Don’t get me wrong, Fantasia’s a great cartoon for what it is. But the “Rite of Spring” section is marred, in one way I knew about already, but also in another way that I didn’t know about until just now. The way I knew about is the music: Stravinsky objected — and quite rightly — to the performance, which isn’t quite right — but especially to the changes they made to the music: cuts, rearrangement of material, and so on. But that’s the price you pay for mass media entertainment, and the big bucks, I guess. The other marring is …
Tag: religion
With Gods Like These…
I got the oddest comment on the last post I made. The content was unrelated to my post, but instructed readers to Google a few keywords leading straight to the comment-poster’s own blog, which was about… Er, well, I’ll let the email I just sent him speak for itself. Dear Mr. Hagedorn, Just curious what the connection is, in your head, between my review of a few recent movies — none of them theological in nature at all — and your inane theory that the real sin that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden was… (drum roll)… anal …
Something to Munch On
I have an insane day ahead of me: last minute desperate students will be seeking advising throughout my afternoon break, since tomorrow’s the deadline for second applications for their Grad Presentation Proposal; I will be lucky if I fit lunch in fitting lunch in no matter what, but it will be a trial; midterm exam in my Public Speaking class tonight, in a room I’ll bet will not be properly heated for the event (because normally there’s no class there, and it’s in an older building) And I’m going to the office a half hour early, because… yep, someone “needs …
Immortality?
The Maverick Philosopher discusses the fact that Christopher Hitchens, who is not doing so well, also has not recanted his atheism. Valicella writes: The contemplation of death must be horrifying for those who pin all on the frail reed of the ego. The dimming of the light, the loss of control, the feeling of helplessly and hopelessly slipping away into an abyss of nonbeing. And all of this without the trust of the child who ceases his struggling to be borne by Another. “Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” But this of course …
Woo! Woo! I am the Woo-rus!
The one thing that will always, always make someone less intimidating is when you realize they’ve been seduced by woo. I don’t mean, like, “The Woo of Lost” as a recent essay by Adam Roberts is titled. I mean full-on Deepak Chopra, Derrick Jensen, Shakti Gawain, Shambhala publications woo. The obvious stuff, when you realize someone is woo-sceptible. (Disclosure: I do, myself, own a couple of Shambhala books: both are related to Buddhism, one of them a present from a friend in high school — which is in some box in Canada, I think — and the other primarily about Buddhism …
“Let The Little Children Come To Me…”
… may be close enough to pass as a Bible quote, but I don’t think it says, anywhere in that book, that clerics get to say that to kids so they can rape them with impunity, with the aid of the Church in keeping them out of prison (or other trouble)… and I don’t think it’s specified anywhere that when this institutional crime comes out, the biggest cleric of them all gets to pretend nothing’s going on. I want to leave aside the fact that this is an obvious, and pathetic, public gaffe which can only serve to harm the …
Rabid Dung Beetles
One reason I love my friend Adam Lipscomb’s blog is because of what he writes about politics — or, rather, the magical way he writes about idiots in politics and religion in America. For example, this post. Go on, read it, it’s short, and it has Pat Robertson, rabid dung beetles, rotted Norway rads, fetid dogshit, and Pat Robertson shitting his own teeth. It’s beautiful. A beautiful imagine for the rationalists of today. Now, skipping to the meat, the point is that Pat Robertson claimed that “they” (them folks in Haiti) made a pact with the devil and that’s why …
Define “Muslim” (UPDATED)
UPDATE: See the comments section, particularly Liadnan’s comment and my reply to it. Maybe the news report was even less competent than I thought! Richard Dawkins has been taken to task at times for his assertion that raising a child in one or another religious tradition is a form of child abuse, as it constitutes an abuse of the trust given one with a child. My friend Marvin and I have been discussing the intricacies of this issue over at his LJ (in the comments, but do read the post!) but I ran across an article online that demonstrates how …
You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Fight For Your Right To…
Readers at LJ: click here to check out this post which has been gobbled up by the horrible Moloch that lives somewhere in Livejournal’s API. Yeah, I gotta say, after having been around some Tibetans in Northern India, and hearing their stories first hand… I am so not into the Tibetan Buddhist theocracy, and think they probably were living off the slave-like labour of the Tibetan people, just like China’s official party line claims. But colonial occupation and genocide isn’t really much in the way of help for the Tibetan people, regardless of what the Chinese official party line claims. …
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens
I rarely inhale books, but today was one of those days. I whipped through this book, disillusioned — who’d have thought I could be more disillusioned than I had been? — yet not really surprised. Doubtless, some interpreted this text as an attack on Mother Teresa, but if you read it carefully, it’s much more an attack on the media — conservative and liberal alike — that, during the woman’s life, glossed over major issues in her work and beliefs, issues that the majority of human beings would probably take issue with if presented directly, and beatified Mother Teresa in …