Occult-old and new

Movies these days are full of goblins, wizards and vampires, which looks like a throwback to medieval times. But is it? How about this for a few more modern ghouls....

In the 1870's, Alfred Russel Wallace was a naturalist who proposed a theory of natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin. An example of 19th Century rationalism? But Wallace was also interested in spiritualism.

What about Carl Jung in the 1920's? He was not exactly a materialist, but was a colleague of Freud, as well as a devotee of alchemy. 

In more modern times Jonathan Marshall and Mike Hulme are discussing our attitudes towards climate change. But its not a question of science, but of psychological and cultural forces.

What to make of all this? Perhaps not many people are really prepared to accept that materialism and physical science is able to explain all our lives and interests.

Frederic Mitterrand

There is some talk in Sydney of volunteers providing "ethics" courses in public schools as an alternative to Scripture classes given by the local churches.

I have never seen any syllabus or any description of what would be in these courses, other than the title "ethics", so I find it very hard to comment on this idea, it being so vague.

But now I see the case of Frederic Mitterrand, the French Minister of Culture and Communication. He wrote 5 years ago in his autobiography that he visited Thailand and was fascinated by the trade in boys and ....... well frankly, I don't care, or really want to know what happened after that.

Despite what he wrote in his autobiography, he now says:

"that the book was not a strict autobiography. He admitted to "errors" in paying for sex in the past, but said he had relations only with consenting men his age." (as reported in the London Telegraph newspaper )

An English translation of what he said is:

"A mistake certainly, a crime no, nor a fault because each time I was with people of my age, [or] who were five years older than me. There was never the slightest ambiguity - and they were consenting."

Err, what was that again? A "mistake", yes, not a "crime" or a "fault". He claims that the other parties were adults and consenting, but it was a mistake, but not a fault. Why? Is it bad because it is good but embarrassing?

Now I think we need that ethics course, after all...

If you are interested in the French words used in the translated quote above, they were: "erreur", "crime" and "faute"

This quote came from an interview last week on French TV station TF1:

http://www.wat.tv/video/defense-frederic-mitterrand-1uewu_1k5lc_.html

Where are the young atheist evangelists?

I see that an atheist conference is planned for Melbourne in March 2010.

It puzzles me why occasions like this are dominated by male 60 - year olds. The list for this conference (with year of birth) is:

• Richard Dawkins 1941
• Dan Barker 1949
• A C Grayling 1949
• Robyn Williams 1944
• Peter Singer 1946
• Philip Adams 1939
• P Z Mayo 1957

There is one youngster, who happens to be female:

• Catherine Deveny 1968

Why is this so?

Trends in unbelief

I like trying to spot fads and trends in our media and best-seller saturated society, and I think I can see one developing in the public discussion of religion. I think two recent trends are

1. Militant atheism.
2. Acceptance of the fact of religious belief and its impact on society.

The Militant atheism is more than just a lack of faith or skepticism, it is an active attack, and almost hatred and fear of religion and religious belief, demonstrated by the series of best selling books, such as Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion",  aimed and destroying religious belief, using any argument that will serve the cause.

I think there are couple of problems with this approach. As any steak-knife salesperson knows, the best way to convince people is gentle persuasion with some humour, not by shouting abuse at them. People like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens write angry books, and when I have seen them being interviewed on TV, they often get a little hot under the collar.

Having experienced the 60's and 70's myself, I think I have an explanation for this anger. When I was at university in the early 70's, it was almost universally accepted that religion was nonsense and would soon wither and expire. We were on the threshold of a space-age, nuclear-powered, free-loving, gender-changing, flower-powered future of happiness freed from the medieval constraints of all religions.

But here we are 40 years later and it didn't happen. Religious belief is growing amongst poorer nations and although it is withering in the wealthy West, I don't see the predicted universal contentment in society. My theory is that the most militant atheists are about my age, and their anger is not the anger of confident belief, but the anger of frustration that the hopes of their youth have failed.

As a little bit of quantitative justification for my theory, here are the years of birth of some of the New Atheists:

• Richard Dawkins 1941
• Christopher Hitchens 1949
• Daniel Dennett 1942
• Michel Onfray 1959
• Andre Comte-Sponville 1952

with the exception being youngster Sam Harris (1967), who missed out on the swinging sixties and seventies, unlike the others above.

Now for the newest trend. I heard of a book called "God is Back" by Economist magazine editors John Mickethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. I haven't read it, but I believe the argument is that religion is increasingly accepted by politicians and to understand the behaviour of people in society, it has to be studied. (I have heard that one of the authors is an atheist and the other a Christian.)

For a bit of local Australian content, there was a report on religious talk in politics, where "university research shows" that

"Melbourne University politics researcher Anna Crabb analysed 2422 speeches by 60 prominent federal politicians — the leaders and senior frontbenchers of the three main parties — between 2000 and 2006. She tallied the number of these speeches that included the words Christ, church, faith, pray, Jesus, Bible and God and found the use of religious language by politicians had increased.

In 2000, 9 per cent of the speeches in Ms Crabb's sample used religious terms. The proportion increased in each of the following five years, reaching 24 per cent in 2005, before easing to 22 per cent in 2006."

Sounds like a fun piece of research.

Then I heard a programme on the ABC radio programme about political theology. It referred to books edited by Scott and Cavanaugh and written by Hent de Vries, among others. I haven't read either of these books (hey, time is short), but the argument seems to be that the effect of religion is one factor contributing to politics, and postmodernists, unlike aging children of the sixties, are eager to examine all ways of looking at society.

Finally, the enterprising Tony Blair has set up his Faith Foundation, so he can see the need to study religious faith.

In my opinion, both the militant atheists and the postmodern political theorists are only looking superficially at what they say are the results of religious belief, and are not really examining faith and its relationship with reason. To do that, you would be better off reading St Augustine, the early Church Fathers, or, closer to home, Pope John Paul II, or the book A Comprehensible Universe by Fr Michal Heller.

In any case, I find it interesting that the militant atheists are only interested in attacking religion, despite the fact that it seems to be outlasting them, whereas the postmodernists are happy to accept the fact of religion and talk about it. When atheists manage to produce a society that is a little better than the cruel, oppressive, atheist dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, they can then talk about their alternative to religion.

Caritas in Veritate

I'm working my way through Pope Benedict's just released encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, but there are a couple of useful comments on it in

the NY Times and MercatorNet .

The first thing that strikes me is the practical nature of the issues that Pope Benedict is talking about. He risks criticism from all directions by bringing up real, day to day issues, but he wants to give real guidance.

Perhaps related to this encyclical, I heard one talk in the BBC Reith Lectures on Genetics and Morality. These are scary issues, like gender selection, designing successful sports champions and deaf parents wanting to have a deaf child. The really frightening part of the programme was the discussion at the end when some people enthusiastically looked forward to our "designer" future. Is there any doubt we need some guidance from the Magisterium?

Antwerp Sound of Music

A bit of nostalgia for me (in this case the city and the railway station, not the movie).

A Belgian TV Ad to find someone to play Maria in Sound of Music shows the crowd in the Antwerp Central Station dancing to Do a deer etc. Good fun

The East is in the black, not red

I see that Malcolm Turbull says that  "the Liberals would be better economic managers.
“The Labor Government's policies have made a difficult situation worse and the economy would be strong and therefore employment would be high if we were in government.”"

The truth of course, is "who knows?" However, what is Mr Turnbull's logic here? So far he has suggested:

• don't spend a "cash splash"
• don't introduce more regulation into the Industrial Relations laws.

Now, I don't see how the "cash splash" can actually destroy jobs in the short term. It might cause problems in the long term, but we haven't got there yet.

We could compare our IR laws with the land of deregulated labour markets, the USA, but they have even higher unemployment, so what does that prove?

Of course, if you want an example of relatively strong growth in these troubled economic times, we need only look to centrally controlled China. Today, Premier Wen Jiabao said 

"We have loaned a huge amount of money to the United States," Wen said at a news conference in Beijing. "Of course, we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried. I would like for you [a Western reporter] to call on the United States to honor its word and stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

So maybe we would be even better with the Communist party in charge instead of the Liberals?

types of guilt

In the last week we have seen two examples of madness that have caused people to kill young children or infants. In Belgium, a 20 year old man, whose parents allegedly were trying to get him admitted to a psychiatric hospital, stabbed and killed several infants. In Melbourne, a man involved in a custody battle threw his daughter from a high bridge and then drove to a law office in the city, asked people to look after the other children and then collapsed in distress.

These acts have caused public shock and anger and some calls for revenge on the two men involved.

These were two acts of madness, and no-one yet knows what caused them. On the other hand, the Victorian parliament has last year coolly and calmly passed legislation to allow decriminalised late term abortions, up to 24 weeks without approval, and after 24 weeks with the approval of 2 doctors.

A couple of other recent events have been the delivery in the USA of a multiple birth of 8 children at 31 weeks, and the visit to Australia of 31 year old Gianna Jessen, whose mother attempted, unsuccessfully,  to have her aborted at about 31 weeks.

Only God knows who has the greater guilt.

Parallel liturgy

Compared to 30 years ago, the attendances at Anzac Day ceremonies have become huge in recent years. The sacrifices of the soldiers in noble causes are remembered, which is a fine thing. The only thing I find regrettable is that the interest and gratitude in remembering the soldiers' sacrifice has not been matched by praise and thanksgiving for the sacrifice Jesus made for us on Calvary. The biggest day of the Easter Show is Good Friday, but woe betide any store that dares to open on Anzac Day during the march.

Enthusiasm for Australia Day has also increased, and the birth of the nation is celebrated, with some regrets by and for aboriginal people.

It just occurred to me that we are creating a secular liturgical year as a parallel (and I would say poor parallel) to the real liturgical year, but delayed by about a month.

The feast of Christmas is followed about a month later by Australia Day. The Advent season precedes Christmas, and the celebrations of the Festival of Sydney precede Australia Day.

Then, usually in April, the Church remembers Christ's sacrifice on Good Friday, and in the secular liturgical universe, we remember the soldiers' sacrifice on Anzac Day on April 25th.

It is a pity if the secular liturgy only succeeds at the expense of the real, and much more fruitful liturgy of the Church.

I don't know what isn't art, but I know it when I see it.

We were all shocked by the sudden death of Heath Ledger one year ago, and we all pray that his soul rests in peace.

The role of the "Joker" he played in the Batman movie has been universally praised as a masterpiece of the art of film.

Now, hang on a minute!!!!

Batman, and the villian called the Joker are comic book characters invented to appeal to young children. They have recently been turned into violent and sadistic movie characters, apparently intended to appeal to adolescent boys. In what way is that art? Apart from the obvious and simply evil violence in the movie, it is claimed that Batman and the Joker are complex characters because they recognise their opposite in each other and in some way need each other. That sounds evil, scary and a little bit psychological and is said to constitute art. But what is art?

Leo  Tolstoy was an eccentric thinker, but he turned his mind to this subject in an essay called "What is Art?"

If you like, you can read an excerpt and outline of this essay on the web. In the opinion of Tolstoy, the social elite class has decided what is art, regardless of its moral function, and whether it satisfies the function of real art.

On the other hand, his criteria for real art include:

• It is a means of communication. "To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling -- this is the activity of art.
       Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them."
• Good art always pleases everyone. It employs pictures, sounds, or formal design understood by "everyone" or, in the case of prose and poetry, is comprehended by any language speaker of a language into which it's translated. Corollary: It is accessible without the aid of interpretation by art critics
• Good art unites us. Tolstoy describes two kinds of feelings that unite men, those imparted by religious art and universal art. Religious art does not express the doctrines of any organized religion or "cult." It expresses "an understanding of the meaning of life which represents the highest level to which men of that society have attained". In our time, this feeling is connected to message of "love of God and of one’s neighbor."

Universal art expresses simple and accessible positive feeling. Found in all arts, but "most of all" in music.

Now, does the comic book character the Joker satisfy Tolstoy's criteria for art? Is it communicating a feeling experienced by the actors? I certainly hope not. Does it please everyone? I can't really say, but it doesn't please me, for one. Does it unite us and express positive feelings? Certainly not.

As I said in the heading, I find it hard to define exactly what isn't art, but I think movies about evil comic book characters are not art.

Flash 10 reader on ASUS EEE PC 701

 

Some flash videos on the internet could not be read by my EEE PC 701 because they require a Flash 10 reader, and Flash 9 is installed on the PC by the manufacturer.

There is a problem, described in this forum post. The problem is that Flash 10 requires a newer version of the glibc library than the one included in the Xandros operating system on the EEE PC. However, according to the post above, there is a beta version of Flash 10 that uses the old version of glibc and will work, namely

flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz from

http://download.macromedia.com

The installation procedure is described here.

tar -xvzf flashplayer10_install_linux_081108.tar.gz

Type sudo bash (still in terminal) and the prompt will change so you know you are now a super user
then type
cd install_flash_player_10_linux
Lastly type
cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
Close the terminal, start FF and type about:plugins in the address bar and you should now see Flash 10

The case of Linda Walsh

David Marr has an article in today's newspaper about the case of Linda Walsh, who was told she could not be President of the Society's Migrant and Refugee Centre because she is not a Catholic. She then sued the Society and has just been awarded damages, as I understand it, because it is not written down anywhere that you have to be a Catholic to be in a controlling position in the Society.

David Marr is very upset that she could not be the President of the migrant and refugee centre. He talks about the "harsh but forgiving gaze of those women on the counter" at the local StVdP shop, and at the end says:
"Maybe the faithful will strip their cupboards of unused wedding presents, books and LPs, suits, cufflinks, dresses, hideous cut glass, complete sets of National Geographic and all the Tupperware they can spare for the cause. Others may prefer to see their old treasures used as landfill rather than fund an operation like this."

There are a couple of other articles about this case

here

and

here

Personally, I don't find it at all strange that an organisation supported by the Catholic Church and given large amounts of money by the members of the Church would ask that it be run by Catholics. I find it a little strange that she was even appointed a conference president, let alone a manager of a section of the Society.

One fact from the other articles that David Marr neglects to mention is that Linda Walsh was "one of the 5,000 non-Catholics in the society's 8,000-strong volunteer force in Queensland".  So the Society is not quite as narrow minded as Marr's article might suggest.

David Marr also says that the options given to Linda Walsh were:
"In January 2004 an ultimatum was delivered by the society's diocesan president for Gold Coast, Peter Richards. She had until June to become a Catholic, resign her position or leave the society."
From the other articles I read that the options were:
"in 2004, the society gave Ms Walsh three options - become a Catholic, resign her position and stay only as a member, or leave the society."

So David Marr or his editor omitted the words "and stay only as a member" from his selective quote.  why did he feel inclined to leave out those words, since Marr's version leaves the incorrect impression that Linda Walsh had to leave the St Vincent de Paul society even as a member.