Saturday, April 13, 2013
Today in Marine Corps History
Marines of the 4th Brigade sffered their first gas attack on the night and early orning hours of 12-13 April when the Germans bombarded the 74th Company, 6h Mnes near Verdun with mstard gas. Nine Marine officers and 305 enlisted Marines were gassed and evacuated, and 30 Marines died from the effects of the gas shells which hit in the middle of reserve area cantonments in which they weresleeping.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Not a Matter of Opinion
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that pople often say aout Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of tings Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." ~ C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity
What Christianity Offers
NNow the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to oher men the kind of lfe He has - by what I call 'good infection'. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nohing else. - from Mere Christianity
Monday, April 1, 2013
A Good Infection
And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each ne of s has got to enter that pattern, take his place that dance. There is no other way to te happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are cught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the verycentre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Does religion poison everything?
It is common to say that "fundamentalism" leads to violence, yet, all of us have fundamental, unprovable faith-commitments that we think are superior to those of other. The real question, then, is which fundamentals will lead their believers to be most loving and receptive to those with whom they differ? Which set of unavoidably exclusive beliefs will lead us to humble, peace-loving behavior?
One of the paradoxes of history is the relationship between the beliefs and the practices of the early Christians as cmpared to those culture around them.
The Greco-Roman world's religious views were open and seemingly tolerant-everyone had his or her own God. The practices of the culture were quite brutal, however. The Greco-Roman world was highly stratified economically, with a huge distance between the rich and poor. By contrast, Christians insisted that there was only one true God, the dying Savior Jesus Christ. Their lives and practices were, however, remarkably welcoming to those that the culture marginalized. The early Christians mixed people from different races and classes in ways that emed scandalous to those around them. The Greco-Roman world tended to despise the poor, but Christians gave generously not only to their own poor but to those of other faiths. In broader society, women had very low status, being subjected to a high levels of female infanticide, forced marriages, and lack of econmic equality. Christianity afforded women much greater security and equality than had previously existed in the ancient classical world. During the terrible urban plagues of the first two centuries, Christians cared for all the sick and dying in the city, often at the cost of their lives.
Why would such an exclusive belief system lead to behavior that was so open to others? It was because Christians had within their belief system the strongest possible resource for practicing sacrificial service, generosity, and peace-making. At the very heart of teir view of reality was a man who died for his enemies, praying for their forgiveness. Reflection on this could only lead to a radically different way of dealing with those who were different from them. It meant they could not act in violence and oppression toward their opponents.
We cannot skip lightly over the fact that there have been injustices done by the church in the name of Christ' most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world?
One of the paradoxes of history is the relationship between the beliefs and the practices of the early Christians as cmpared to those culture around them.
The Greco-Roman world's religious views were open and seemingly tolerant-everyone had his or her own God. The practices of the culture were quite brutal, however. The Greco-Roman world was highly stratified economically, with a huge distance between the rich and poor. By contrast, Christians insisted that there was only one true God, the dying Savior Jesus Christ. Their lives and practices were, however, remarkably welcoming to those that the culture marginalized. The early Christians mixed people from different races and classes in ways that emed scandalous to those around them. The Greco-Roman world tended to despise the poor, but Christians gave generously not only to their own poor but to those of other faiths. In broader society, women had very low status, being subjected to a high levels of female infanticide, forced marriages, and lack of econmic equality. Christianity afforded women much greater security and equality than had previously existed in the ancient classical world. During the terrible urban plagues of the first two centuries, Christians cared for all the sick and dying in the city, often at the cost of their lives.
Why would such an exclusive belief system lead to behavior that was so open to others? It was because Christians had within their belief system the strongest possible resource for practicing sacrificial service, generosity, and peace-making. At the very heart of teir view of reality was a man who died for his enemies, praying for their forgiveness. Reflection on this could only lead to a radically different way of dealing with those who were different from them. It meant they could not act in violence and oppression toward their opponents.
We cannot skip lightly over the fact that there have been injustices done by the church in the name of Christ' most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world?
Religion
What is religion? Some say it is a form of belief in God. But that would not fit Zen Buddhism, which does not really believe in God at all. Some say it is a believe in the supernatural. But that does not fit Hinduism, which does not believe in a supernatural realm beyond the material world, but only a spiritual reality within the empirical. What is religion then? It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing. For example, some think that this material world is all there is, that we are here by accident and when we die we just rot, and therefore the important thing is to choose to do what makes you happy and not let others impose their beliefs on you. Notice that though this is not an explicit, "organized" religion, it contains a master narrative, an account about the meaning of life along with a recommendation for how to live based on that account of things.
Some call this a "worldview" while others call it a "narrative identity." In either case it is a set of faith-assumptions about the nature of things. It is an implicit religion. Broadly understood, faith in some view of the world and human nature informs everyone's life. Everyone lives and operates out of some narrative identity, whether it is thought out and reflected upon or not. All who say "You ought to do this" or "You shouldn't do that" reason out of such an implicit moral and religious position. Pragmatists say that we should leave our deeper worldviews behind and find consensus about "what works" - but our view of what works is determined by what we think people are for. Any picture of happy human life that "works" is necessarily informed by deep-seated beliefs about the purpose of human life. Even the most secular pragmatists come to the table with deep commitments and narrative accounts of what it means to be human. All of our most fundamental convictions about things are beliefs that are nearly impossible to justify to those who don't share them. Secular concepts such as "self-realization" and "autonomy" are impossible to prove and are "conversation stoppers" just as much as appeals to the Bible.
Statements that seem to be common sense to the speakers are nonetheless often profoundly religious in nature.
Some call this a "worldview" while others call it a "narrative identity." In either case it is a set of faith-assumptions about the nature of things. It is an implicit religion. Broadly understood, faith in some view of the world and human nature informs everyone's life. Everyone lives and operates out of some narrative identity, whether it is thought out and reflected upon or not. All who say "You ought to do this" or "You shouldn't do that" reason out of such an implicit moral and religious position. Pragmatists say that we should leave our deeper worldviews behind and find consensus about "what works" - but our view of what works is determined by what we think people are for. Any picture of happy human life that "works" is necessarily informed by deep-seated beliefs about the purpose of human life. Even the most secular pragmatists come to the table with deep commitments and narrative accounts of what it means to be human. All of our most fundamental convictions about things are beliefs that are nearly impossible to justify to those who don't share them. Secular concepts such as "self-realization" and "autonomy" are impossible to prove and are "conversation stoppers" just as much as appeals to the Bible.
Statements that seem to be common sense to the speakers are nonetheless often profoundly religious in nature.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Today in Marine Corps History
17 March 1967: The first woman Marine to report to Vietnam for duty, Master Sergeant Barbara J. Dulinsky, began her 18-hour flight to Bien Hoa, 30 miles north of Saigon. MSgt. Dulinsky and the other officer and enlisted Women Marines that followed were assigned to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) based in Saigon. Most worked with the Marine Corps Personnel Section providing administrative support to Marines assigned as far north as DMZ, but two Lieutenant Colonels, Ruth O'Holleran and Ruth Reinholz, served as historians with the Military History Branch, Secretary Joint Staff, MACV.
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