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Snippets from around the web...
Joseph posted these sobering stats on his blog today:
As of Oct. 19, 2005
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at Texas and Louisiana: 1,200 people dead and billions of dollars in damange
earthquake at Aceh, Indonesia: 124,000 dead + 114,000 missing (as of Feb. 28, 2005)
Hurricane Stan at Honduras and Guatemala: 800 people dead
earthquake at Pakistan: 79,000 dead
... with Hurricane Wilma, which just might be more powerful than the other ones, just about to hit Mexico and Florida.
Time Magazine recently released its lists of the top 100 movies and the top 100 books released in the last 80 years or so. I took a look at the lists; here are the few movies they highlight that I've seen:
* Blade Runner (1982)
* Drunken Master II (1994)
* E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
* Finding Nemo (2003) (personally, I thought the Toy Story movies were better)
* Goodfellas (1990)
* The Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
* Schindler's List (1993)
* Star Wars (1977)
* Unforgiven (1992)
And the ones that at one point or another, I've thought to myself that I should watch, if only because they're so well-known that they're even being parodied on "The Simpsons:"
* Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
* Casablanca (1942)
* Chinatown (1974)
* Citizen Kane (1941)
* Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
* Farewell My Concubine (1993)
* The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974)
* The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
* It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
* Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
* The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
* Psycho (1960)
* Pulp Fiction (1994)
* Raging Bull (1980)
* A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
* Taxi Driver (1976)
The books from the list that I've read (a good portion of these were "enforced" reading from high school, heh):
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison (I actually really liked this book - "I yam what I yam!")
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (hope the movie does it justice! 'Bout time to re-read it...)
Lord of the Flies - William Golding (seems a lot more influential than you might think, with aspects of it cropping up in pop culture like "Lost")
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien (read this a few times through, and delayed watching the first movie until I finished it the first time)
1984 - George Orwell (the plot of this and "Brave New World" by Huxley always get intertwined in my mind)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
In terms of more recent books, I've heard really good things from peers about the writings of Neal Stephenson (on the list for "Snow Crash").
Finally, came across this ESPN article about the intersection of faith and football in some parts of the southern US. The writer, in providing context for the conflict at hand, actually does a pretty good summary writeup of the issues with church and state in history:
"Next, let's proceed to a short history of the U.S. separation of church and state. A key reason for this 18th-century constitutional safeguard was the vivid lesson of European history -- especially the tragic consequences of consolidating the power of the state and religious belief (such as the Inquisition).
"Further back, in the Fourth Century, Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the state. Some on the extreme religious right might see such a development as a blessing, but a thought-out faith realizes it isn't. By establishing a state religion, Constantine set up a system in which friends, Romans and countrymen had political incentive to pose as believers merely to impress the emperor. This runs counter to genuine faith like a slippery kick returner eluding would-be tacklers.
"So declaring any one faith as the official state religion -- whether it's Christianity or Islam or Buddhism -- is more Pandora's box than answer to prayer.
"At its core, the Christian faith is not coercive. In fact, one of the bedrock premises of biblical faith is that God gives everyone a choice. Keep in mind the greatest commandment identified by Jesus, that First-Century Jewish rabbi from Nazareth (who, his followers say, defeated death in sudden-death overtime): "Love the Lord your God." And we know intuitively that choice is necessary for love to be real. Puppets and robots are not capable of love.
"Yes, the God of biblical faith can be persuasive -- after all, He is God -- but He doesn't force Himself on humans."
Snippets from around the web...
Joseph posted these sobering stats on his blog today:
As of Oct. 19, 2005
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at Texas and Louisiana: 1,200 people dead and billions of dollars in damange
earthquake at Aceh, Indonesia: 124,000 dead + 114,000 missing (as of Feb. 28, 2005)
Hurricane Stan at Honduras and Guatemala: 800 people dead
earthquake at Pakistan: 79,000 dead
... with Hurricane Wilma, which just might be more powerful than the other ones, just about to hit Mexico and Florida.
Time Magazine recently released its lists of the top 100 movies and the top 100 books released in the last 80 years or so. I took a look at the lists; here are the few movies they highlight that I've seen:
* Blade Runner (1982)
* Drunken Master II (1994)
* E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
* Finding Nemo (2003) (personally, I thought the Toy Story movies were better)
* Goodfellas (1990)
* The Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
* Schindler's List (1993)
* Star Wars (1977)
* Unforgiven (1992)
And the ones that at one point or another, I've thought to myself that I should watch, if only because they're so well-known that they're even being parodied on "The Simpsons:"
* Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
* Casablanca (1942)
* Chinatown (1974)
* Citizen Kane (1941)
* Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
* Farewell My Concubine (1993)
* The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974)
* The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
* It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
* Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
* The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
* Psycho (1960)
* Pulp Fiction (1994)
* Raging Bull (1980)
* A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
* Taxi Driver (1976)
The books from the list that I've read (a good portion of these were "enforced" reading from high school, heh):
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison (I actually really liked this book - "I yam what I yam!")
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (hope the movie does it justice! 'Bout time to re-read it...)
Lord of the Flies - William Golding (seems a lot more influential than you might think, with aspects of it cropping up in pop culture like "Lost")
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien (read this a few times through, and delayed watching the first movie until I finished it the first time)
1984 - George Orwell (the plot of this and "Brave New World" by Huxley always get intertwined in my mind)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
In terms of more recent books, I've heard really good things from peers about the writings of Neal Stephenson (on the list for "Snow Crash").
Finally, came across this ESPN article about the intersection of faith and football in some parts of the southern US. The writer, in providing context for the conflict at hand, actually does a pretty good summary writeup of the issues with church and state in history:
"Next, let's proceed to a short history of the U.S. separation of church and state. A key reason for this 18th-century constitutional safeguard was the vivid lesson of European history -- especially the tragic consequences of consolidating the power of the state and religious belief (such as the Inquisition).
"Further back, in the Fourth Century, Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the state. Some on the extreme religious right might see such a development as a blessing, but a thought-out faith realizes it isn't. By establishing a state religion, Constantine set up a system in which friends, Romans and countrymen had political incentive to pose as believers merely to impress the emperor. This runs counter to genuine faith like a slippery kick returner eluding would-be tacklers.
"So declaring any one faith as the official state religion -- whether it's Christianity or Islam or Buddhism -- is more Pandora's box than answer to prayer.
"At its core, the Christian faith is not coercive. In fact, one of the bedrock premises of biblical faith is that God gives everyone a choice. Keep in mind the greatest commandment identified by Jesus, that First-Century Jewish rabbi from Nazareth (who, his followers say, defeated death in sudden-death overtime): "Love the Lord your God." And we know intuitively that choice is necessary for love to be real. Puppets and robots are not capable of love.
"Yes, the God of biblical faith can be persuasive -- after all, He is God -- but He doesn't force Himself on humans."
posted by Bob at
10:11 PM
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