Remember those old urban legends about the engine that could run on water that oil companies bought and hid from the public?
I really don’t know what to make of this.
From “Run Your Car with Water“
Results For "Month: April 2008"
Urban Legend Comes Alive
In Thought
Catholic mystic’s body
Padre Pio’s body will be displayed in Italy.
Among the stories that surround the monk, who was born Francesco Forgione and died at the age of 81, is one that he wrestled with the devil one night in his monastery cell.
Some believers also say Padre Pio was able to predict future events, was seen in two places at once and could tell people their sins before they confessed them to him.
Pope John Paul II made him a saint in 2002 at a ceremony attended by one of the biggest crowds ever in the Vatican after the Church said it had found evidence that the miraculous cure of a sick woman was the result of intercession by the dead monk.
However, he was dogged during his life and after his death by accusations that he was a fraud.
A new book last year suggested he was a self-harming man who might have used carbolic acid to cause wounds in his hands mimicking those of Jesus when he was nailed to the cross.
Church officials have denied that he was a fake. (Faithful await display of Catholic mystic’s body)
It’s odd how people so want to see the earthly remains of those regarded as saints, from Lenin to Pio.
Why Hijab Is Oppressive
Many Muslim women have claimed that the wearing of the hijab — head-covering scarf — is not oppressive and that they do it voluntarily.
Could it be worn voluntarily and still be oppressive?
The answer lies in why it is commanded. Verses 30 and 31 surah 24 (The Light) read:
Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts; that is purer for them; surely Allah is Aware of what they do. And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.
The list of who might see an uncovered woman can be distilled thusly:
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There are two things that immediately stand out.
- Almost everyone mentioned here is a man.
- The only men who can see a woman are family members.
Additionally, notice that the instructions given to the men are much less demanding than those given the women. Men are to cast their eyes down and to protect their private parts; women get a whole shopping list of requirements.
The Koran also addresses hijab in Sura 33 (The Clans), verse 59:
O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
It all tends to smack of women being the possession of men, doesn’t it?
Yet it’s also a bit demeaning to men: it suggests that men have no self control, that men will automatically turn any and all women in to sexual objects, and that the only way men can notice a woman’s mind is if the women are covered.
Caveats
Caveat one: The New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 11, commands women to cover their heads when in prayer. A couple of caveats to this caveat: first, this is only in limited circumstances, specifically in prayer and when prophesying. Secondly, most Christians have philosophized that away.
Caveat two: Not all Muslim women wear headscarfs. There is a caveat to this, though: to do so in many Muslim countries is to risk condemnation or worse.
Notice: it’s a woman delivering the correctives, but a male police officer is close at hand, showing who the real authority is. Notice also that when the woman is discussing a poor stranger’s clothes, discussing her “sarafan,” a man walks by in a tight-fitting Western shirt, looking must un-Islamic. Nothing is said to him.
Caveat three: Nuns cover themselves. This is, however, an unequal comparison. Becoming a nun is a voluntary addition (or modification) to being a Christian. One can move into and out of a position that requires the head covering. Muslim women cannot do this.
Dac!
Communication
The Girl of late has been doing a lot to shake up my notions of what it means to communicate and all the different ways it’s possible to share a thought with another person.
The biggest preconception she’s radically challenged is the age at which an individual can create novel ways of communicating. We’ve been using baby signing with L, and she’s picked up on several signs that she uses regularly now: eat, more, and bath are among them. She understands a lot more — sleep, drink, potty/diaper change — but that’s not terribly impressive in that she already understands a great deal of spoken language. What shocked me recently about the signing was that L created her own sign for a word that she understands: swing. She waves her right arm back and forth at about shoulder level when she wants to go swing — which is pretty much constantly.
Another preconception: the ability to speak develops much later in children raised in a multilingual environment than it does in a monolingual home. L has a few words that she uses to great effect.
- dac (“give”, pronounced “dach”)
- tam (“there”, pronounced more or less as it appears)
- down
She’s got a few more that she almost says, and at least one L-ism: “baaa” is bannana.
But her understanding of both Polish and English is amazing. We ask her many things in both Polish and English and she understands them both unhesitatingly.
All this culminates in the last unexpected change: an increase in crying. She knows what is possible with communication now — in a word, everything — but she lacks the skills to tell us everything she wants or needs. And the resulting frustration manifests itself in crying/screaming fits more often than we’d like.
The developments of the last few weeks, though, promise a quick end to these fits. In other words, the problem is the solution.
BoM 5: Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Part 2
After an asterisked break, Smith’s testimony continues:
Again, he told me, that when I got those plates of which he had spoken–for the time that they should be obtained was not yet fulfilled–I should not show them to any person; neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim; only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did I should be destroyed. While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it.
I must be missing something. We just read the Testimony of the Three, followed by the Testimony of the Eight — both reported seeing the plates. yet here we have Moroni saying, “Don’t show them to anyone.” Of course, I haven’t finished Smith’s testimony, so perhaps Moroni changes his mind.
That in itself would be problematic. Is Moroni speaking for himself, or for God? Certainly for God. No angel would presume to make a decision that would alter the course of human history — at least to some degree — without first consulting the Boss. Would he?
Either way, we have a problem.
If he’s speaking for God, then this is a discrepancy with one of Christianity’s most basic tenants about God: he changes not. In this scenario, God says, “Moroni, go tell Smith not to show anyone those plates” and then later, “Oh, on second though, he might get a lot of flack about the plates. Better let him show people”?
The other option is equally unappealing: Moroni is acting on his own accord. Wasn’t that what Lucifer was doing?
There are two more options, though: Smith could have just disregard it all. Or — and this is the most damning of all — Smith could have invented the Book of Mormon and simply noticed the discrepancy.
Continuing, Smith testifies:
After this communication, I saw the light in the room begin to gather immediately around the person of him who had been speaking to me, and it continued to do so, until the room was again left dark, except just around him, when instantly I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended until he entirely disappeared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.
I lay musing on the singularity of the scene, and marveling greatly at what had been told to me by this extraordinary messenger; when, in the midst of my meditation, I suddenly discovered that my room was again beginning to get lighted, and in an instant, as it were, the same heavenly messenger was again by my bedside.
Well, maybe Moroni has changed his mind. He certainly seems fairly indecisive here. It brings to mind the Clash classic.
“Should I stay or should I go?”
He commenced, and again related the very same things which he had done at his first visit, without the least variation; which having done, he informed me of great judgments which were coming upon the earth, with great desolations by famine, sword, and pestilence; and that these grievous judgments would come on the earth in this generation. Having related these things, he again ascended as he had done before.
Why the repetition? Why come back and simply repeat the same information, only to add a bit at the end about the awful things that will happen? Who cares, because there’s a bigger issue here: Moroni says that these things will happen “in this generation.” Humans get end-of-the-world prophecies wrong all the time, but angels, with their unfettered access to omniscient God?
There is a precedent for this, though. Jesus said, in the Olivet Discourse, “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matt. 24:34). There are ways to theologize around this, but Jesus’ words are fairly simple, as are Moroni’s: this generation. And in both cases “this generation” is now “that generation”, several generations removed.
At any rate, Smith continues:
By this time, so deep were the impressions made on my mind, that sleep had fled from my eyes, and I lay overwhelmed in astonishment at what I had both seen and heard. But what was my surprise when again I beheld the same messenger at my bedside, and heard him rehearse or repeat over again to me the same things as before; and added a caution to me, telling me that Satan would try to tempt me (in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my father’s family), to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich. This he forbade me, saying that I must have no other object in view in getting the plates but to glorify God, and must not be influenced by any other motive than that of building His kingdom; otherwise I could not get them.
Three visits. There must be some significance to this.
Smith here seems to be countering twentieth century critics who would say, “You’re just making this up to get rich.” Of course that’s an anachronistic reading, but Smith does seem to be trying to head off certain objections before they arise. “Why, if I had plates like that, I’d get myself rich off them,” might have been the common logic he feared, as some sort of argument against the authenticity of his story. It’s about God, not mammon, in other words.
Will there be a fourth? I’ll wager no, in parallel with Jesus’ three days in the grave.
After this third visit, he again ascended into heaven as before, and I was again left to ponder on the strangeness of what I had just experienced; when almost immediately after the heavenly messenger had ascended from me the third time, the cock crowed, and I found that day was approaching, so that our interviews must have occupied the whole of that night.
I shortly after arose from my bed, and, as usual, went to the necessary labors of the day; but, in attempting to work as at other times, I found my strength so exhausted as to render me entirely unable. My father, who was laboring along with me, discovered something to be wrong with me, and told me to go home. I started with the intention of going to the house; but, in attempting to cross the fence out of the field where we were, my strength entirely failed me, and I fell helpless on the ground, and for a time was quite unconscious of anything.
This could be a clue.