I knew it was a bad idea for my Mum to get a blog. Now, I feel like a member of the public rather than a member of the family...
Mike: What does four mean?
Mummy: Do you mean the number four?
Mike: No, like, "for dinner"? What does for mean?
Mummy: (slightly stumped) Er?...
Daddy: It's a dative meaning....
Mummy: Maybe we should teach Mike to read first before teaching grammar.
(copied over from my Mum's blog.)
28 January 2009
27 January 2009
My music schedule for 2009
Learning to play...
...Bach's Prelude & Fugue C major BWV 870 :
...and Mozart, Sonata VIII (hopefully far better than this...it was the only one I could find on YouTube...but you get the idea):
...and Tchaikovsky's October:
...and Mary Mageau's modern interpretation of Scot Joplin's Elite Syncopations:
So, as you see, I have a lot of practicing to do. :)
...Bach's Prelude & Fugue C major BWV 870 :
...and Mozart, Sonata VIII (hopefully far better than this...it was the only one I could find on YouTube...but you get the idea):
...and Tchaikovsky's October:
...and Mary Mageau's modern interpretation of Scot Joplin's Elite Syncopations:
So, as you see, I have a lot of practicing to do. :)
16 January 2009
Self-atonement
Feisal Abdul Rauf has a point:
“…[the] willingness to commit suicide may be partly a compensation for guilt for their own situations and on behalf of the flaws in their society. To borrow Christian language, they are offering themselves up both for the sins of their community and for the sins of those whom they perceive to be acting against their community.”
Obviously I wouldn’t put it in those terms, simply because this sort of language is the first step towards turning people who commit suicide into martyr-like figures - rather than viewing them as sinners – which is exactly what Muslim fundamentalists have done to suicide bombers. But it is certainly true that there is an innate sense inside all human beings for justice to be done and it is a dramatic perversion of this sense that often lies behind suicide and other forms of murder.
The problem is that humankind doesn’t want God to be the one to execute justice, either directly (and eternally) or indirectly (and temporarily) through his appointed representatives. So there are murderers who heap up guilt against themselves in the cause of “achieving justice” through killing a perceived (or actual) criminal; we have ascetics who torture themselves in the hope that this will be a suitable substitute for facing God’s wrath. Generally, we have people who are ignoring both law and grace in a perversion of the desire for justice, and the typical Muslim response of “try harder” (which is essentially what the above author suggested) is really a part of the problem itself.
If I may quote the back cover of a book that I have not yet read:
“What is the back of the almost irrational behaviour of modern man – the widespread psychosomatic sickness, gambling, alcoholism, drug addiction, the wave of do-good-ism, the condoning of crimes and lawlessness? Man has trampled God’s laws under foot…He is conscious of his guilt, and seeks self-justification through self-atonement…there is only one way of escape from the present slough of despair. It is in turning in heartfelt repentance to God who has already provided atonement in the sacrifice of his Son…”
“…[the] willingness to commit suicide may be partly a compensation for guilt for their own situations and on behalf of the flaws in their society. To borrow Christian language, they are offering themselves up both for the sins of their community and for the sins of those whom they perceive to be acting against their community.”
Obviously I wouldn’t put it in those terms, simply because this sort of language is the first step towards turning people who commit suicide into martyr-like figures - rather than viewing them as sinners – which is exactly what Muslim fundamentalists have done to suicide bombers. But it is certainly true that there is an innate sense inside all human beings for justice to be done and it is a dramatic perversion of this sense that often lies behind suicide and other forms of murder.
The problem is that humankind doesn’t want God to be the one to execute justice, either directly (and eternally) or indirectly (and temporarily) through his appointed representatives. So there are murderers who heap up guilt against themselves in the cause of “achieving justice” through killing a perceived (or actual) criminal; we have ascetics who torture themselves in the hope that this will be a suitable substitute for facing God’s wrath. Generally, we have people who are ignoring both law and grace in a perversion of the desire for justice, and the typical Muslim response of “try harder” (which is essentially what the above author suggested) is really a part of the problem itself.
If I may quote the back cover of a book that I have not yet read:
“What is the back of the almost irrational behaviour of modern man – the widespread psychosomatic sickness, gambling, alcoholism, drug addiction, the wave of do-good-ism, the condoning of crimes and lawlessness? Man has trampled God’s laws under foot…He is conscious of his guilt, and seeks self-justification through self-atonement…there is only one way of escape from the present slough of despair. It is in turning in heartfelt repentance to God who has already provided atonement in the sacrifice of his Son…”
(Inflammable) Thought of the Day 1.1
Yesterday, while I was watching that King of British Comedy shows Yes, (Prime) Minister, I had the following thought:
If sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, then the British are the lowest of people.
Fortunately, I don't think that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour. Or at least, I certainly hope not...
Bernard Wooley: That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.
03 January 2009
Akenhaten, the Monotheistic Pharaoh: “I am the only God”
Akenhaten (1352-1336 B.C.) was the monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh. He set up his own religion centred on the sun disc, Aten. He then ransacked temples, destroyed the cult images and destroyed the priests of all rival gods, including the major god of the time, Amen-Re. He then built a new capital called Akhetaten which contained a great temple to the Aten and a palace for the royal family. He then moved the court there and spent most of the rest of his life hiding away from political problems and furthering the cause of his new religion (Newby, 1980).
Undoubtedly, the man was controversial. His successors did their best to destroy his memory, abandoning Akhetaten, re-instituting the old religions and proceeding to destroy all evidence that he ever existed, excluding his name from the king lists. Even today, there are raging arguments between historians about his motivations for his seemingly senseless decisions (Reeves, 2001).
Some believe that the key to the puzzle lies in the amount of power that the religious leaders had before his reforms in comparison to the lack of power that they had afterwards. Over the years, the pharaoh’s central place in Egyptian religious life had dwindled. The priests of Amen-Re had become a powerful political force, the capital of Thebes in their strangle-hold; they were puppeteers and the pharaohs were their puppets (Hurley et. al, 2000).
Objecting to being a puppet, Akenhaten banned all uncontrollable and potential dangerous religions and moved away from the bureaucracy of Thebes. Now, Aten was the god who “encompassed the creative and nurturing forces of the cosmos within a single deity,” and most importantly, Akenhaten was the Aten’s sole mediator (Pemberton, 2004, p. 95), the priesthood of the Aten being a quite insignificant group. As life went on, Akenhaten became even more absorbed in his religion of self, neglecting to use the power that he had already gained in the quest to gain more.
“If he had decided there was to be no god but himself, the cult of Aten is what he would have set up. God, the Aten, was the impersonal disc of the sun and Akenhaten claimed that he was the incarnation of that deity. It followed that there was no higher authority in this life or the next but pharaoh himself,” (Newby, 1980, p. 125).
Bibliography
Undoubtedly, the man was controversial. His successors did their best to destroy his memory, abandoning Akhetaten, re-instituting the old religions and proceeding to destroy all evidence that he ever existed, excluding his name from the king lists. Even today, there are raging arguments between historians about his motivations for his seemingly senseless decisions (Reeves, 2001).
Some believe that the key to the puzzle lies in the amount of power that the religious leaders had before his reforms in comparison to the lack of power that they had afterwards. Over the years, the pharaoh’s central place in Egyptian religious life had dwindled. The priests of Amen-Re had become a powerful political force, the capital of Thebes in their strangle-hold; they were puppeteers and the pharaohs were their puppets (Hurley et. al, 2000).
Objecting to being a puppet, Akenhaten banned all uncontrollable and potential dangerous religions and moved away from the bureaucracy of Thebes. Now, Aten was the god who “encompassed the creative and nurturing forces of the cosmos within a single deity,” and most importantly, Akenhaten was the Aten’s sole mediator (Pemberton, 2004, p. 95), the priesthood of the Aten being a quite insignificant group. As life went on, Akenhaten became even more absorbed in his religion of self, neglecting to use the power that he had already gained in the quest to gain more.
“If he had decided there was to be no god but himself, the cult of Aten is what he would have set up. God, the Aten, was the impersonal disc of the sun and Akenhaten claimed that he was the incarnation of that deity. It followed that there was no higher authority in this life or the next but pharaoh himself,” (Newby, 1980, p. 125).
Bibliography
- Hurley, Toni, Medcalf, Philippa, Murray, Christine & Rolph, Jan 2000, Antiquity 2, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Australia.
- Newby, P.H. 1980, Warrior Pharaohs: The Rise and Fall of the Egyptian Empire, Book Club Associates, London.
- Pemberton, Delilah 2004, Treasures of the Pharaohs, Duncan Baird Publishers.
- Reeves, Nicholas 2001, Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet, Thames & Hudson, London.
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