This was not an easy read, though not on account of the text. Francis de Sales’ work requires a certain philosophical mindset, but it is excellently written and addresses each topic specifically for the layman. Rather, this was difficult to read because in many places, it has opposed my own beliefs; even so, I will strive not to address matters of faith except insofar as they relate to this review.

Let me start with the negative points. This book is originally a collection of letters, with numerous author’s notes, ideas, and self-editing appended. As such, it does not always flow naturally. Some of the chapters seem to follow from the last, while others seem arbitrary, and occasionally, the editor will include an author’s note about wanting to add such-and-such a chapter where none is included. Also, the end of the book lacks any sense of finality; there is no summation, no conclusion. In the context of a series of letters, such a conclusion would make little sense, but in the context of an argumentative book, its absence leaves the reader wishing for closure.

The only other negative quibble I can pointedly offer is an editing issue: there are easily half a dozen typographical errors throughout the book. This may seem minor, but when addressing a matter as vital to the human person as religious faith, there is no room for mistakes, no allowance for deviation. A number of grammatical errors make it easy for the opponent to avoid the tough questions of the argument and attack the weakness of the arguer. Fallacious and ridiculous it may be, but still, it’s important.

Now for my praise. The book is very well written. Its argumentation is succinct, effective, reasonable, and based in Scripture. One of the shortcomings of modern debates is the disagreement on qualifications for evidence; atheists demand materialism, Protestants deny tradition and praise emotional experience, and Catholics require objective reasoning… yet when atheists, Protestants, and Catholics disagree, atheists speak entirely in materialistic terms, Protestants speak entirely in spiritual terms, and Catholics speak entirely in terms of tradition. Under this model, no one accomplishes anything.

Francis, on the other hand, acknowledges the belief structure of his audience and meets them where they are; he is “all things to all men,” so that he might save some (1 Corinthians 9). He knows that he is writing to Calvinists, so he takes the Calvinists’ bases of faith: Scripture, tradition only up to a point, predestination, and so on. Using that structure, even so, he efficiently and powerfully argues in favor of the Roman Catholic Church. As someone who followed Calvinism for a time, I found that Francis’ argumentation left Calvin without a leg to stand on.

There were a few specific moments that I found peculiarly prophetic, given that Francis was writing very early on during the Reformation. Here I sit now, looking back on five hundred years of Protestant history, and I find these expectations more apt than ever. In discussing the notion of valid interpretation of the Scriptures, Francis writes,

“Who knows not how many passages the Arian brought forward? What was there to be said against him except that he understood them wrongly? But he is quite right to believe that it is you who interpret wrongly, not he, you that are mistaken, not he; that his appeal to the analogy of the Faith is more sound than yours, so long as they are but private individuals who oppose his novelties. Yes, if one deprive the Councils of supreme authority in decision and declarations necessary for the understanding of the Holy Word, this Holy Word will be as much profaned as texts of Aristotle, and our articles of religion will be subject to never-ending revision, and from being safe and steady Christians we shall become wretched academics.” (pp164-65)

As a part-time academic, I found this especially apt. Academics, particularly in the realm of literary and philosophical study, are obsessed with novelty. New is always better – and if you can tie it into some modern philosophy, some notion of feminism or liberation theology or the emergent church, all the greater is your triumph. Day to day, the “accepted” understanding of Scripture or history or philosophy is morphed into something totally unrecognizable by its progenitors. Academia is subject to the whims of cultural phenomena, and by placing Scriptural interpretation within that realm, orthodoxy becomes moot and faith becomes relative. It not only will happen, it does happen; spend a few years in the religion department of nearly any university to see it in action.

Not long after, Francis writes on the subject of accepting the Councils’ authority (or, more generally, the authority of any tradition),

“We are not hesitating as to whether we should receive a doctrine at haphazard or should test it by the application of God’s Word. But what we say is that when a Council has applied this test, our brains have not now to revise but to believe. Once let the canons of Councils be submitted to the test of private individuals, as many persons, so many tastes, so many opinions.” (p167)

Here, too, we see a realty now enacted. Even within the Roman Catholic Church, which struggles so particularly with divergent liturgies and lapses among the faithful – there are even religious orders which oppose the Papacy, the Councils, and God Himself. It is the cultural milieu to allow personal opinions to influence one’s understanding of religious truths, as if one’s opinions could never be skewed by the sin nature which runs rampant within us. And we see among Protestants this phenomenon especially; where once there were the followers of Luther, then there were the followers of Luther and of Calvin and of Zwingli and of King Henry VIII; where once there were only these, now there are hundreds, even thousands of denominations, from Lutherans to Presbyterians to American Baptists to Southern Baptists to United Methodists to “apostle” churches to mega-churches to Jehovah’s Witnesses to Latter-Day Saints. It is the modus operandi to split from one’s church when it diverges from your personal opinion, and – to summarize this mathematically – as time T approaches infinity, the ratio R of persons to denominations approaches one. Eventually, if this trend continues, there will be no churches, no denominations, no religions – only people with opinions.

I will expound on one final quote: When discussing the primacy and authority of the Papacy, Francis goes into great detail explaining the difference between infallibility in cathedra (literally “in the chair,” i.e., the chair of Peter, referring to the belief that Peter was given authority to speak on issues of morality and faith) and infallibility extra cathedra (literally “outside the chair,” an infallibility which no one claims the Pope possesses). During this discussion, he addresses an issue which I have found to plague the writings of Protestants and Catholics alike in the centuries since the divide: ad hominem attacks. Francis writes,

“You read the writings of Calvin, of Zwingle [sic], of Luther. Take out of these, I beg you, the railings, calumnies, insults, detraction, ridicule, and buffoonery which they contain against the Pope and the Holy See of Rome, and you will find that nothing will remain. You listen to your ministers; impose silence upon them as regards railings, detraction, calumnies against the Holy See and you will have your sermons half their length. They utter a thousand calumnies on this point; this is the general rendezvous of all your ministers.” (p229)

In absence of good argumentation, debaters fall immediately to this option: defame your opponent, and you delegitimize his argument. Catholics, too, are guilty of this (I recently wrote a review addressing this very issue in the writings of a modern Catholic apologist and motivational speaker). Instead of addressing their opponents where they are, with reasons they will understand (as Francis does so well in this book), they simply decry their opponents as foul men. It is tantamount to a child being presented with a cogent argument and replying, “Yeah, well, you’re just a meanie!” (Except that Luther’s tongue is far more wicked in its verbiage.)

I do not include these things to proselytize, but to expound upon this detail: Francis was a very successful apologist for the Roman Catholic Church in his day, in no small part because he (1) knew his opponents, (2) applied reason and reasonable extrapolation to their arguments, and (3) avoided the fallacies that have plagued argumentation since the beginning of time.

In short, this is an excellent book, and a must-read for anyone trying to understand Roman Catholics and where they stand.



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The Original Post is Located Here: Respect in Apologetics

After reading Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Prince Otto is a startling change of pace. From adventure and pirates and sailing and treasure in the Caribbean–to political intrigue and romance in Germany.

The book, as I understand it, was not well-received in its time, and to be fair, I can see why. It did not fit the culture of the age, with its romantic optimism and vague opposition to monarchy, but it is still an enjoyable read–provided you like dialogue and romance. It was certainly far more pleasant than other romances I have perused lately.

The characters are written well and consistently, although it seemed Stevenson was adding a new name or title to some characters every chapter. (It helped once I realized that some titles were simply the German counterparts to titles he had already used in English.) The romance between Otto and Seraphina is… complicated, to be trite, but not unbelievable. Otto, apart from a brief (and destructive) moment of monarchic ire, is dedicated entirely to serving and pleasing the wife he always knew he had disappointed. Seraphina, meanwhile, is so focused on ruling the princedom that she sacrifices her personal life in frustration with Otto’s political shortcomings; yet in the end, she realizes whither her manipulations brought her and remembers her love for Otto.

I was delighted to read allusions to Scripture several times in each chapter. They were often poignant and effective, especially if you know the context, and they spiced up a book which would otherwise have been rather dreary.

The book does have a happy ending, so if you’re opposed to that, I suspect you should avoid it. If, on the other hand, a romance is only good when it all works out in the end, this is a fine choice. Not Stevenson’s best work, of course, but thoroughly pleasant.



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The Original Post is Located Here: The Romantic Prince

I really enjoyed reading through this. It’s a great adventure tale, and it has been deemed a classic for good reason.

A lot of my reading was colored by the number of times I’ve seen various film adaptations of the story, and I must say I was impressed that no film version I have ever seen accurately represents the entire story. One will get these things right, another will get those things right, and all of them will miss out on this tidbit, or that one. But I liked the book a great deal.

It doesn’t get five stars for… some reason or another. I don’t quite remember. My brain is a little frazzled right now (there was a recent death in the family, and I’ve just returned from a long road trip); perhaps I will amend this review later if I think of more details.



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The Original Post is Located Here: Treasure Island

Perhaps someday I shall make a time-lapsed video of this process, but in the present, I have only scans at each stage. In this case, I am drawing a map of the continent of Cavahir in the world of Auriel, a fantastical realm and the setting for an open-world RP (“role-play”; more accurately in this context, a collaboratively written story) on the Star Wars: Exodus role-playing forum, of which I am a member.

Stage 1: Source
Usually, I just make up the map off the top of my head. But sometimes, I have a good reason for doing this. I have a rough draft of a map for The Chimaera Regiment, the novel you keep hearing about that never seems to be finished (it’s not vaporware, I swear). That map requires some precise calculations based on how long it takes characters to reach places. No, things do not move at the speed of plot… or at least, they don’t only move at the speed of plot.

But in this case, as I have mentioned, the source is a fictional world devised by several members of the aforementioned forum. Which means they came up with a map for it, too. Which means that I’m not the creative force here, just the muscle. The aching, cringing muscle in my hand that wants to kill me for causing it so much pain.

At any rate, there is an original map, primarily a rough outline:

That map is based on these two maps, with some additions. I did make a map of the original continent (Cavahir), before the additions, but obviously, the additions made that obsolete.

Stage 2: Dotmap
Stage 1 gave me a lot of information to work with. Stage 2 is the process of getting that information into a usable space. So first, I have to decide on a series of important locations on the map – the westernmost edge, certain points and dips and curves, islands, lakes, mountain ranges, mountain passes, river deltas, and so on. Then, I use the original map and photo editing software (in this case, GIMP) to figure out the exact placement of those locations, as if on a Cartesian plane.

I might change my methods in the future (if I start making a lot of maps for other people, for example), but this time, I got coordinates in inches. GIMP puts (0,0) at the top left, though, so proper Cartesian coordinates would make all my Y values negative. But I digress.

Then I take those coordinates and, once I’ve calculated the ratio between original and destination (in this case, 1:1.55 to put it on a piece of 8.5×11 paper), I calculate the new coordinates for my map.

What you see here are, from left to right, location, original coordinates, and new coordinates (with Y adjusted to put the bottom of the map at the bottom of the paper). The third pair of columns are the remainders from the new X and Y coordinates when those coordinates are converted into 1/16 inch increments – that way, I don’t have to do the math in my head while I’m trying to plot important map locations.

When I’m done with that, I plot said map locations.

It’s probably tough to see at this size, but you can click on the image to see it at full resolution. You may notice that I have labeled a large number of the dots on my dotmap; this is so I don’t confuse these with the main outline of my continent.

Naturally, this does lend itself to handy Connect-the-Dots versions, which is great for all the kids out there aspiring to be fictional cartographers.

Stage 3: Outline
With the dotmap down and prepared, we begin our map itself with Stage 3: the rough outline. At this stage, I make sure all of my coastline is present and accounted for, including any nooks, crannies, islands, isles, and tiny spits of land that barely deserve to be called a sandbar. Sometimes, I also add a few titles at this stage, if only to take up white space left by the scale of the map.

And now you can begin to see the continent taking shape. But there’s so much left to do!

Stage 4: Interior Sketch
Once I have the coastlines finished, it’s time to move on to Stage 4, wherein I settle in my mountains…

… rivers…

… and forests.

It may look like it has everything, and it could technically be called an accurate map now. But it isn’t finished.

Stage 5: Coastline Cleanup
Despite its title, Stage 5 has nothing to do with oil spills or litter duty. This is where I take the rough outline from Stage 3 and turn that coastline into something pretty. This part of the process is in the running for most tedious, because waves don’t draw themselves next to the shallows around my coasts. And islands make this even more hand-numbingly dull.

But it is starting to look better now. I also threw in a chasm for good measure.

Stage 6: Mountain Shading
At this stage, I move back to the interior and I make my mountains three-dimensional (as well as any chasms or cliffs I might have). That means adjusting the shape of each mountain (so they’re not a long series of ugly little downward-facing angles) and adding shadows to each mountain. You may also notice the addition of one more river and a few more trees, which should have been on there already.

It may surprise you to learn that this is not in the running for “most tedious task.” By comparison to Stage 7, this is almost a delight.

Stage 7: Tree Shading
You see all those trees on that map? You see how many there are?

Boom. Shaded.

And now my hand hurts.

Stage 8: Miscellany
This is the final stage. It’s mostly unnecessary, as far as the map is concerned. But it’s fun, and it makes the map look cooler, so I usually do it. This is the part where I add a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with any particular locations on the map. I finish up the titles…

… and I add things like ships…

… monsters…

… and a compass.

I’ve also been known to add a whale or two in my time, but it’s not as relevant to Auriel.

Stage 9: Completion
This is the last and final step. Here, I use photo-editing software to clean up the image, erase smudges, straighten up the disorderly, and, on occasion, add a little color. But that last one is pretty rare.

And thus, we have the final version of the map of Cavahir and surrounding lands, in the world of Auriel.

To be honest, I think the original might have looked better, in terms of visual quality, but I’m not disappointed in this one. There’s also a version with regions and capitals labeled, but keep in mind that those, above all else, are subject to change.

The Original Post is Located Here: Fictional Cartography 101

The above video focuses on one point: there is an unequal distribution of wealth in these United States of America. Now, granted, it disguises that point as three separate graphs (the ideal, the perceived, and the actual distributions of wealth), but the primary point is to spread awareness about the situation.

I will grant a few important concessions to the above video: First, it tries very hard to remain politically neutral. It emphasizes that Republicans and Democrats alike think that the ideal distribution of wealth would spread the dollars a little more evenly than they are now. It does not use terms like “unfair,” which immediately smack of entitlement issues. It admits the economic shortcomings of socialism. It does not push a particular legislation, example, or ideology as the solution to this issue, but merely highlights the issue’s existence.

But there are a few shortcomings in this video, too. Even in its attempts to remain neutral, biases still slide through. There are quotation marks around “dreaded” in describing socialism; this disassociation with the original quote (supposing there were one) implies disagreement with the original speaker, suggesting a left-leaning political view. A right-leaning political view would have left the quotation marks out, implying agreement with the sentiment that socialism is “dreaded.” A truly neutral view would have left the adjective out altogether.

Furthermore, there is a certain amount of emphasis on the term “Republican,” by both word order and verbal accent, that suggests the maker of the video found it important to emphasize Republican agreement with the ideal distribution; this tends to happen when the maker of a video knows s/he is opposed to a group that s/he must convince, and this awareness drives a wedge even as it attempts to build a bridge. A truly neutral view would have said, “Remember: 92% of people agreed with this ideal distribution, regardless of their political perspective.” At least, that’s about as neutral as you can get while making a video about wealth distribution.

There is a hint of agreement with the Occupy Wall Street movement, when the video discusses the enormous wealth of the 1%, and that, too, will drive a wedge between the video’s message and its intended audience. The people who don’t already agree with wealth redistribution also don’t like the Occupy Wall Street movement, and associating yourself with it – even tangentially – is not going to do you any favors. Democrats, in general, support higher taxation and higher entitlements, which is precisely what the Occupiers sought, whereas Republicans tend to oppose that sort of budget, and thereby oppose the Occupiers. If you start suggesting that the Occupiers were right, you’re going to lose most of your audience right there. Better not to mention them at all.

Now, let’s move on to the meat of this issue: the fairness of current wealth distribution. The above video acknowledges that some of the top 20% work harder, and therefore earn more, than lower brackets, but questions whether the CEO works over 300 times as hard as his/her average employee. This highlights precisely why so many Americans are uncomfortable with the current distribution of wealth in these United States: there is an extremely common belief that there is a direct relationship between hard work and money.

Why is that? Well, in the industrial era, it was completely true. The harder you worked, the more you earned, and the more people noticed you, so the more you got promoted. When you got promoted, you got more work and more money. Plus, it’s part of the standard “American dream.” You show up, you work hard, maybe 60-80+ hours of work each week, and sooner or later, you’re going to get rewarded with a cush, highly paid position, like the CEO or the Chairman of the Board. Classic movies and TV shows and books talk constantly about how the wealthy worked hard to get where they are, and you’ve got to work hard, too. (Although, really, we should have seen through that one, because that’s always indicated to be at least a little false through the course of the story – even as far back as Dickens’ Hard Times, in which Josiah Bounderby is shown a fraud for all his claims of being a self-made man.)

Whatever the source, this notion runs rampant among the working class. Perhaps it was an invention of the ruling class to keep the working class working and the ruling class ruling – but I suspect it was less devious than that. It’s not exactly a false notion, after all – if you work harder, you tend to get paid more and get more promotions. But even if you’re the hardest worker in your company, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll become CEO – and even if you become CEO, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll be in the top 10%, much less the top 1%, of American earners and owners. Why? Because work does not equal wealth.

Somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that economic principles can be manipulated. It’s not illegal, despite the connotations of the word “manipulate,” and it’s debatably not even wrong. Instead of working hard, as they say, some people started working smart. They know economics, and they use economics to get money into their own pockets instead of someone else’s. This is where trading on the stock market, managing hedge funds, and controlling investment portfolios becomes far more important than “working hard.” By using economic principles to predict where money will be, you can get your hand into that cookie jar before the cookies even show up; that’s an overly simplistic expression of it, but it’s effectively accurate.

The above video made an important point on this topic, but I’m not sure they realized it: the bottom 50% of Americans own less than 0.5% of all investments, which means that they’re not investing. The reason the top 1% owns 50% of the investments? They’re investing. They did that “hard work makes money” thing for a while, and when they had a little capital saved up, they invested it, and they invested it well. That made them more money, which they invested some more, until suddenly, they own everything and they look like jerks for not giving it away for free.

There’s another reason the rich are rich and the poor are not. Why do you suppose the poor and middle classes are “working hard” but not making money? Is it because the rich are evil? Those dastardly villains, twirling their handlebar mustaches ‘neath their top hats while they smack street urchins with diamond-topped canes! Right?

Wrong. The poor and middle classes are not making money because they’re spending the vast majority of their money paying off debts. Credit card debt, new car debt, new house debt, student loan debt – you name the debt, they’ve got it. Because there’s one other thing that the rich do with their money: they offer it to people who don’t have any. Now, consider for a moment that rich people are rich, so they know how to make money, and they generally don’t do things that don’t provide any return on investment. Loans always make more money in the long run. Not sometimes, not only if you make minimum payments, but always. And poor and middle class people are borrowing for everything from a new lawnmower to a new car to a house they couldn’t afford if they worked for the next eighty years, much less only twenty or thirty. And they’re paying through the nose to keep it that way.

Most folks, by the time they finish a car payment, decide to upgrade to a new car, so they get a new car payment. They finish paying off their house, so they do a little remodeling and put in a room over the garage. And I would comment about what they do when they finish paying off their credit cards if any of them ever did that.

“But– but– but!” you will say, “Everyone knows you need to have good credit!” Maybe. Maybe you need to have good credit. But you can have good credit for a lot less than $10,000 of credit card debt earning interest every month.

But at the end of the day, when you get a loan, you lose money. Loans are for when you need money today to set up something that will be worth more tomorrow, like an education or a house in a good community. A car loses value; certainly other, smaller products do, too. It never makes sense to borrow money to lose it. And yet the poor and middle classes do that every day.

And then they complain that the people they’re losing money to have their money.

The distribution of wealth in America is very unequal. Inequitable. But unfair? Hardly. People are poor because of the choices they make; by making different choices, by saving and spending rather than borrowing and losing, they could develop the capital they need to start investing. And by investing well, they can redistribute the wealth in America legally, equitably–and fairly.

The Original Post is Located Here: Work, Money, and Financial Distribution

To “go meta” is to take an argument, discussion, conversation, or debate to a deeper (i.e., self-referential) level, such as, “This ‘blog post is such a bore.” To “be meta” is to approach all aspects of life with a view to stepping back and examining them as integral parts in a larger whole. One might enjoy a particular episode of a particular television series, for example, but if one were being meta, one would then examine that episode as merely one small piece of the much larger whole, that is, the entire series.

Going meta is largely irrelevant to me. I want to discuss being meta, because it is an increasingly popular mental style in today’s American culture. People enjoy having their minds twisted in knots at the pleasure of the twister. The film “Inception” is the perfect example of this. In fairness, it’s not a new activity – see the original “Total Recall,” for example – and it’s not worthless. It is, in fact, quite fun to take a mental joyride through someone else’s playground.

But the question is, is “being meta” as philosophical and transcendent as many people make it seem? Does it improve the human condition? Are we better off for it?

Let’s face it: what does being meta actually accomplish? At the end of the day, being meta is simply looking at a complex system and declaring it to be complex. And I’ll grant that it’s a relatively uncommon position in the history of philosophy – most fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, psychology, medicine, invention, and industry seek to simplify the system, so that they can provide solutions to particular problems. It’s a side effect of the scientific method – ceteris paribus, Latin for “with other things being equal.” You have to control and eliminate as many variables as possible, so that you can test, analyze, and correct single variables at a time. And so that approach has been applied to any activity which endeavors to describe the human condition and to indicate a preferential method of surviving it.

So being meta takes a step back from the idea of ceteris paribus, and wants us to recognize and remember that the other things are not equal, and may in fact never have been so. Every single variable is part of an equation so large that it cannot be simplified. Being meta, in short, (and to reference a brief discussion I had earlier on this blog) directly opposes the hypothesis of Asimov’s Foundation series. That is, Hari Seldon (the champion of psychohistory) creates a simpler model which approximates the behavior of human civilization; in Prelude to Foundation, he wonders whether this is even possible, because it might be that the universe, or even just human civilization, cannot be simplified any further than it already is. While, for the sake of science fiction, Asimov embraced the “what if?” of success, being meta declares that human civilization/the universe/the human condition cannot be so simplified.

And in general, I’m inclined to agree. I don’t think psychohistory could be possible, even with the best psychological and mathematical minds from all time working on the problem. The universe already is the simplest model for its own behavior.

At the same time, there are strong benefits from addressing particular problems individually. The holistic medicines of the far east have some measures of success, but when it comes to efficiency and reliability at eliminating an infection, it’s hard to beat broad-spectrum antibiotics. Considering the human condition as a whole, especially in light of our sinful plight and God’s divine intervention, can be extremely useful – but describing the habitual differences between effective, wise, happy, successful people and their ineffective, foolish, sad, failure-ridden counterparts can help someone with self-control and motivation to become more effective, wise, happy, and successful.

That’s not to say that Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People will take someone from the pits of depression to the contented plateau of healthy joy. But neither will pointing out, say, that the pits of depression are simply a small part of the human condition, or that one’s presence in them is due primarily to a misunderstanding of the complexity of the system. In fact, I’d argue that being meta to depressed persons is more likely to make them more depressed than it is to heal whatever darkens their souls.

Let me be clear: I enjoy when things are self-referential. I enjoy intertextualism. I enjoy “Easter eggs” and references to the fourth wall. I do not, however, enjoy when an author takes a wrecking ball to the fourth wall, then picks up the pieces and beats the audience over the head with them. That’s simply a case of an author believing himself to be so superior to his readership that he must berate them into acquiescence. It doesn’t help him or his case, and it certainly does not help his readers.

It has been suggested that there are two kinds of books – those designed to divert, and those designed to support. Entertainment and “self-help.” Books, apparently, attempt to provide escapism, either in the form of a story (true or not) or in the form of suggested behavior. I would argue vehemently that this is a very short-sighted view of books in general, but I’ll come back to that. More importantly, some suggest that the solution is to be meta – that is, to step back and realize the situation, the desired escapism, and the cause of it all, and to address the system in its complexity, instead of trying to simplify it.

And with that, I disagree.

In part, it’s because I think there is more to books than mere escapism. There is Truth in books (or at least, in some books). They address the human condition, not by pointing out how complex it is (because everyone who has lived already knows that), but by showing us who we are and how we act, and questioning whether we should act the way we do. All without being “meta.”

Really, I think I object to this because being meta is no different. If your mindset/belief system is that all books are escapism of some sort, some kind of diversion or entertainment, then so is being meta. Stepping back and examining the complexity of the system does not, in and of itself, make it more feasible to operate within the system. It simply diverts your attention from the hardship of your situation by letting you say, “Look how complex this whole system is! No wonder I have so much trouble.” Given enough time, it will fail as completely as any other diversion, any entertainment, any behavioral pattern, in an attempt to better yourself.

People tend to enjoy being meta because they think it expands their minds. They think it makes them wise to acknowledge how small they are. They think that acting like Socrates is somehow original or productive. They watch a movie like “Inception” and they walk out thinking that they’re smarter than they were going into it, that they gained something by being confused, tricked, and manipulated.

There is an inherent assumption that looking at the universe reveals the face of God. That may or may not be true. But looking at the “big picture” is not the only way to look at the universe. There is at least as much to be learned by examining a single cog as by examining the whole clock – and verily, I doubt that examining the clock would serve you at all to understand it if you knew nothing of its cogs.

Is it possible to look at a complex system and address it as such? Yes. Is it helpful to step back and examine it as a whole, instead of cutting out variables that aren’t really staying equal? Yes. Is there a deeper solution to the human condition than a set of behavioral patterns and delightful diversions? Yes.

Does doing those things, and then saying that you’ve done them, make you superior to those who do them implicitly, subtly, and without comment? No.

I don’t like being meta because people who are meta tend to spend all their time focusing on being meta without providing any actual solutions to actual problems. So, paraphrasing Jeff Winger, “Stop taking everything we do and shoving it up its own ass.” Sometimes, attempting to improve the human condition is more important than pointing out that the human condition is in a bad way.

The Original Post is Located Here: To Be Meta, or Not to Be Meta

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

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The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.”

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world’s major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

OBSERVER

Jimmy Carter was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html#ixzz2Im6CF8eP

Let me start with what the former President got right.

1. The cessation of abuse. Any continent, country, state, county, city, suburb, community, or household which perpetuates the abuse–physical, sexual, verbal, mental, social, or spiritual–of women should cease and desist immediately. This includes things which the former President mentioned in his article: genital mutilation, rape, restriction of basic health care to save lives, slavery, and human trafficking. It also includes things that the former President did not mention: sex-selective abortions (most often used to eliminate female children), for example. But I digress.
2. Equal education. I think you would be hard-pressed to provide evidence of unequal education for women in these United States, a nation in which the disparity between higher-educated men and women greatly favors the female sex, even when it comes to disparity of success within an institution. But certainly unequal education for women happens in other countries, and in those countries, it should be stopped.
3. Equal employment. I think women ought to be offered equal employment and equal consideration for employment in any secular job or career, provided that they have equal qualifications, experience, and ability in every respect. If this equality is not already happening in this country, then it should.
4. Equal pay. I think women ought to be offered equal benefits, both financial and otherwise, for an equal position… again, provided that they have equal qualifications, experience, ability, and performance in that position.

Now, let us examine several of former President Carter’s other points, and see how he is… inaccurate.

1. He has a frail grasp of ecclesiastical history. Notably, he claims that women served as priests and bishops. (Their service as deacons, apostles, teachers, and prophets is documented well enough, although I should note that the modern definition of “deacon” is altered slightly from “fellow worker” or “servant of the LORD,” as determined by the writings of Paul to Timothy.) In the early Church, women would never have had positions of high authority, such as priests, and especially not as bishops (the “overseers” mentioned in the above-linked letter to Timothy). Furthermore, if they did have such positions, (1) why were they not present in those offices by the 4th century, when President Carter suggests that an exclusive group of men twisted Scripture to serve themselves and subject women, and (2) why would Paul’s very obvious requirements for the office of bishop need to be “twisted” in this case? Regardless, President Carter neither understands the Church in the Book of Acts, nor the Church of the 4th century, nor the concerns and goals of either.
2. He makes a fallacious equivocation. President Carter does not declare it outright, but he suggests that a lack of free contraceptives and abortion is roughly equivalent to subjugating women to strict modesty laws, genital mutilation, unprosecuted rape, and more. He writes, “At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.” I must give him credit: he does not say that they are outright equal violations, but he does say that they are along the same continuum, the same spectrum, and are caused by the same belief. The implication is, of course, that if we do not pay for birth control, we may as well rape, abuse, and enslave women, because the only difference is time.
3. He does not understand the difference between “authoritatively subordinate” and “objectively inferior.” He does not hesitate to declare this; any suggestion that women are subordinate to the authority of their husbands, as well as to the male authority in the Church (pastor, priest, bishop, patriarch, pope), is to claim them as inferior, less than human, and roughly equivalent to property. This is simply untrue. Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, humbled Himself to become flesh, submitted Himself to the will of God, even unto death on a cross. He certainly submitted to the authority of God the Father, making Him authoritatively subordinate. But we know that He is not unequal with the Father, but rather He is equal. So he cannot be objectively inferior. And how is this relationship–subordinate but equal–classified? Exactly as the relationship between man and woman.
4. President Carter thinks school-based education is better for society than home-based education. This is a minor point, but if an educated woman betters society by sending her children to school, why is it that this notion does not line up with education statistics? Unless, of course, the “betterment of society” is not caused by a stronger, more thorough education. Which makes very little sense, in context.

Feel free to disagree with me and my analysis, but unlike President Carter has suggested, I did not pick and choose my verses, but provided them in context for you to peruse at your leisure–not to mention that Bibles are widely available in almost every bookstore, and can be found for free in hotel dresser-drawers throughout the nation, as well as in apps for smart phones, and online. Finding the context is easy enough.

To be honest, that President Carter holds this position is no surprise to me, and in the long run, it is of little consequence. The Jimmy Carter presidency is widely regarded, by Republicans and Democrats alike, as one of the worst presidencies in recent memory. Its most memorable moment may have involved a swamp rabbit.

What is, perhaps, most surprising about this entire article… is that it was published in an Australian newspaper. How weird is that?

The Original Post is Located Here: Jimmy Carter & the Religious Oppression of Women

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Asimov’s work is excellent, as always. He has the ability to condense important information into a small space, to introduce characters quickly and efficiently, to present scientific concepts with ease, and to lead the reader on whatever twists and turns he wishes. This makes one of his most famous books entertaining, at least, and delightful, at best.

There is not much I can say about the skill with which he writes this book. But I will mention why I downgraded the book from five stars to four.

First, the structure. In his style, he writes in sections, which separate the book nicely – but seeing as I complained about the chapter enumeration in McDevitt’s work, and that enumeration is almost identical here, it would be incongruous for me not to mention my displeasure with it in this case. On the other hand, Asimov’s publisher, whether it was a modern choice or not, has done a good job of making the pages clean and the chapter breaks clear, whereas McDevitt’s pages seemed cluttered, and the chapter breaks random.

The second issue was something brought to my attention by an old associate. Now, let me preface this by noting that I have no problem with authors trying to convey important messages through their work; if they don’t, there’s not a whole lot of point to the work to begin with. An author has to talk about the human experience, or political problems, or religious questions, or philosophy, or history, or something, anything, other than “Bob and Sally had an adventure.” It only makes sense.

But with that being said, it can get a little… overbearing. In “Foundation,” the overbearing part is the pacifism. “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent,” characters quip throughout the book. Every crisis, every situation, every challenge is resolved with completely non-violent means (or at least, no means involving direct violence; starting a kingdom-wide religious riot probably resulted in a little bit of violence). In fact, the whole point of the book is not the cleverness of psychohistory (which was heavily involved in “Prelude to Foundation”), nor is it technology, or even really the challenges of rescuing knowledge and science as civilization devolves at the end of an era. It’s mostly about how peaceful means are more effective than violent means – inventing religions, manipulating economies, and playing politics are all more ethical behavior than fighting a war (even defensively).

What was most frustrating was that the last two sections of the book proved this to me. The penultimate section did not even deal with a Seldon crisis; its only purpose was to lay the groundwork for the final section (i.e., “There are traders, and they trade stuff.”). And the final section does not bring us full circle to the first section of the book; it does not connect back with Seldon’s initial appearance; and it does not close an overarching story from beginning to end. It does bring us back to the Empire, but only as an unexpected twist. One of the defining characteristics of Seldon crises is the appearance of Seldon with sage advice, which did not occur in the final section of the book.

In short, the reason I downgraded this otherwise-excellent book from five stars to four is that it struck me, not as a cohesive unit with constant theme and strong message, but as a collection of short stories, each of which tried to say, “Peaceful coercion is better than violent coercion, even if the peaceful behavior is traditionally unethical.”

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The Original Post is Located Here: Foundation Compilation

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book was, in a word, chaotic. And in a second word, preachy. It’s actually very difficult to determine which of those two descriptors was more upsetting, as I went through the book. Around three-quarters of the way through, I had had more than enough, and I only finished reading to give the book a fair shake.

In all honesty, I rather wish I hadn’t.

Let’s start with how it was chaotic. This issue should be relevant to any reader, regardless of your philosophical bent.

The chaos begins with simple organization. It seems Mr. McDevitt wanted to have titled sections, but he also wanted smaller breaks within the story. His choice on how to resolve this? Ten titled “chapters” with anywhere between 3 and 13 smaller, enumerated breaks in each. Except that those enumerations restarted with each chapter. So either you had to read eighty pages at a sitting or remember both chapter number and section number, at which point, it would be easier just to dog-ear the page and stop whenever you want. This might not matter at all to some, but it’s hardly conducive to a good reading experience, in my opinion. It’s just a little sloppy.

But that is probably the least of McDevitt’s crimes against fiction in this work. He introduces – and kills off – more characters than most movies have extras. In fact, he introduces so many that it’s almost impossible to keep up with them – which is proven by the fact that McDevitt in fact does not keep up with them all. There are a few characters, introduced sporadically, which he mentions again only once or twice, or perhaps never returns to. And he kills so many characters over the course of the book that he finds himself in need of new ones about halfway through, and starts introducing more. Not only does all this make the book a crowded mass of names, places, and biographies appropriate for a dating site, but it cheapens the characters that do survive. Since anyone could die at any moment, whether they had been a narrative influence, present from the beginning of the book, or seemed integral to the story, I quickly stopped caring for anyone. The romance in the book is irrelevant and emotionless, because one or both characters could die at any moment, with neither drama nor reflection.

Tangential to that point is this one: Mr. McDevitt begins the book with a small number of characters and a setting to which he only returns twice in the entire remainder of the book, and only for a paragraph each time. Perhaps I am alone in my thinking here, but I have always believed that the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first character in a story has either a pivotal role or thematic importance. The characters in Mr. McDevitt’s opening scene have neither. They are, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant to the entire book.

Finally, let us examine the prose. For the most part, the book is in third-person omniscient – presumably so we can relate to characters who will soon be dead. But Mr. McDevitt does not appear comfortable writing death scenes, so nearly every death in the book is from an observer’s perspective: “So-and-so never saw it coming,” “She was dead before she knew it,” “He died in the middle of a sentence.” If Mr. McDevitt wanted us to care about any of these characters, he should have made their deaths more interesting. Instead, much of the book reads like a historical account of the time when the moon was destroyed by a rogue comet, and this list of people died, and this list lived, and that other list should have been executed for their religious fanaticism.

Which brings me to my second primary point: how the book was preachy. Mr. McDevitt evidently lacks the capacity to understand the mind of a person who has religious faith. For one thing, he asserts that religious people live easier lives than the non-religious, that this ignorance (as McDevitt sees it) is bliss, and that the biggest challenge a Christian must face is explaining away bad events as divine providence. Churches are ridiculous, and things which must be escaped. (See pages 330-331 for these points.)

Furthermore, there can be no intelligent religious people. McDevitt cannot imagine someone being both intelligent and religious; the two descriptors mutually exclusive in his mind. After all, the one religious character who is neither a terrorist nor laughably short-lived is Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, who became a pastor not because he had faith, but because he was rebelling against his father, and Pinnacle had plenty of doubts about the truth of religion. (See pages 160-161.)

Mr. McDevitt is not only harsh against religion. His opinion of marriage is equally poor. For the only characters in the book whose marriage is even discussed, it’s on the rocks because he is distant and she is lonely. This alone is not a problem; this describes many marital situations for many people, making it eminently relatable. However, even when the marriage improves because the dangerous circumstances force them closer together, there is no effort to love and care in any meaningful way, but just to press through this calamity so things can go back to normal… a normalcy which held no particular depth to their relationship. And let’s not forget that the romance of the story, between Charlie Haskell and Evelyn Hampton, is no deeper than his acknowledgment that she is attractive and her invitation that he kiss her once. These romances are at once shallow, meaningless, and not reflective of any marital ideal.

Perhaps most telling is how Mr. McDevitt concludes this little escapade. Almost every character in the book, even staunch agnostics (which seem to be the majority of the population for his characters; there are few staunch atheists and no staunch religious protagonists, in spite of every character’s concerns about what the silly, religious voters would think), was praying in the final chapter that the mission would succeed… and yet, in the end, the important thing for Charlie Haskell (probably the primary protagonist of the book) to remember is that failure in the mission would mean going back to “inventing religions to give meaning to disease-ridden, violent, pointless lives, and then becoming subjugated by the religions,” going back “to refight all the battles against war and disease and superstition,” when, “finally, the common effort was bearing fruit.” (See page 531.) And of course, success led to the formation of a universal bond among all humankind “that transcended national and religious identities,” so much that “even in Jerusalem” (that wretched hive of warmongering, according to the underlying tone), “at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached.” (See page 544.)

And what’s the basic principle of all this? That religion is, at best, backwards, barbaric, ignorant, and foolish. And at worst, it’s both malicious and evil, and it seeks to destroy humanity with wars and death, and we need a “common misfortune,” brought about not by any god or religious cause, not by karma or dogmatic punishment, but by chance, by Lady Luck, so that we can all come together and achieve world peace.

See? Preachy. And chaotic.

Another humorous quibble is with Mr. McDevitt’s ability to predict the future. Writing this book in 1998, he was four years late on his estimation of the first African-American President, and his view of the future of the Internet and other technologies is somewhat lacking… not to mention the sad issue of NASA’s defunding, pressing, not the government, but a wide range of private companies into the reaches of space. But of course, he can’t be faulted for any of that. It’s just fun to note.

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The Original Post is Located Here: Chaos & Pedantry

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an… interesting book.

There are a few caveats to my review. First, I am not part of the intended audience for the book. This books is marketed to Catholics, generally, and to lapsed, lukewarm, or non-practicing Catholics specifically. The entire point of this book is to remind Catholics what’s great about Catholicism and bring them back into the fold. With that in mind, my review is an assessment of Mr. Kelly’s success in this regard, using my rather unique perspective in this matter.

Second, I’m going to spend a lot of time on one chapter in particular (to wit, Chapter 15); this is because it’s the most glaring example of the areas in which this book failed. I admit, I do have a certain bias in this particular chapter, but I don’t believe I am overreacting. Feel free to judge for yourself, though; there will be quotes.

To begin: Most of the book is quite good. It reaches its target audience compellingly and effectively; it plays to their emotional and intellectual background, as well it should. It conveys its message with firm conviction and unwavering resolution, which is always good in a book exhorting people to become virtuous. And when he selects from the saints for examples, he tends to select saints (or saints-to-be) that most people know, thereby making the message both personal (these saints affected him personally) and relatable (“Hey! I’ve heard that name before!”).

And, for the most part, the editing is good. I didn’t notice any glaring errors in the first fourteen chapters (although, during those chapters, I wasn’t looking for any). Everything seemed cohesive; the book had a pleasant flow. The one awful editing choice that fills the entire book, and has nothing to do with chapter 15, is the hyphenation of a particular (set of) phrase(s). Because Mr. Kelly is exhorting his readers to become more virtuous, he often says that they should become a better, or even the best, version of themselves.

Only he doesn’t write it that way. He writes, “a-better-version-of-yourself,” “better-versions-of-ourselves,” “the-best-version-of-yourself,” “the-best-version-of-myself,” and “the-best-version-of-ourselves.” And it wasn’t a one-time event. I never went an entire chapter – and I hardly went an entire page – without seeing this travesty. I don’t know whether he made that choice, or his editor did, or whether it’s an Australian thing (if so, it’s still wrong), or what. But hyphenation is completely and totally unnecessary for that phrase, or any other like it. It was almost enough to put the book down sometimes – and that was before I got to chapter 15.

The only other note I took on an error was defining “eucharist” as “thanksgiving.” While clearly this has been perpetuated enough throughout history that “eucharistus” in the Latin dictionary brings up “thanksgiving” as an alternate definition, it’s quite… well, if not erroneous, then at least a little skewed. In the original Greek, “eu-charis-tos” means “good grace” or “graced well” or something similar. In other words, the Eucharist is a gift from God (a grace) that is good. I realize that this definition sounds a little boring and doesn’t play into encouragements toward thanking God for His gift, but it’s the fact of the matter, all the same.

Now, to the infamous aforementioned chapter: The subject is Scripture, and, to be more precise, how Catholics ought to be reading the Good Book a smidge more than they are now. However, the chapter begins with something quite out of character (so far in the book) for Mr. Kelly, and quite eviscerating for his entire façade as an ecumenist.

(Well, technically, it starts with one of those age-old tales about person A giving person B a Bible instead of the money that person B really wanted, and person B gets really mad for a long time, and then something happens to make person B pick up the Bible, only to find the money they wanted inside. I first heard it as a gift in a will to a guy who grew old and gray before he found the thousands; in Kelly’s version, a kid’s father gives it to him for his birthday, and then the father promptly dies. Either way, it doesn’t spruce up this chapter any more than it spruces up a lazy Sunday sermon.)

As soon as the parable is over, Mr. Kelly launches into a six-page rant against Protestants in general. (Now you see why I said I was biased.) There is no lead into this rant; there is no connection to the rest of the chapter at the end of this rant. It seems to me that Mr. Kelly had an unfortunate experience with a rather unpleasant Protestant and, like many cradle-Catholics (i.e., Catholics who were born into Catholic families and grew up Catholic, rather than converts), lumped all Protestants into the anger and vitriol he felt against this one person. Or, perhaps, Mr. Kelly genuinely feels this kind of repulsion at the existence of those who deny the veneration of Mary and the primacy of the Pope. But I digress.

In this chapter, and especially in this rant, the flaws in this book come flowing forth. Chapter 15 is the most poorly edited chapter of the entire book. It has poor pacing, awkward phrasing, excessive repetitions (using the same word three or four times in a sentence without any apparent intended effect, for example), and bad punctuation (using semicolons instead of commas, commas instead of semicolons, and even a couple of colons in place of who-knows-what).

As I mentioned, Mr. Kelly generally misrepresents mainstream Protestantism as united with fringe sensationalists and crazies. It is true that there are some oddballs who insist that the King James Version of the Bible is the true and authorized Word of God… but given what Catholics said about their translation of the Bible as little as sixty years ago, Mr. Kelly really doesn’t have any legs to stand on for that argument. Plus, most people don’t think such ridiculous things.

In reference to Protestants and their actions, Mr. Kelly uses violently insulting terminology. He writes that the Bible was “kidnapped by Protestant and Evangelical Christians,” who “corner” Catholics with a theory that “self-destructs into the most monumental case of well-argued nonsense in the history of humanity.” Harsh words, are they not? Especially for Christians and, shall we recall, separated brethren (not just heretics anymore!). (The “kidnapping” terminology is echoed in a later chapter, when he talks about evangelism.)

This rant also forges the book into a self-contradiction. He writes during his tirade, “It is this dynamic interaction between the Scriptures and tradition that keeps the Word alive”; later, when he has returned to his regularly scheduled programming, he writes, “Allow the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, alive and present in the Gospels, to sink their roots deep into your life.” Let us recall, Mr. Kelly, that the power of God is in His Word, and tradition springs from it; the roots give life to the leaves, and the leaves give energy to the roots. Without the roots, leaves wither; without the leaves, the roots grow more.

Similarly, during his rant, “Our non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters place an enormous emphasis on reading and studying the Bible. [...] Many modern Christians make it sound like it is impossible to receive salvation without a Bible. If that were the case, what happened to the people who lived before the Bible was printed?” Later, quoting St. Jerome (to whom many Protestants claim ironic allegiance), “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

Oddly enough, Mr. Kelly’s rant also becomes, at one point, self-deprecatory. This seems rather unintentional, as many things do in such philippics, but it still sounds like Mr. Kelly is insulting the modern Church: “It is here, in the gap of most Protestants’ understanding of Christian history [i.e., the first 1500 years after Christ, before the printing press], that you find the beauty of Catholicism.” This suggests (though it does not declare) that it is difficult or even impossible to find the beauty of Catholicism anywhere else. (Naturally, he could mean that it is more starkly presented there, and he may well, but he should consider his words before he prints them in thousands of copies across the world.)

Mr. Kelly furthermore makes a rather obvious oversight in his characterization of “Catholics” versus “non-Catholics”: the Eastern Orthodox Church. Of all non-Catholic Christians, they are by far the most recognized by Roman Catholics as having good theological and moral standing. They are also, and have always been, non-Catholic.

But Mr. Kelly seems to have forgotten they existed at all (and for someone who claims a stronger knowledge of Church history than non-Catholics, this is surprising). He writes, “It is also interesting to note that the great majority of non-Catholic Christians have no idea that there are books missing from their Bible, just as all non-Catholic Christians are Protestants, whether they are aware of it or not.” First of all, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts most, if not all, of the same Deuterocanonical books as the Roman Catholic Church; in some cases, they also accept other books, which the Catholics do not. Secondly, they are not Protestants; the Eastern Orthodox were the Eastern Orthodox (whether or not they ever used the name) five hundred years before there were any Protestants. And finally, I have met several Catholics were entirely unaware that their Bibles were even supposed to have more than 66 books.

He later writes, “For fifteen hundred years, when there were no Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Methodists, Anglicans, Evangelicals, Non-denominationals, or any other Christian Church of any type, the Catholic Church preserved the Scriptures from error, saved them from destruction and extinction, multiplied them in every language under the sun, and conveyed the truths they contained to people everywhere.” This should be rather obviously erroneous, and I think any monk east of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas would disagree vehemently. I will applaud Mr. Kelly, of course, for taking the time to look up some names for some denominations (although I think capitalizing “non-denominational” misses the point).

This chapter, chapter 15, was such an odd departure for Mr. Kelly in his stated opinions of non-Catholic Christians. He often used the term “separated brethren” (see: Second Vatican Council) and generally referred to them in an imprecise, but respectful manner. And then the reader gets blindsided with this. It was quite unnerving. Oddly enough, he spends most of the six pages defending the common Catholic ignorance of Scripture – the very same ignorance that he eschews in the pages to follow. Pages which, I shall remind you, never mention this rant again, and never the twain shall meet.

Beyond that, I only have two notes from my reading of the rest of the book. On the one hand, his editing errors seem to continue. I think this is explained, to a small degree, when he writes in the final chapter of the book, “The problem with books is that they are never really finished; they are only ever abandoned. You could keep writing and rewriting the same book for your whole life and never be fully satisfied with it.” He seems to have done just this: read over his book, decided to add some content, and failed to finish the proper editing process. This very passage seems similarly disjointed from the rest of the final chapter.

The last page has my last note. When I read, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things,” I heard it in Tim Robbins’ voice in my head, straight out of “The Shawshank Redemption.” And when I read, “I hope…” I heard it in Morgan Freeman’s voice from the same film. While I don’t begrudge the man saying totally honest and true things about hope, and the similarity could be (and probably is) entirely coincidental, I think avoiding iconic and thematic quotes from major motion pictures should be standard in books, unless an homage is intended (which seems unlikely here).

At any rate, I make the book sound worse than it is, and I know that. Three stars really is honest. Most of the book is effective and helpful. Even the remainder of chapter 15 is mostly delightful and uplifting. But something, somewhere along the line, went horribly wrong.

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The Original Post is Located Here: Rediscovering the Editing Process