Friday, April 25, 2008
Knowledge is power - redux
Buried in John Waters’ wordy belated birthday tribute to Emperor Constantine Pope Benedict XVI in today’s Irish Times [subs req] are some points worth noting. Not the comparisons of Christianity to Islam, “a very real form of obscurantism”, nor the references to “pseudo-rebels [who] seek to mollify and court [Islam]”, and not even the “secular media analysis, [of Benedict as] a stop-gap and a throwback, a “reactionary”, a “right-winger”, an obscurantist”, nor the accurate descriptions of media distortions of some of Benedict’s statements. It’s his identification of the very real intellect of “this subtle and brilliant pope”. And his subversive strategy.
One of the many paradoxes of being pope in the modern world is that you must speak through a megaphone controlled by your enemies. If John Paul II was an actor who communicated by disarming the megaphone-holders with charisma and charm, Benedict’s strategy is determined subversion.
And John Waters uses an interesting reference to describe the objective of that strategy
The baptism of Magdi Christian Allam is an example of Pope Benedict’s radicalism, an event worth a hundred million words, a symbol of the new Enlightenment spearheaded by this most disarming of popes. Benedict’s project is the restoration to western culture of an integrated concept of reason, the re-separation of the metaphysical from the physical.
He’s right, in a way, that Benedict seeks an “integrated concept of reason” - Benedict has appealed to a “greater form of reason” previously. But, as I’ve pointed out before, the re-equating, or re-entwining, of religion and science that Benedict actually seeks is not an Enlightenment, it’s an Un-Enlightenment. Knowledge is power, indeed.
Pete Baker @ 01:37 PM
‘The biofuels debacle is global warm-mongering in a nutshell: The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death.’
Substitiute ‘supernaturalist’ for global warming, same small minded, misinformed msm herded, lemmings.Posted by on Apr 26, 2008 @ 03:01 PM“And that Christian treatment of the citizens of Falujah does not inspire me with confidence. “
I think it is the Christians who are becoming exinct in the region.
One of the solutions for the whataboutery cum pogrom equation is to identify what side is having the crap beaten out of it.
Tony Blair is only a Catholic in the wildest sense of the word. He joined us because we’ve given a free pass to more mad eejits than we needed to.
No sonner was he in the club than he immediately went out hawking Queerdom. You might also find that sex abuse in Catholic schools was linked to the proceedings.
Why reform when the govt. insists that reform is entirely in the opposite direction of state policy.
G.
Posted by on Apr 26, 2008 @ 03:37 PMhe’s not just a convert he’s a convert who now says muslims are inheritanly violent.
but sure maybe he was only quoting…
Posted by on Apr 28, 2008 @ 06:30 PM
