if you at all have access to youtube... this is too eerie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBWOEdy_-qM&NR=1

(embedding disabled)

excerpts on Ideology, Art, and Science

(from Fridays with el Turi, Thoughts by the Rev. G.S. Tebbe, commentary from Hernandez, R. ed.)

~ Ideology is a box. Your thoughts are inside. Conversely to this wallish-ness, Theology is a starting point. Or, Ideology is a prison; Theology is a horizon.

~ The opposite of Ideology is Anarchy. Theology is neither Ideology nor Anarchy, but a balance between the two ("the best of both worlds.")

~ Ideology kills Art, especially as Ideology is politicized. It is very often politicized, as Ideology seeks power to survive. It is not self-sustaining. Nonetheless, power is not always political. There are more ways to control others than through government. Ideology uses all ways.

~In addition to serving as an anti-Art contraceptive, Ideology (or various "party-line mentalities") kills Science because both Art and Science live by critical thinking. The Mentality limits the thoughts you can think and lists the questions you can ask. It is committed to a goal, an end, and anything which interferes or distracts from the given ends is superfluous and/or dangerous, thusly shunned by various workings of power structures.

~ Art and Science are closer kin than they appear... Their father is Reality. Art and Science live to explore and express Reality, just as Theology lives to explore and express the Father.

[Oh, híjole! Do we love the cohesion yet?]

~ Details tell you a ton. They are necessary to understand the whole. Good artists (and good scientists) catch those details but without losing sight of the whole. The details are imperative to the telling of Reality, but they dissolve into emptiness if the whole is ignored. Tellers of Reality must not become shortsighted by obsession with the microscopic.

~ Ideology tells Artists and Scientists what their research will reveal to them. The data samples assigned to them are not representational. Theology promises, and then allows the observer to validate the claims… with all the data history, nature, science, philosophy, religion, sociology, psychology, and walks down the street can provide.

~ Remove thyself from thy box. Check out the promises. Reality is harsh… but it’s the only way.

"Pluralization at the level of relationships..." ~o. guinness

thought one: on the lack of disposability of people
funny, that irreplaceability of people bit. you'd think it wouldn't be so dramatic. all those billions of people, why should anyone be irreplaceable? especially considering how fault-ridden and, well, human everybody is. should be better to maintain "disposable" superficiality... should be...

"No one in his right mind would become attached to a Kleenex tissue, and it would be absurd to waste time looking for one if it were lost. After all, it's disposable. It's made to be thrown away."

"The modern individual lives longer and meets and knows more people than ever before, but is also anonymous in more situations. The average modern Londoner, it is said, meets as many people in one week as a medieval person whould have met in a lifetime."

~os guinness, The Gravedigger File

thought two: re: abortion
For most ethical issues, I must admit, Biblical logic is sufficient for me. God said not to murder, obviously abortion is murder, the end. Still, the weather was nice yesterday and that always gets my brain wheels a-creakin'. Here, at least, is a thought INTO the Biblical logic.

*THE issue in abortion is the personhood of the child. If he is a person, we must then decide whether persons have the "Right to Life" or the "Right to Quality of Life" (or "no right at all," which is a bit too much for me to contemplate right now. Neither will I deal with how we get rights at all if they are not "endowed" from a Creator.) If persons have a right to life, then "we" [ie: other humans] cannot take the life of an [innocent] person, whatever his pain or misery level. If he choses to take his own life, that is his decision before God, the Ultimate authority/ "owner" of the right to life.

If, however, the child/ person has only the Right to quality of Life, then what is the definition of "quality?" And who decides? The parents? The mother AND the father or just the mother? The State? The individual himself? Is mental retardation a poor enough condition to wreck "quality"? What about schizophrenia? Autism? Deafness? Extreme introversion? Deformity? Disability? Ugliness? Poverty?

And why only until birth? If it's okay to terminate the life of a 16 week old fetus, what is the REAL difference with "terminating" the life of a 16 week old baby OUTSIDE of the womb, especially if the parents didn't realize his "condition?" Is inhaling air really that "magical?" What if he's on a breathing tube? You would think that families of a 19 year old with terminal cancer, or a 33 year old husband after a severe work-related head injury, or a 79 year old with Alzheimer's should be able to look out for their "best interests," too. After all, a woman can give her baby up for adoption. These families (or the State) are "stuck," and those conditions are generally painful, traumatic, and expensive.

just thoughts... really, abortion is tame to the potential that eugenics holds. Why SHOULDN'T only the strong, the healthy, the happy survive? If God is not alive to hold a big stick...

Looking for arguments, I almost do not believe this site is pro-choice. http://www.choicematters.org/?page_id=22 Are their defenses REALLY their defenses or are they pro-life people being "tongue in cheek"?

thought three: the privilege to carry life
The mother's carrying of the child does not entail a right but a RESPONSIBILITY and privilege. She is entrusted with the protection and nurturing of a NEW PERSON. He is placed near her most vital organs- her most vulnerable and thus well-protected center. If she sustains a wound to this region, HER life is in danger anyway. There, the baby has the most direct access to her oxygen, blood, nutrients vital to his survival. He gets the best.

The mother's privilege and responsibility to protect and nurture this new person DO NOT GIVE HER THE RIGHT TO DESTROY HIM. She did not chose his existence. She might have chosen the behaviors that presented herself as a candidate for motherhood, but SHE DID NOT HAVE TO WILL HIS LIFE FOR HIM TO EXIST. Given the truth that she may be OPPOSED to his life and still find him within her should evidence her LACK of autonomy. Her will is NOT supreme. We should think very seriously about how much "right," exactly, she possesses over this potential Mozart, Einstein, Gandhi, 1/6,500,000,000 Joe Smith. She did not create him any more than the dust created Adam. She provided from herself the locale and substance from which he was created.

Humans do not own life. We cannot buy it or sell it because it is not "ours." We are recepients- of our own lives and the lives of others. That is responsibility, NOT right.