientific proof (just as the claims of atheism are) since it concerns the supernatural and science is only concerned with nature. However religion is subject to the demands of reason insofar as its claims touch on the physical world.
2)Your reference to the Jewish Shoah of the 20th century is fortuitous. If there is no God, then morality is just a combination of epiphenomena of our evolutionary processes and a social construction. The result is you really have no solid moral ground on which to criticize me if I want to kick a dog downstairs, rape a small child, or exterminate the Jews of Europe. You can explain why YOU think I ought not to do these things, but descriptive explanations hold no moral force. I, on the other hand, believe that moral truths are real and the Nazis did real evil. Whether God was at Auschwitz, I don't know, but you can only say he wasn't if you happen to know that none of its victims is now in Heaven enjoying hyper-blessings infinitely beyond any such suffering. Neither of us can say that.

Anyway, thank you and God bless you all and Godwin's law which ends this for me.

I didn't answer J.C.'s last note over there, so in fairness I won't answer it here either, unless he should happen along and wish to continue the debate.