Martyrdom

The Martyr's Memorial on Magdalen Street commemorates the burning at the stake of Hugh Latimer, Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley in the 1550s. Queen Mary had them executed (along with some 300 other Protestants) for refusing to submit to the authority of the Pope. That is, in England, 450 years ago, the penalty for heresy was death.

Why is it then, that only one of the world's major religions has been left behind in the Middle Ages? In one of the supposedly "democratic" Muslim nations, "liberated from tyrrany" by Americans, it is evidently a capital crime to convert to Christianity. I mean, how is it possible that there are still places where this happens? Historians out there: What happened (or, more likely, failed to happen) in the Islamic world that prevented it from joining the rest of humanity beyond the age of martyrs?

Divine Guidance?

The address labels on the DVD envelopes from lovefilm.com also include the first name and last initial of the worker who packaged your DVD (presumably for their own tracking process). Today I noticed my latest Sopranos DVD was selected with a little help from the man upstairs:

[Ed: I changed the image for one that's easier to read. Typepad sucks ass and made me delete the post and create it again to accomplish this, in case you're wondering why your RSS aggregator is freaking out.]

Intelligent Design

The New York Times recently featured a beefy two-part article about the debate between scientists and proponents of "intelligent design". The spooky thing about this most recent attempt to insert religion into science is the way they paint their perspective as a scientific alternative. By publishing popular books and an occasional paper in a scientific journal (the reviewers must've been asleep at the wheel) they have created the illusion that there is actual scientific debate concerning the validity of the theory of evolution.

The proponents of intelligent design try to fool the public into believing that this is a scientific debate by presenting a series of scientific-sounding arguments against evolution. All of their points are straw men couched in mixed metaphors, but they seem convincing to non-scientists. This mendacity is illustrated by their use of the term "neo-Darwinists" to describe their opponents (who comprise essentially all of mainstream biology), as if Darwinism is a cast-off relic of an earlier time recently resurrected by crop of crazed atheists.

These quacks become insidious when they try to push their agenda on the American education system. They encourage school systems to "teach the controversy" and let students make up their own minds. This position is dangerously agreeable to lots of American parents: It has a certain free-speech air of reasonable discourse about it, which makes it seem very American; furthermore most Americans do believe in God so they're relieved to have some compromise which apparently reconciles science and religion.

If this attitude becomes widespread it represents a deadly threat to science education. The academic window-dressing of intelligent design is immediately transparent to a scientist, but not so to a 7th grader curious about biology. Presenting intelligent design as a scientifically viable alternative to evolution is a criminal deception of the young. This is made worse by the fact that many scientists dismiss intelligent design in crass terms that offend faithful people who don't really care that much about evolution anyway. Discussion of the nature of the Creator belongs in churches, mosques and synagogues, not in biology labs.

One Bread

I heard about half of an interesting discussion on NPR this morning about the role of bishops proscribing the reception of holy communion by politicians who hold certain beliefs antithetical to the Catholic canon. Recently a few bishops have publicly declared that politicians who support positions (e.g. pro-life) contrary to Church teaching should choose not to receive communion, with some going so far as to say they will refuse to present such persons with the Eucharist should they approach the altar with the intent of taking it.

A huge proportion of Catholics receiving communion on a weekly basis (myself included) are not in the state of grace technically required by the Church to receive the Body & Blood. I've not been to confession in a couple of years and I tend to doubt I'm living fully within the guidelines set out by Mother Church. Furthermore, this is probably the case with the majority of my fellow communicants. I suspect the magisterium is treading on dangerous ground by starting this discussion since it could further divide the laity.

Setting aside the fact that politicians are not alone in sinfulness, is it wise for bishops to weigh in on political issues, using the Eucharist as a lever? I think it demeans the sacrament and the Church. The traditional approach to this issue is that each communicant examine his own conscience when preparing to take communion. Putting the decision about whether someone is in a state to receive communion in the hands of the clergy brings up a whole slew of uncomfortable situations. If the pastor knows person X is cheating on his wife does he just refuse to offer him communion?

Finally, is it really the right time for the bishops to be publicly castigating people for bending to weak morality when some of them have displayed such poor mental and spiritual strength themselves? One caller to the radio station brought this up in a very inarticulate way, kind of yelling about all the crazy pedophile priests and so on. The guests on the show (including the editor of America, the national Catholic weekly magazine) sort of brushed the topic aside saying that accusing the entire priesthood of such behavior based on the actions of a very tiny fraction is bigoted. I agree with that statement, but it isn't the relevant point.

Here's how I see it. A few bishops (at least) abused their power, in stark contrast with the teachings of the Church, to hide and disperse abusive priests. Did they wrestle with their consciences about it? Did they weep to their confessors about it? Did they abstain from saying Mass until they had settled their score with God? I don't know, but all of these things would've happened in private, much as the beliefs and struggles of Catholic politicians must remain separate and private from their duties as sworn upholders of the U.S. Constitution. Using a sacrament as a tool to bludgeon them into line is a disgrace.

The Church sets a very high standard for her members for very good reason— we are all challenged by personal weakness and we need to strive for something better.

The Temple Curtain

Tradition holds that at 3PM on Good Friday Christ breathed his last and the Temple Curtain ripped in two. As told by Matthew:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

Today, sitting in the MIT Chapel, at exactly 3:00PM a thunderous roar went up and shook the building. I was taken aback at first. Later I discovered that it had been from the fighter jet flyby for opening day at Fenway.

Fame & God

Why is it that everyone knows who Albert Einstein is? I'm not trying to debase his contribution to Science, but I don't understand why he's treated as the pinnacle of scientific thought. How come people don't talk about Niels Bohr like that? Now I know that many readers of this bløg have a greater breadth of knowledge of these things than the average person, but in general people have never even heard of Bohr, Rutherford and Heisenberg. For that matter, I've never heard of the guys upon whose work General Relativity was built: Grossman, Levi-Civita and Ricci-Curbastro and I have a physics degree from a supposedly prestigious university.

There can be little doubt that he is one of the greatest minds in 20th century physics since he contributed to the three top specialties of physics in his day, one after another: quantization of energy, special relativity and statistical mechanics. But for whatever reason he has transcended scientific greatness and become a cultural metaphor for unmitigated genius. What is almost certainly worse are cases when historical vagaries elevated one man over another without merit (c.f. Edison vs. Tesla, which Scott can elaborate on with much more vigor than I).

This all started when I read this post by Rodin, who is ever increasing in my esteem. Even he who is one of the most equanimous people I've ever met takes comfort that Einstein believed in God as an example of how Science and Faith are not irreconcilable. You know what's crazy though? I've always found that comforting myself. So clearly I subscribe to the same bias about Einstein as everybody else. Note that I have no clue whether deBroglie believed in God nor where Heisenberg thought his cat's soul went when he opened the box.

So here I am, struggling with my own faith, trying to figure out how I can rationally believe in a 2000 year old incarnation of a tri-partite God come to earth to die for my sins and taking comfort that a dead Jewish physicist refused to believe that God plays dice. Murky belief in a higher power is one thing, believing in transubstantiation is entirely another. I suppose I must take comfort in the knowledge that at least I'm asking the question.

The Wild 70's

The Gospel reading on the 2nd Sunday of Lent is usually the story of Jesus' transfiguration. The priest at the MIT Chapel was talking during his homily about similarly receiving God's light in our lives. He went on to say:

We all need light to grow, so in addition to food and water and friendship we need to be in the light. Back in the 70's when we used to grow pot, we'd put it under a bright light...uhh...maybe that wasn't the best example...

At least he got everybody to pay attention to what he was talking about.

Mandala

A sand mandala is being created this week at MIT. A group of Buddhist monks create a circular image 4 feet in diameter by painstakingly arranging individual grains of colored sand according to instructions from a 1000 year old text.

The most amazing part, though? After spending four days creating the mandala, the monks will carry it to the Charles and dump the sand in.

The MIT News piece describes the specific meaning of this design as well as details on viewing the construction process.