Available from: this site.
Google SketchUp
Here are a couple of pictures of a tower I designed. I’m still in the process of learning SketchUp so it’s a pretty simple design.
Still, it shows what a fairly untalented artist like myself can produce with the right equipment. Pretty cool.
WorkChoices good, bad
I did a post on these advertisements a while back and I’ve uploaded them using the new “Add Video” feature. I’m doing this partially to show the ad’s and partially to try out this new feature.
The Political Compass
The Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -1.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.46
Crimen sollicitationis and the Media
I intend to write a bit on this topic, but the next few posts lay the groundwork. I’ll refer back to them when my main article is complete. In other words, this post is on a topic that I’ll put in perspective later on.
Below is a diagram (done using Microsoft Office Visio 2007) showing the key early events in the (U.S.) media’s coverage of the Roman Catholic document “Crimen sollicitationis“. Below the diagram is a list that makes sense of each step. I’ve given each step a number. Look to the description below (start at 1) and then refer to the diagram to see where it fits in in the sequence of events. The details are not important for understanding “Crimen sollicitationis” but I found them interesting. Note the role that Kathleen “Kathy” Shaw plays in the process. I think that it’s at least arguable that she had a conflict of interest that should have been made clear to her readers but perhaps I’m overreacting. Go through each article I refer to and scrutinize each of my claims. I’ve set up multiple posts (which I will draw together in my profile) that I hope will make readers aware of my philosophical/theological/political outlook and allow them to assess the extent to which these factors may potentially bias my assessment.
- The document “De delictis gravioribus” is posted on the Vatican Website on the 18th of May 2001. The document is accessible here.
- Attorney Daniel J. Shea notices a reference to the document “Crimen sollicitationis” in “De delictis gravioribus”. This is noted in the transcript of a speech Shea gave on the 22nd of June 2007. The Washington Post’s Alan Cooperman earlier wrote an article in which he claimed that Shea noticed the reference to Crimen on the website “in January (2003)”.
- Shea contacts his “good friend” Kathleen A. Shaw to ask for assistance in obtaining a copy of “Crimen sollicitationis”. Jim Hinch, of the Orange County Register (as reported in Religion in the News – I could not obtain access to his original article) claimed that Shea said “he had worked closely with her [Shaw] on past stories about lawsuits.” Shea claimed in his June 2007 speech that “It [Crimen] simply arrived in my office one day in a plain brown envelope, no return address, Latin original and English translation.” Two other reports suggest that Shea actually knew who the documents came from.
- Thomas P. Doyle enters the process. It’s not clear how this occurred, but he was essential to obtaining the documents.
- Doyle obtains a copy of “Crimen sollicitationis”. The Washing Post article claims that Shea obtained a copy of the document from Doyle, as does Religion in the News. The date mentioned in the Washington Post article is “late July (2003)”. Darren Lyn of ABC13 Eyewitness News says that Shea received it from “a clergyman in Germany who has close dealings with the Vatican.” Doyle was an Air Force chaplain in Germany at that time. Religion in the News says that Doyle translated the Latin original into English.
- The documents are distributed to journalists. A copy finds its way to Timothy P. Staney.
- Staney posts the documents on the internet.
- Shaw produces the article “Vatican Document Instructed Secrecy in Abuse Cases”.
Oz Politics Test
I’m trying to help others get an insight into my overall perspective so that when they read my work they can ‘factor in’ or attempt to account for any real or potential biases.
My Political Inclinations (Oz Politics)
American Catholicism Test
Even though I consider myself an agnostic, when I believed in God this is a pretty accurate description of how I used to be.
You scored as Traditional Catholic, You look at the great piety and holiness of the Church before the Second Vatican Council and the decay of belief and practice since then, and see that much of the decline is due to failed reforms based on the “Spirit of the Council”. You regret the loss of vast numbers of Religious and Ordained clergy and the widely diverging celebrations of the Mass of Pope Paul VI, which often don’t even seem to be Catholic anymore. You are helping to rebuild this past culture in one of the many new Traditional Latin Mass communities or attend Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy. You seek refuge from the world of pornography, recreational drugs, violence, and materialism. You are an articulate, confident, committed, and intelligent Catholic.But do you support legitimate reform of the Church, and are you willing to submit to the directives of the Second Vatican Council? Will you cooperate responsibly with others who are not part of the Traditional community?http://saint-louis.blogspot.com – Rome of the West
What is your style of American Catholicism? |
My Worldview(s)
Not sure how accurate these are, but I’m sure they do give a significant insight into my thinking.
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You scored as Cultural Creative, Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.
What is Your World View? |
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You scored as Roman Catholic, You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.
What’s your theological worldview? |
This is interesting: Nine Methods for Testing a Worldview.
Going Into Battle Half-cocked
I’ve had some stupid beliefs in my time. I think that everyone has at some point in their life. But thanks to YouTube we can observe people at different periods of their life justifying some very silly beliefs – and all on camera. Whilst looking for something to do last night, I stumbled across a YouTube posting by a guy named Shawn, also known as VenomFangX. This guy believes, with great confidence, that he’s disproved Islam, and so excitedly posted his discovery online.
I’ve posted his argument below on a flow chart (using Microsoft Office Visio 2007).
Now I feel of kind of bad about pointing out how incredibly naive this argument is. It feels less like shooting fish in a barrel than shooting a tied down and unconscious chicken in the head with a shotgun at point blank range.
Shawn first claims two things about Islam: that all prophets are considered sinless and that Jesus is considered a prophet. I pretty sure that Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam but I am not sure about the other claim. But for the sake of argument lets assume that it is true. If you look at the flow chart you can see that if the person being questioned answers ‘no’ to the question “is Jesus good?” then he will contradict one of the first claims (at least according to Shawn). In other words, if Jesus is not good, Jesus is not sinless and therefore Islamic claims to Jesus’ prophet status are false and thus Islam is false. I’m not sure that I accept that argument (what does he mean by “good”? What is “sinless”?). For the sake of argument, let’s assume though that Shawn is correct.
If the Muslim answers “yes” then Shawn will say something like “as a good person Jesus wouldn’t lie and therefore Jesus’ statements must be true”. Shawn would then proceed to quote chapter 19, verse 17 of the Gospel of Matthew which he paraphrases (I looked at several translations but could not find his exact wording in any of them) as “Why do you call me good? There are none good but God…” This is the point at which his argument fails.
First, lets assume that the Muslim agrees that the Gospel of Matthew is accurate. He can of course claim that Jesus was honest but simply mistaken. But the far more likely argument is that not everyone believes that the New Testament of the Christian Bible (nor the Old Testament) is accurate, let alone inerrant. It seems that Shawn has assumed that everyone else shares his belief that every word of the Bible is true. It’s a hidden premise in his argument. The person being questioned is likely to claim that the Gospel of Matthew is inaccurate and therefore Jesus never said that. That means that all subsequent inferences that are premised upon Matthew 19:17 being true and accurate will be unconvincing.
Shawn claimed at the beginning of the video that “today the Lord showed me something incredible”. Apparently this mindset caused him to avoid scrutinizing his own argument in sufficient detail. He comes across as a person who has given a bad argument and ‘credited’ it to God. He has held God out to be someone that inspires people to produce poor arguments. He achieved the exact opposite result to what he probably desired. Add to this his flimsy and quite aggressive assertions that Satan is behind all of Islam (and other things he disagrees with) and you end up with a convincing case for the claim that his beliefs are causing him to draw quick and flawed conclusions as well as making him come to incredibly uncharitable assessments of other people.
And one last thing. Check out the comments section. It appears that he has censored all negative remarks. Some commenters are even taking the absence of disagreement to mean that there are no plausible responses – that his opponents have simply given up. I’ll see whether my comment is approved in the next few days.
His video has had it’s rating function disabled too – right after it hit five stars.
Addition for Monday 13th August 2007
He hasn’t posted my comment. He doesn’t allow those that disagree with him to have their comments published.
A Simplified Representation of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy of Authority
Look here for a brief summary of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. In many ways the Church hierarchy is to the Catholic Church what Parliament and the Courts are to civil society. They provide a means of establishing and enforcing norms. There have been various symbolic conceptions of the Catholic Church expressed over time but the practice of a hierarchical authority structure of some kind is not widely disputed. Most debate seems centred on the most appropriate scope and power of various ‘layers’ of the hierarchy, not on whether or not they should exist at all.
Often people talk of “the Vatican”, “the Catholic Church”, “the bishops” and “the hierarchy”. At times it is clear from the context of a claim what particular person or people the speaker is referring to but at other times the terms end up as a vague sort of place-holder, a generalisation that is far too broad for descriptive purposes.
