Limited stories

I'm going to provide links to three articles, all of which are confronting the same issue from the same angle. All three are saying that religion, far from the force for evil that some claim it to be, is the very thing we need most here and now. I would put it in the form of a question, one that I have asked myself (a materialist for almost as long as I can remember) many times: can a secular society built on Christian-inspired ideals survive when it has cast off those ideals?

I have wondered about this for a long time, especially since I recognised that Anglo-Saxon liberalism is not essentially an ideal in itself. It is a negative philosophy, a recognition of the inevitable fallibility of all individuals and of the institutions that they create. Far from asserting the equality of all men and women (which seems to me a metaphysical asssertion), it rather rests on acknowledgement that no-one is, or can be, in a position to claim that anyone else is not equal. We are equal before the law only because we have made it that way; it is neither inevitable or necessary that it be so. As a materialist, I must admit that we exist within an enclosed circle of our own making - we assert democracy, equality and the value of individual life and, because we are powerful, we can maintain and defend that assertion and have done so far.

That enclosed circle is not, in fact, impermeable. It must confront the same challenge that all life faces: change. Now, one of the greatest attributes of this system built on fallibility is that it is able to adapt. Because it is not constructed of Temple marble, but of wood, which is more flexible and can be easily replaced piecemeal. However, despite my own confidence that this is the system best suited to its environment, that doesn't mean it always will be or that there are circumstances that will favour other ways of organising things. There are many who believe that we are faced with these circumstances now.

William Rees-Mogg (like Osama bin Laden and Pope Benedict to name but two others) thinks that the West is spiritually impoverished and lacks the means to extricate itself from its self-made 'poverty' trap. (One of those above believes that this will guarantee him victory in the end.) Larry Siedentop, on the other hand, thinks that Europe has fallen into an unfortunate misunderstanding in opposing its secular civil rights to religion. In fact, that "secularism [is] an embodiment of Christian moral intuitions" and the problem is that Europeans in particular are "out of touch with the Christian roots of their liberalism".

Neil Postman goes via the argument of need. We need a Grand Narrative, one that only a god can provide. We need a story which puts us securely inside something far greater than ourselves, with a beginning, middle and end that includes something of our own will. [You will rebut that just because we need it doesn't mean it's true. Maybe. However, it may mean that it is useful.] But he is not urging any final revelation upon us.

He quotes Galileo

The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.

And Pope John Paul II

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

[This is what Benedict was on about in the Regensburg Address.] And then puts out his stall

Science and religion will be hopeful, useful, and life-giving only if we learn to read them with new humility - as tales, as limited human renderings of the Truth. If we continue to read them, either science or Scripture, as giving us Truth direct and final, then all their hope and promise turn to dust. Science read as universal truth, not a human telling, degenerates to technological enslavement and people flee it in despair. Scripture read as universal Truth, not a human telling, degenerates to Inquisition, Jihad, Holocaust, and people flee it in despair. In either case, certainty abolishes hope, and robs us of renewal.

It's worth a few moments' thought.

(The first two via Ninme)

Love locks

If you happen to be in Rome sometime soon, walk across the Ponte Milvio and stop at the middle lamp-post.


You are looking at eternal love. Make obeisance.

Couples take a padlock, write or scratch their initials on it, attach the padlock to the chain that was once used to close off the bridge and then throw the key into the Tiber. (See the Chesterton quote below.) There are now so many that members of the ruling Ulivo party demand that Mayor Veltroni have them removed. These dessicated creatures have been dubbed "The Lovers' Enemy" by the right-wing councillor Marco Clarke. "The Left is against lovers", who will "be offended" by this gross breaking of their vows.

The custom was born as a school-leaving ritual, using locker padlocks to mutely announce 'Escape!' to the world. But teenage couples adopted it after the publication of a book by Federico Moccia (Ho voglia di te - "I want you") in which the central couple seal their love with a padlock attached to the chain on the third lamp-post of the Ponte Milvio.

To assess the style that inspired the custom, sample this from Moccia's blog: A reader asks, "Does the chain exist?" Moccia responds

Does the chain exist? Maybe.
It exists for those who believe. Who dream. Who love the sea. Who love the wind, and as the motorbike leans into it, grip to the person in front...For you who dream, the lovers' chain is for you. Maybe one day, you'll go to Rome, to the Ponte Milvio, to the third lamp-post, the one that looks out over the Tiber and watches the Corso Francia bridge. And you'll find it. You'll find the chain.

There's a lot more, but the spirit wilts and the flesh dries up. If you want more, go to his website with its sky-blue banner (his last book was called 3 Metres under the Sky) and the word 'Fede' (Faith) and a bandana-swathed ...strawberry.

I borrowed the photo from Chiara at 06blog.

The coming war

The next war against Israel is being prepared. It will, of course, be entirely the fault of the Israelis if anyone dies. The Times.

Hezbollah, the militant Shia organisation, is building a new line of defences just north of the United Nations-patrolled zone in south Lebanon ahead of a potential resumption of war with Israel.

The military build-up, only six months after the last Lebanon-Israel conflict, is being conducted in valleys and hillsides guarded by uniformed Hezbollah fighters in the rugged mountains north of the Litani river — the limit of the 12,000 strong UN Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil).
Christian and Druze-owned land is being bought for cash by a Shia businessman. Hezbollah’s opponents believe the goal is to create a Shia-populated belt spanning the northern bank of the Litani, allowing the Lebanese group to operate away from prying eyes.

“The state of Hezbollah is already in existence in south Lebanon,” the Druze leader and arch Hezbollah critic Walid Jumblatt told The Times.

From another article in The Times:

These purchases will create a continuous Shia zone running from the edge of the long-disputed Shebaa Farms area all the way across to the coastline. Lebanon is in effect being physically divided by this initiative. This is terrain in which Hezbollah will soon be able to function much as it wishes. It is beyond the reach of the UN and its soldiers. It is already being described in the region as a “new Maginot Line”.

There is, though, a crucial difference. The original Maginot Line was defensive in its character. This one is not.

In a speech given in South Beirut on February 16, 2007, Hassan Nasrallah said

We are being very clear and we are saying that we have arms. We are not lying and [we are] telling it to the whole world. ...It [Hezbollah] is saying it in public, adding that it is rearming and increasing the scope of its armament in order to get more dangerous arms…

The resistance [i.e., Hezbollah] notes that it is transporting the arms to the front. We stress our commitment to the resistance [interpret as you wish], to the cause of the resistance and to the project of the resistance that defends the homeland...

Hezbollah… is willing to wage jihad and persist with its struggle for justice in all areas…

Et dixit Chesterton

Posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable.
GK Chesterton

Hero

Wilberforce is getting a lot of attention. Good. Not just for what he achieved, which was monumental, but for the way he did it. Through Parliament. By persuasion and making a law. Not revolution. Progress.

Winning already?

Someone called Patrick Ruffini at Townhall says the Surge is working. It may well be, but no-one can know at this point. It's silly to make pronouncements about an operation as large and complex as this after such a short time. It's not news; it's propoganda.

(via Instapundit)

Tom & Jerry: The Jewish Conspiracy

This is labelled on YouTube as a "Film Seminar on Iranian TV" and has the Prof explaining why "Disney" produced Tom and Jerry to create a more favourable image of the Jews, whose dirty, stingy ways provoked Hitler into trying to wipe them off the face of the Earth, despite his "contacts" with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The worst moment is the last. A young, headscarfed woman noting all this down as if he were explaining how to deliver a baby.

(via Daniel Finkelstein and Instapundit)

Accommodating all (well, 3% of all)

The reductio ad absurdum of multiculturalism. I refer to the new "guidelines for schools" from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). It tells the schools of this country how they should adapt to meet the "needs of Muslims". That is, how 97% of the country should adapt to 3% in almost every aspect of school life: collective worship, PE, dance, swimming, exams, school meals, sex education and parents' evenings.

Schools "should accommodate" Muslim girls so they are allowed to wear "a full-length loose school skirt or loose trousers, a long-sleeved shirt and a head scarf"
Boys should be allowed to wear beards
Primary schools should use portable partitions in changing rooms and all schools have "individual changing cubicles"
Sports involving physical contact should happen only in single-gender groups
Schools should limit certain activities during Ramadan. They include science lessons dealing with sex, parents’ evenings, exams and immunisation programmes.
School trips should be made single-sex
All British children should learn about Islam, but Muslims must have the right to withdraw their children from RE lessons dealing with Christianity and other faiths.

And so on and on. I could exclaim, What gives them the right?! But of course, we have,with the idiocy of multiculturalism. I might wonder, What about the Sikhs, Hindus, Rastafarians, Jews and, dare I?, Christians? But, of course, they don't for the most part make these demands. Maybe they should, and we'd have a school year consisting of 2 days, one for the boys and one for the girls.

These 'proposals' should be rejected out of hand. Inoffensively, of course.

Jews on the Dome of the Rock

Yehuda Litani tells a story about the Temple Mount in 1899 and 1992 and about what happens to awkward archeological evidence in the hands of the Waqf.

In the years 1992-3 the late King Hussein of Jordan financed the renovations of the golden dome, which was carried out by a construction company from Northern Ireland. On a visit to the site during those renovations I discovered a story that wasn’t known until then, regarding the Jewish-Ottoman-Palestinian connection to the mosques on Temple Mount.

The Dome of the Rock was surrounded with scaffolding, and before ascending one of them a friend of mine drew my attention to an iron panel that lay on the floor and was inscribed in French. The foreman of the Irish construction company said the panel had been found between the two halves of the crescents at on top of the mosque, and was temporarily dismantled so that the dome could be coated in gold.

The words in French revealed that the Mosque had been renovated in 1899 during Turkish rule, and that the works had been assisted by the Jewish community in Jerusalem led by a public figure called Avraham (Albert) Entebbe, who among his numerous other activities was also the principal of the city's "Kol Israel Haverim" school...

[T]he inscription noted that for the purpose of renovating the mosques on the Temple Mount five acclaimed Jewish artists had been invited to Jerusalem...The inscription also noted that all the students at Entebbe's school were given a three-month leave in order to assist their Muslim brothers in the renovations works on Temple Mount.

I told the Irish foreman about my discovery, and asked him to look after the iron panel so that I could take a photograph of it. The foreman apparently told Waqf representatives about the panel, and when we came back to the site the next day the panel was no longer there. The foreman said the Waqf had taken it away. When I asked one of them a few days later where the iron panel was, he said that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

Carnival and endogamy

It seems that German Carnival floats will be back to normal this year, at least in Düsseldorf. Last year, after the Cartoon hoo-ha, the subject of Islam was banned as a target of satire. It was one of the many cases of pre-emptive censorship confirming Europe's spinelessness. Well, one vertebra may not a backbone make, but it's better than none.

The organisers don't publicise the floats before the big day, but there are photos here of some that were banned last year. One shows four Muslim women. The first wears a head-scarf, the second a niqab and the third a burqa. The fourth is inside a bin-bag.

Speaking of which, Stanley Kurtz puts the restrictions on Muslim women into a broader context of a society based on patrilineal family loyalty and honour. He takes you on a not-entirely mind-contorting journey through the anthropological concepts of endogeny and exogeny, parallel-cousin marriage and cross-cousin marriage and cultural con- and discon-tinuity. But it is a fascinating exposure of Arab exceptionalism - almost the only social group in the world to prefer marriage within the patriarchal group to outside it and so reject the benefits of what many anthropologists, including Levi-Strauss, had seen as a fundamental human survival technique.

There are two parts, here and here, with more promised.