Rev. Thomas Williams, an Episcopal priest and distinguished philosopher, ably dismantles some of the cruder anti-Anselm polemics that blame his theory of the Atonement for, well, pretty much everything bad in Christian history.
Month: May 2009
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The curious case of the shrill veg(etari)an
Great post from Jim Henley commenting on this post at the Atlantic.
Fisher, I think, overstates the case of how hard it is to be vegan. Not that I am one, but it certainly doesn’t require the heroic level of asceticism he suggests. I mean, I’m a mere lacto-ovo veggie, but, at this point, it’s really easy. Yes, there was a period of adjustment (learning new recipes, telling people, etc.), but now I’d actually have to go out of my way to eat meat. Moreover, I eat well and healthily – mine is hardly an ascetic lifestyle. So, I have a hard time imagining that eliminating dairy and eggs would be that much harder.
As it happens, I recently read Jeffrey Masson’s The Face On Your Plate, which makes the case for veganism particularly well. There’s a strong case to be made that factory farmed dairy and eggs are actually worse than meat, from the perspective of animal suffering. Even their free range alternatives involve some highly questionable practices. Masson’s book definitely made me think more seriously about taking that next step…
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Catechesis FAIL
Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings brought these depressing opinion poll results to my attention. Essentially, the more of a Bible-believing regular churchgoer you are, the more likely you are to approve of torture:
53% of white mainline protestants said that torture can rarely or never be justified, while 46% said that it could sometimes or often(!) be justified. (1% weren’t sure or refused to answer.)
47% of white non-Hispanic Catholics said rarely/never; 51% said sometimes/often. (2% not sure/no answer.)
33% of white evangelicals said rarely/never; 62% percent said sometimes/often. (5% not sure/no answer.)
The religiously unaffiliated come off best, with 55% saying that torture is rarely or never justified.
And further, the more frequently a respondent attended church, the more likely they were to approve of torture.
Not only does torture cut against the grain of the moral witness of Jesus, but our willingness to support it in an attempt to save our own skins evinces a disturbing lack of trust in God.
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Hymn for the day
Not the one we actually sang today, but I like this one better:
Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
unto Christ, our heavenly King, Alleluia!
who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!But the pains which he endured, Alleluia!
our salvation have procured, Alleluia!
now above the sky he’s King, Alleluia!
where the angels ever sing. Alleluia! -
The psychology of torture
Marvin made the point in comments here that it’s depressing to even be arguing about the morality of torture. After all, the wrongness of torture is something we should all simply take for granted, and the fact that it’s become a contested topic says something really bad about where we are as a country. Personally, I have a hard time coming up with premises more basic than the wrongness of torture from which I could argue.
All of which makes me wonder: why is this coming up now? During the Cold War, when, by any objective measure, we were facing a much more dire threat, this was not an issue. Indeed, the US under President Reagan signed the UN Convention Against Torture, which prohibits torture or cruel and degrading treatment under all circumstances, including “war, threat of war, internal political instability, public emergency, terrorist acts, violent crime, or any form of armed conflict,” according to Wikipedia.
Which is not to say torture never occurred, whether committed by us or our proxies. But was anyone publicly arguing that torture was the right thing to do? Even though the threat of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union was clearly far more serious when we signed the Convention Against Torture than the threat of radical Islamic terrorism is now, I’m guessing that 9/11 made a lot of people feel more vulnerable than they ever had before. Is that what makes torture seem, to some people, like a viable option?
UPDATE: See Glenn Greenwald, who makes some similar points better and at greater length. See – this is why I don’t blog about this stuff. 🙂
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Global warming, food shortages, and … civilizational collapse?
I got to hear a talk the other day by Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute. He talked, among other things, about the relationship between global warming, food scarcity, and the geo-political instability that could result. Scary stuff. This article provides a summary of his ideas.
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Souter’s out, according to the Times
I wondered why their were all those reporters hanging around the Supreme Court when I was out running this morning. Now I know.
A Thinking Reed 