Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1407

Mercy is for Weaklings

More to come! Muhuwahahahahahahaha!

Soviet Medicine

at Gitmo.

It will be interesting to see how Torture Defenders rationalize this.

Basic rule of thumb: What we authorize Caesar to do to keep us safe from foreigners, he will sooner or later do to keep us safe from ourselves.

Case in point: the British Empire. It took up the white man's burden

To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Half a century after those lines were written, the Planners of the UK were taking up the same burden on behalf of the soon-to-be wards of socialist UK--still with the sense of noblesse oblige that Planners always begin with as they turn people into cattle.

How you treat cattle depends on how you feel about them. If you regard them as pets, you will treat them one way--as the UK planners have generally treated their subjects. If you regard them more as animals for exploitation and eventual slaughter (as Americans are inclined to do in their darkest utilitarian moments) then a much more brutal fate may await the cow who crosses Caesar.

We'll see.

The Climate Change Scam Just Looks Better and Better

Between the Climategate emails and this, the whole thing is just reeking of fraud.

But the real problem is the people who are telling you what our elites are up to.

Materialism vs. Commercialism

In which we discover why one is good and the other is bad at Christmas.

The Western Confucian Demonstrates Why...

our elites are treating Julian Assange like such a threat:

Supplying our allies with "dancing boy" sex slaves in line with the country's "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape," we learn in this story sent by a reader — US contractor bought Afghan policemen drugs, little boys, cable reveals. The report informs us "that he asked the US embassy to work to 'quash' the story." If the "secret US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks" is the first we've heard of this, we can assume the story was indeed "quashed" by our State Department.

One wonders if "social conservatives" like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, who've both called for Julian Assange's head, will raise a peep about this. One also wonders whether the cultural Marxist that manufactured outrage over the "pedophile priest" scandal will find this story worthy of mention.

Those surprised by our allies' "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape" are not paying attention; some background — NATO or NAMBLA? Kelly Vlahos has documented the abuse — The Rape of the Afghan Boys — and Patrick Cockburn noted that "one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them" — Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys -- The Very Dark Side of the Afghan Occupation.

I think this brings new meaning to the term "Mission Creep".

End this. What stops terrorism is good police work, not this insane and meandering exercise in Empire, which only provokes more terrorism.

The Answer, in Case You Were Wondering, is No

Does new life form mean God is Dead????!!!!

Honestly. Where do they find these people? Science discovers something new to Science! That must mean that God got caught with his pants down, because anything *we* weren't expecting must mean that God was blind-sided too!

It's like children who cover their eyes and think you can't see them.

All this news means is that God, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, can do whatever he likes. I recall no passage in Genesis that says "No arsenic-eating bacteria".

It will mean precisely the same thing if we ever dig up a critter on another planet. As I wrote sometime back:

[S]everal basic criteria that have to be met before life on other worlds would pose a theological problem to Christianity.

First, it has to exist, which we don't know.

Second, it has to be sentient. Alien oysters cannot sin any more than ours do.

Third, it has to have fallen. An unfallen race is not in need of redemption.

Fourth, we have to know that, being fallen, it has been denied the chance of redemption by God. How on earth we'd ever figure that out beats me.

Fifth, we have to know that the redemption will be *forever* denied this hypothetically existent, hypothetically fallen race. After all, if you'd visited earth 10,000 years ago you would not have seen too many obvious clues that redemption was in the works for us.

Sixth, we have to know that redemption via an incarnation, death and resurrection is the *only* way in which God redeems fallen creatures and that such a redemption will never be granted such creatures.

As Lewis says, if our faith never encounters a bigger challenge than this, we are sitting pretty.

As to the existence of non-human intelligences in the universe, the Faith answers this with a definite affirmative: they are called "angels". The existence of *organic* creatures with intelligence is therefore not an insuperable obstacle. God can do as he likes.

That said, there *are* certain facets of the Tradition that present problems for the traditional sci fi scenario. One of them is St. Thomas' teaching that "Man is the form of a rational animal." In other words, if you want to see an intelligent critter made of matter, we're it. That's deeply offensive to us because we think it is arrogant to say that we are alone. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case. As Rare Earth has done a fine job of demonstrating, the Copernican Principle (i.e., the notion that planets like ours are dime a dozen in the Great Grand Scheme of things) is waaaaaaay over-rated. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our planet is one of the few in the galaxy to have complex life and the only one with intelligent life. If the universe is crowded with alien civilizations, then, as Enrico Fermi asked 50 years ago and projects like SETI are making more acutely felt with each day, where is everybody?

Finally, re: preaching the gospel to aliens. Until C.S. Lewis' questions are answered I doubt there would be much point. Indeed, as Lewis Space Trilogy suggests (almost alone in the canons of science fiction that I know of), the reality may well be that an unfallen race would be way ahead of us in their knowledge of Maleldil, just as the angels are. That only stands to reason since the universal God who reveals himself *to us* in Christ Jesus would be present to the souls of unfallen creatures without the hampering effects of original sin. Missionaries to an unfallen planet might find themselves embarrassed by the knowledge of their students, who would all speak "with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees."

I tend to side with Lewis in his speculation that, if there *are* any intelligent critters out there, the vast distances of space are designed to be a quarantine. If we ever made contact with a technologically inferior race, we would murder and enslave them as we have murdered and enslaved weaker members of our own race. If they were technologically superior, they would very properly annihilate us in self-defense.

But, as I never tire of saying, that won't happen, because we are never getting off the earth and we will never contact any aliens.

By the way, one good thing about this piece is noted by the reader who sent it:

One thing I always find very encouraging when stuff like this comes up: When the media wants an "official" ruling from Christians, there's only one place they go: The Vatican. Pat Robertson is never approached, nor anyone at Bob Jones University. As Lenny Bruce rightly said, "There is only one 'the Church,' " and even the world, whether they'll admit to themselves or not, seem to know that.

Yep. All atheists are Christian atheists. Very little energy is spent railing at Zeus or Quetzlcoatl.

The Santa Issue...

A reader writes:

One of your long-time readers here. I know that the Santa Controversy has cropped up on the blog every so often, but so far I haven't paid it much attention. Now that I'm approaching my first Christmas season with an almost-three-year-old, however, it's a much less academic issue! It's also complicated by the fact that, since my wife is German, the full range of potential players are not only Santa Claus, but also St. Nicholas, the Weihnachtsmann, and the Christkind. We definitely want to include at least some of this for the Christmas season, but at the same time, want to be mindful of some of the potential problems. The "theory" of all this is pretty well settled for me, but how to actually go about it (e.g. what exactly do I tell my daughter?) Is not very clear. So, what I'd really appreciate hearing from you is what your family has done regarding Santa through the years. Did you refer everything back to St. Nicholas, make it just a game, or...?

We basically handled it by telling our kids about the real Saint Nicholas, who as a "secret giver" taught us to be secret givers too. So when they got secret gifts, we could have fun with it, but not delude them into thinking Santa Claus was real, only to have them realize they'd been lied to (with all the attendant "Then how much of the rest of this is a fraud too?" baggage). In addition, this allows us to take the child into your own conspiratorial plans to be a secret giver to others, so they get to be St. Nicholas' helper, which makes them feel very (tee hee!) gleeful.

That's what we did. You mileage may vary and ultimately it's up to you how to handle it, of course. Our basic rule of thumb was that lying to our kids was not going to be conducive to engendering trust, so we skipped the whole "making them believe something false" part of the Christmas tradition and tried to focus on giving them the truth while keeping it fun. FWIW, it seems to have worked.

Fellow Parishioner Joe Drake...

writes from somewhere inside the Jobless Recovery. Your prayers that he find work would be appreciated.

Perfect summary...

...of how our hucksters in beer and shampoo ply their trade as "journalists" (caution: some bad language, but dang is it accurate):



One thing he fails to note is the truth of Chesterton's observation that much of the news is concerned with shout "Admiral Bangs is dead!" to a world that never knew Admiral Bangs had been born. A huge amount of news reporting consists of sudden frenzies of fascination with somebody you knew nothing about last week, written and reported by people who also knew nothing till the story broke. Now everybody is, for instance, talking like absolute experts about Julian Assange when the truth is 99% of what you and I "know" about the guy is stuff we gathered from recirulating narratives constructed by "journalists" writing on the fly, supplemented with the gabble of whatever our trusted ideological drum major are saying we should think. He's a folk hero/enemy combatant/traitor/pervert (depending on which "trusted name in news" you decide to let construct the narrative). This is how a huge percentage of people navigate what they "know" about the world. That's why your average American, stopped in the street, "knows" that Benedict is the guardian of perverts. News isn't so much news as "processed information". Processed by whom? By the few rich men and women whose interests are served by the processing process, of course.

My dear Wormwood, surely you didn't think it is our business to teach? - Uncle Screwtape

Fr. Dismas Sayre, OP writes:

Greetings in the name of Christ, who is to come! I was wondering if you would be able to put out a little tin cup for some donations, for a group that not many think of at Christmas:

Dominicans. But not just any Dominicans, but the lay Dominicans of Our Lady of Mercy Chapter inside the prison of MCI Norfolk, Mass. Our Lady of Mercy Chapter is made up mostly of prisoners (and a few on the outside, including facilitators) who truly attempt to live the Dominican charism as fully as their circumstances allow, that is, meditating on the Word and sharing the fruits of their contemplation, from within their monastic/prison cells to an environment hostile to the Good News. Some might say that they committed a crime and deserve to be in prison, and they would agree. Like any Dominicans, they recognize Truth and what they did. But as a Dominican friar, I also remind folks of our Lord's curious phrase: "For I was in prison, and you visited Me." Why did our Lord pick a prison as one of His dwelling places? As a Dominican, I would offer that we believe in restorative justice over retributive justice, to seek to heal the person and restore, as far as possible, a member back into society.
and if not back into society, at least as a fellow Christian.

But what do these Dominicans need? Like any good Dominicans, they need books, books, books! These are voracious readers, eager to know God and to serve Him. Prisons are filled with all kinds of filth and anti-Catholic materials. Here we light a candle to fight the darkness! How can you help?

I have set up a small Amazon Wish List for them.

Good books about Dominicans, study materials, Church history, Canon Law, Liturgy of the Hours, apologetics (I personally sent them your fine three-volume set, "Mary:Mother of the Son"). You can email me gift card or store credit codes to any online bookseller or merchant and I will purchase for them what they need most. Or, if you are a bookseller or someone who could send good Catholic books and sources, mail them to:

Bethany House
1049 Main Street
Millis, MA 02054

And my information:

fr. Dismas (yes, the Good Thief!) Sayre, OP St. Catherine of Siena Parish 170 S. University St Salt Lake City, UT 84102 dismasop@gmail.com


I am not given to flowery talk. However, I am proud to call them fellow Dominicans, my brothers and sisters in Christ and our Holy Father Dominic, preachers of the Word.

Feel free to step up to the plate on this Feast of St. Nicholas!