Dr. Who and the Crisis of Faith

Firstly, you're going to ask, what does Dr. Who have to do with the crisis of faith? We'll get to that.

Second, I'd like to say something to all the "Original" Dr. Who fans who like to criticize the new series with snide comments like "I liked the first season as well...of the original". Get over yourselves. You win no converts by being snide and petty. The new series is not replacing the old. It is reviving the overall story arc. This is why the Dr. Who canon says there have been nine doctors, and only three of them since 2005. Nothing has been rewritten, references to the series that ran in the '60s are made frequently, and the continuity remains the same. The difference? It's not as campy, but neither is the rest of the BBC anymore. It's a little quirkier, but so is the rest of the BBC and British humor in general. And you know what? It's still a delightful show. So to all of you Dr. Who "purists"--GET. OVER. IT.

This leads me to the crisis of faith. Very often we are in search of the "true" faith, the "original" faith, the way the Church functioned in its earliest inception, free of novelty and innovation. These things detract from faith, right? Well...yes and no. There is a trend in non-denominational communities to rely very heavily on the Acts of the Apostles to model the way they live their faith. This is good. To an extent. There is also a growing trend in the Catholic Church to contract and weed out the liberal, post-Vatican II elements. While I agree that many abuses of the Divine Liturgy and sacred worship have occurred, as with anything else, a contraction is best done in moderation.

When we have a knee-jerk reaction to innovation, we invariably fall back on the "tried and true", that which makes us feel safe. When it comes to faith and the pursuit of objective and absolute spiritual and philosophical truth, it becomes hard to accept that not all interpretations of truth are universal throughout time. Innovation is not only necessary to apply the faith to a dynamic world, it can, in its own way, enrich the faith. But, as with contraction, when done in moderation.

Let's point to some non-biblical "innovations" of the Catholic Church. Starting with Papal Infallibility. This dogma was not formally established until the nineteenth century at the First Vatican Council. However, the nature of Catholic dogma is that it is not innovative. It is issued to combat heresy and reaffirm something that has always been believed. Because of dogmatic law, "whatsoever you hold true on earth" etc. etc., it is reasoned that the Successor of Peter has always been infallible, but it went without saying until the First Vatican Council.

Secondly, the Marian Dogmas. These are quite difficult for people not raised in the Catholic faith to get their heads around, much as the Trinitarian Mystery and Hypostatic Union are difficult concepts for non-Christians to understand. But there are four of these Marian Dogmas, and they are requirements of the Catholic faith to claim one is a Catholic and be true to that statement (as are all the articles of faith issued as dogma). They include her divine motherhood as the Theotokos or Mother of God, her immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, and bodily and spiritual assumption into heaven. What does this all mean for Catholicism? Mary is the roadmap to Christ who points the way to the Father. As my dear friend Alyssa has told me, who better to get in touch with someone than their mother? A pithy phrase, but awesome at the same time. The "cult" of Mary developed in a time when Christianity was embracing the European pagans, and there was a serious need to connect with them. The worship of the divine feminine was strong, even in the early Church converts (check out the Collyridians for more information), and instead of exiling them all as heretics, adoration of Mary was turned into a positive that enriched the faith and added another layer of mystery to a mystery religion already steeped in mystery.

Fast-forward to the Twenty-First Century. The Catholic Church, which recently under two successive Popes (Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have had to defend the Church's position in relation to science--that they are NOT in conflict, despite a wonderful article by George Johnson at Columbia University (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/science.html) exploring the relationship between the Church and modern science and how the latter was impossible without the former. That being said, the Church is in reaction. Vatican II brought much that was good, but opened the doors for much that was terrible. The mystery of the Church was ripped away and the Church began to look to a more pragmatic outlook. Gone were the days of blind adoration and "don't ask questions, just accept what we tell you!" (an attitude born out of the counter-reformation). Now people could seek and find, and due to a long history of "just accept", the faithful were ill-equipped to properly understand what they found. An exodus of biblical proportions from the Catholic Church began.

Arise the non-denominational churches of the 1960's, 70's, and 80's. A call to pure Christianity, an end to innovation and a new beginning. The faith is in crisis as the great Rome crumbles! Doomsday is nigh, and we, the Pure Christians (tm) will inherit the earth! Well, not really. Nothing happened. Catholicism still makes up about half the Christians in the world, bolstering Christianity and maintaining its number one spot on the religion chart. But all of Christianity is in flux right now. The promised end has not come. Nor did it come 2000 years ago as the Apostles thought it would. Innovation has been seen as something evil to be avoided, and, like the Dr. Who purists, we are deriding what is new and turning back to the old. Maybe the way we did things a hundred years ago will galvanize everyone. Maybe, if we could only turn back the clock...

...

...

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We can't. I believe in absolute, objective truth. But so did the early Church when they said money-handling was a sin and was therefore the sole purview of the Jewish people. Today, millions of Catholics and Christians in general are bankers. I am homosexual. I am Catholic. I do not approve of much that came from Vatican II, but I do approve of its sanctioning of asking questions. There is absolute truth. There is also subjective truth. The Church and the world are in flux, and just as the Church has adapted and survived through innovation, it can do so again. Let the Protestants leap forward with their innovation just because it's popular to do so at the time. Let the non-denominationals continue pushing for the purest, narrowest road because Acts is the only source. Let Catholicism examine innovation and adapt as necessary, without reckless abandon, and with the cautious optimism that has steered it for 2,000 years of unbroken history.

If Catholicism can do it for 2,000 years and still draw a plurality of the world's population, I think Dr. Who can survive a revival and still be pretty good.

Thoughts on prayer, and a holistic approach to it

This is carrying off part of my ideas in the last entry, namely that spirituality, especially in the Christian tradition, necessitates a holistic approach. Ultimately, we as human beings, and especially human beings in the Western World, fall into two camps when it comes to the question of faith and spirituality--believers and non-believers (believers in the sense that you believe in SOMETHING, be it Christ, Buddha, Allah, YHVH, or Tom Koppel). For Christian believers, spirituality isn't treated as a holistic part of the life experience. It sits apart as something extra, something, like a plant, to water only when we remember, or only when we really, really need it.

The best way to feed spirituality and help it grow into something holistic, something that informs every part of your existence, is through prayer and meditation. In the Buddhist tradition, meditation is a part of the ritual. But this meditation has an objective focus on the self, and so can be seen (superficially to the outside observer) to have some kind of tangible benefit. Christian prayer and meditation, however, lacks this, and so it makes it hard for us to commit to feeding our spirituality daily. And often times, it leads us to paying only lip service to it.

The end result of this? The ego takes precedent over the spirit. Physical, mortal concerns become more important than immortal, spiritual concerns. "I attend Mass every week," or "I pray the 'Our Father' every night before bed." Yes, that's well and good, but how do you pray? And when you do, what are you asking for?

Christ said nobody can reach the Father except through [Him] (Christ). What does this mean? Most Christian dialogue on the topic says that you have to accept Him as your Messiah to be saved. Ok. But what does that mean? You have to accept that He is your personal Lord and Savior. Ok. But what does that mean? And on and on. When you get to the nitty gritty of it, what emerges is the understanding that accepting Christ into your life isn't just accepting His sanctifying grace. To accept Christ in your life, you have to make room for Him. And the only thing that He is willing to replace is the ego.

Catholicism gets a bad rap for its support of the monastic tradition because Paul said to live in the world. But these men and women have done better at suppressing the ego and making their entire lives about Christ than anyone else. The Trappists, in particular, have a stringent rule of prayer that wakes them every morning at 4 am to being praying the Liturgy of the Hours. They do this all day, saying a daily Mass in the mean time, going about their business in relative silence, praying when they do speak, and praying the final hour before retiring to bed. Pray without ceasing, and suppress the ego while you do it. With your mind focused on Christ, you don't have time to ask for the new job, the new car, more money, etc. You only have time to be praying and worshiping Christ.

Question: That's all well and good, but what about people who are genuinely struggling and they have no where else to turn?

Answer: Christ never told us to pray to Him for things we want. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Not the Want, the Whine, the Complaint. This may sound harsh, but listen closely and read along. The Way implies a one-way street. You go in one direction, you reach your destination. You go in the opposite direction, you will never find where you want to go. The Truth implies only one possible interpretation--the Truth. There is no wiggle room. There is no falsehood, there is no deviation. The Life is the vita, the essence of existence. What these three things have in common is necessity. Want and necessity are two very different things. I would love a new car. I would love the extra money to pay on student loans that I've fallen behind on. I would love to finish my college degree tomorrow. These three things are within Christ's power to give me. But He won't. And I won't ask Him for them. Why? I do not need a new car to live. My student loans not being paid? My paychecks might get withheld. Money is not necessary to my existence as a creature of God. My college degree? With or without it, I will still live.

What Christ wants us to pray for are the things that He is--necessity. Christ says that He is necessary in our lives like food and air. He is necessary for our spiritual fulfillment, which, once achieved, allows us to be happy with what we have, rather than what we want, and more willing to help those who do not have what they need. Man does not live on bread alone. If he feeds his ego, he will be forever hungry. If he suppresses his ego, he will be filled. That is the message here, and the guide to prayer.

Suppression of the ego and the part of ourselves that desires above all things to be constantly happy leads to a holistic application of the prayerful life, and the holistic appreciation of spirit. But this suppression begins the moment you begin to pray. The moment the words "Our Father..." or "Hail Mary..." or "Glory be..." leave your lips, the attitude is set. Are you focusing on your ego, or are you focusing on your spirit? Are you watering your mental need for stimulation? Or are you feeding the soul? Nobody can tell you how to achieve the latter. Everyone's spiritual, like their bodily, chemistry is different. In your journey, you will find what works for you to focus on the spirit and turn your attentions to Christ. But once you do, the transformative change experienced by historical mystics and used as the litmus test for the validity of mystical visions will begin to descend. And it is up to you to continue to water the seed that you have planted. It is up to you to pray without ceasing.

The hypostatic union equals....the Church?

Conversations are a wonderful way to delve into deep topics. They are also great at exposing deep-seated meaning that you wouldn't be able to reach if you were just musing on your own. One of these is the hypostatic union, and how it relates to the Catholic Church.

Bear with me. This is a highly mystical discussion. There won't be much reference to established Church doctrine, but rather, a simple appeal to the spiritual nature of our worship and beliefs.

The hypostatic union was defined at the Council of Chalcedon, affirming that Jesus Christ, as the personification of the Son of the Trinity, was one person with two equal, yet unique natures--that of being fully human and fully divine. This is pretty standard fare in modern Christendom, though you do come across a church now and again that holds a different view. Jehovah's Witnesses come to mind immediately, as is evident by their unique interpretation of the events at Calvary. But I digress.

The hypostatic union has long been a simple understanding of the nature of Christ as a being. Not just a person, but as a holistic being. And it has generally stopped there. It has impact on our understanding of certain miracles, how a divine creature could suffer a mortal death, what that means to salvation theology, etc. But the impact generally stops at the resurrection. Beyond that, it doesn't really matter. Or does it?

When Christ says "I name you Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it" (paraphrasing because I'm cool like that), what is he saying? The Catholic Church often uses this as a proof text for the validity of the Church's position as the One, Holy, Apostolic Church. The emphasis here is on the unbroken line of leadership from Peter to Pope Blessed John Paul II to His Holiness Benedict XVI. Its emphasis in this regard most often focuses on the physical church as an organization. What this interpretation says is "I name you Peter and upon this rock I will lay out the organization of my Church, and this organization will be eternal and overcome all obstacles." This is a very nice interpretation because, well, it fits Church history. We are still the largest Christian denomination in the world, and rival Islam in pure numbers. We've survived several schisms and the Reformation. But, what of differing viewpoints on this passage?

Those that hold to post-Reformation theology often times hold up a much different (radically different) interpretation. This is what they believe Jesus was saying: "I name you Peter and upon this rock I will convene my spiritual Body, and this spiritual Church will not be torn asunder, so that any who come to me will have no obstacles in reaching me." The emphasis here is on the spiritual nature of the Church in this passage. This is a very easy way to explain why Catholicism and Orthodoxy are wrong. They were corrupted by the time we have any extant writing. Therefore, down with Tradition, Sola Scriptura is the only way, and we are worshiping the way the Apostles did. Ergo, we are the True Church.

The problem with both of these approaches is that they deny the fundamental nature of Christ in the embodiment of His Church. One focuses on the physical (mortal) incarnation of the Church. The other focuses on the spiritual (divine) incarnation of the Church. But if Christ had two natures, then why does His Church only have one?

I posit that what He was actually saying was this: "I name you Peter and upon this rock I will build MY Church, and it will be imbued with spirit, and will be incorruptable, and overcome all obstacles, just as my body is incorruptable and capable of overcoming death."

See what I did there? Parallelism. Christ was establishing His Church to further His mission. If we accept the hypostatic union was dogmatic truth, His mission cannot be furthered by mortal man alone. Hence the sending of the paraclete, the Holy Spirit. Viewed in this light, Catholicism has a much stronger claim to being the True Church because, by her very nature, she shares in the hypostatic union of Christ. Being built by mortal hands and imbued from birth by the spirit, the Church is both of man and of God, mortal nature and divine nature existing coequally yet uniquely of each other.

When one begins to look at the various associations within Christianity in this way, the impact of the hypostatic union takes on a much greater degree of importance. It creates a holistic relationship between the mortal iniquity of human nature and the salvific grace of the Holy Spirit. And, by extension, Christianity becomes a holistic faith that epitomizes in all its aspects this fundamental question about the nature of Christ. It enriches our understanding of Christ and His mission and His Church. And just as Mary points the way to Christ, the hypostatic union points the way to Rome.

The apocalypse, and what it means to you

So 21 May, 2011 passed without a blip. I was rather disappointed because I was looking forward to not having to pay my student loans anymore. Then I thought, maybe the rapture DID happen, and we just didn't notice because the number of people raptured was so insignificantly small that it didn't even register on the local news? Then I thought, what if Westboro was raptured? A quick scan on the internet did not give me the news I wanted, so it looks like we'll be sharing this planet a little longer.

All this rapture talk got me thinking about some very personal things. My faith, my sexuality, my family, my friends, my plans for the future. How do they all intertwine? Obviously, they inform each other, and the family question has been a big motivator for my current choices. Moving back home, quitting my job. My faith? Well, it's becoming harder and harder for me to claim that I am a strictly orthodox Catholic. Certain aspects of myself and my views on the world I am finding irreconcilable with Catholic teachings on the same subjects. Reading up on the views of religious communities in communion with the Catholic Church has shown that Rome isn't as stringent in some of these views as we in the West would like to think. Of particular note are the Eastern Churches and their views on Mary.

In the Marovite Church (in Communion with Rome), as Christ is viewed as the incarnation of God the Son, Mary has been defined as the incarnation of God the Father. While she is not worshipped as a goddess or divinity co-equal to God, there is a level of adoration offered her that would dwarf the Marian devotions of the most devote Irish Catholic grandmother. The issue is that the RCC maintains that Mary was strictly mortal. Immaculately conceived, but mortal nonetheless. The Marovite definition, however, is akin to the Hindu concept of an avatar, the mortal incarnation of a god. Either God was incarnate as the Father in the person of Mary to bring Christ incarnate as the Son into the world or God was absent from the equation. Either Mary was divine or she wasn't. In the whole of Christendom, only three people are considered "immaculate" or "without sin", and these are God, Christ, and Mary. Two are divine. One isn't. One is formless. One is everywhere still portrayed hanging from the cross. And the other speaks directly to her devotees, giving them prophecies and visions.

If Mary has a litany all her own, made up of nearly a hundred titles, gave the King of Spain a vision wherein she was able to intercede on his behalf at his deathbed, has healed the sick, and foretold the end of the world, I would rather welcome the rapture with the Ave Maria on my lips than be surrounded by people holding hands and singing "Kum Ba Yah". Even if this is called heresy, my praises will be for a God that is the personification of love, a Messiah that is the fulfillment of love, and a woman who is the sole vessel of love.

The Church and Sexuality

I've been getting this question a lot. From ex boyfriends, from friends, from colleagues, and even from myself. I think I finally have an answer. Maybe it's not a perfect answer, but it's an answer.

The question is this: If God and the Church say homosexuality is a sin, how can you still call yourself Catholic and retain faith in a God and religion that hates you?

The answer, well, it's lengthy.

The first part of the answer is this: that question is loaded beyond compare. The Catechism declares emphatically and without question that God is love personified. Period. There is no hatred or condemnation within God. He is all love. The Church, likewise, does not promote the discrimination of anyone. We as Catholics represent the Living Church of Christ, who is consubstantial with the Father, the second person of the Trinity, and, ultimately, love personified as well. The Church's stance in regards to homosexuality is also quite clear:

1. Homosexuality as a sexual preference is not sinful;
2. Two homosexuals with deeply-held feelings for each other are not in sin;
3. The only homosexual sin is that of the sex act. Everything else is fine.

Why is this? Well, the Catholic Church is of the mind that a sin has not occurred without action, just as a corporal or spiritual work of mercy has likewise not occurred without the requisite action. (Cue the Sola Scriptura crowd jumping in about being saved by faith alone....passing this argument by and coming back to topic....) If you as a homosexual do not engage in sex with someone of the same gender, you haven't sinned! Neato!

But wait, Mr. Blogger, aren't homosexuals just as sexually-driven as everyone else?

Yes. But, how many times have "good, upstanding" Catholic men and women had sex with prophylactics (condoms!)? How many have had sex wherein the man withdrew before climax? How many have engaged in non-procreative sexual acts with each other? These are all sins. Any sexual act that does not have as its end purpose the procreation of human life is a sin. That's right pubescent boys and girls: what you're doing in that bathroom is BAD BAD NAUGHTY! But no worse than what your mom and dad did to prevent having that third child.

The thing is that the far right and radically-fundamentalist churches have latched on to two sins as their main focus: abortion and homosexuality. They have completely abandoned their mission as Christians to evangelize and witness the GLORY of the Lord, and instead seek to vilify and condemn those over which they have no power. Judgment is reserved for God alone, and he will judge us all simultaneously at the end of the age. Today is not Judgment Day. So no judging allowed!

So evangelical, fundamentalist, non-denominational (some, not all) Christians have made it their mission to enlighten the "sodomites and baby killers!" of why they're going to hell instead of reaching out to them in a spirit of love and fellowship. The end result? We have all of us fled the welcoming arms of Holy Mother Church. Why? Because we were told we weren't wanted. We were told that the God who is incapable of hate hates us. For us alone special condemnation has been reserved, and the wrath of God spares all but the homosexual. And the media jumped on the chance to portray a poor, victimized community. Now we fit the profile, and are quite angry about it.

But there, in the recesses of the mainstream, lies the largest Christian Church on the planet. There, quietly going about its charitable work instead of drawing lots of attention to itself, is not only a church, but THE Church established by Christ 2000 years ago upon the Rock of Peter (HaKaifah ben Kaifah. Fun play on words, there) which has a pretty strong argument for claiming the inherited authority of God on Earth in the Living Christ when it comes to these sorts of things.

So, I'm very comfortable in my place as a Catholic who happens to be gay. I have no issue telling this to people, and, though I find it irritating, find joy in dispelling the negative associations people have with this statement. It's not God that has made people confused and less-than-welcoming, and God should not be thought of as being represented by these people. So when people say "I have lost faith in you because of what this or that church did" it breaks my heart, because the fundamental relationship between God and man has been ignored. We are given free will to sin. Without it, we would have no salvation. These people are perfectly capable of sinning, themselves, and by passing judgment are guilty of sin. It is not for us to judge man's works. It is not for us to judge God based on the actions of certain individuals and groups. It is up to us to hold fast to the faith we know to be true and work as hard as we can to be the best we can be, while acknowledging that we have faults. Everyone sins, even us. But at the end of the day, the sum of our faith, the labors of our hearts and minds and hands, and the fervency to which we abide by the will of God through the saving grace of Christ will be weighed. And though I am no prophet, I have a feeling we won't have to share the dance floor with Westboro Baptist Church.

Egypt, Revolution, and the Coptic Question

Oh my it's been awhile. September 10 was when I defended the Estate System against what I feel to be a violent usurpation of Democracy. How droll.

In the past twenty four hours, I've developed a taste for pop tarts and hard salami. Dr. Pepper features prominently in that as well, but when does it not feature prominently in my diet? I've also developed a severely belated interest in Timothy Leary the underground comix scene from the '60's and '70's, and steampunk renditions of common, everyday items.

I've also reappraised myself, looked out upon the vast collection of stuff I call my possessions, and turned my eyes eastward to Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, where a domino effect of calamity is taking its toll.

Mubarak is offering to step down at the end of his term. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has utterly collapsed and has no authority outside the presidential home. Obama wants the Vice President to take over, despite the Egyptian constitution explicitly stating the Speaker of Parliament must succeed the President (whoops. Obama can't grasp the content of Egypt's constitution either). Parliamentary democrats are (temporarily) united with the Muslim Brotherhood to bring regime change. Molotovs are thrown at the crowd by Mubarak supporters while protesters arrest police men who are looting downtown Cairo. All of this has filled the airwaves, the twitter feeds, the Egyptian, European, and American blogospheres, Reuters, Wall Street, and the NYTimes. But what about the one group of Egyptian society that is so rarely heard about and even more rarely understood--the Copts?

Coptic Christianity has always entertained a strange position in Egypt. Early Christianity had a tendency to lump it in with the Gnostics and go after Copts as much as Gnostics. Crusaders thought they were heretics, and the Coptic Church refused to take sides in the Great Schism, thus becoming the third traditional branch of Christianity alongside Orthodoxy and Catholicism. When Islam rolled through, the Copts didn't submit, even at the point of the sword, and continued to worship in the ancient streets of Alexandria. Colonial governments were not much more favorable in the treatment of the Copts, seeing them as strange superstitious remnants of a bygone era, and modern Egyptian governments under Nasser and then Mubarak have been equally unforgiving. What place do they have in the new Egypt?

A democratic Egypt has the most promise for them, but they would very likely be marginalized in a society seeking to distance itself from radical Islam (read: religion) and orient itself towards a very Euro-style secular state. In a Taliban-style theocracy, marginalization will be the best they can hope for. Systematic persecution, exile, and massacre is on the more realistic end of things.

And where would they go? Would they go to America where the melting pot melts little and foments much? Would they go to Europe where anything brown is treated as a potential Muslim terrorist and proponent of European Shariah? Would they go to Russia of all places where they would be perceived as Central Asian yak herders needing to pitied, and given substandard wages like a strange reinterpretation of Latino migrant workers in our own country? To be completely honest, from my own understanding of the geopolitical position of anyone in that part of the world, Israel is really the only place for Copts to run to. The disillusionment being felt in America's youth and up-and-coming intelligentsia does not engender pity. The fear for safety in Europe treats everyone with suspicion. The sheer racism and xenophobia of the modern Russian experiment is hardly conducive to anyone seeking any kind of asylum. Israel, with its own vibrant Christian minorities and its complexes about having a place one can call home is the only place a Copt could reasonably be expected to settle down amidst this chaos if all goes to hell.

But these are musings because, apparently, the West doesn't give two shits about them. We have one of the largest Coptic diasporas in the world in the United States. So why don't we look in on their plight in Egypt? They are, after all, in a seriously difficult position where they stand to lose more than they stand to gain.

Democracy and the Second Estate

Prior to the great revolutions of the 19th Century that swept away the last vestiges of absolute European monarchies save Prussia, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire, and for some time after Italian Unification, the Vatican preached her doctrine of estates as a theologically-based model of social teaching. Estates are similar to social classes, but are a little bit more rigid than class distinctions we have today, but not so rigid as to be called a caste. The Second Estate, Knighthood and Nobility, is our focus and why its eradication in the social strata in the name of the egalitarian fallacy of modernism (read: Democracy) is ultimately bad.

Knighthood in the sense of a social estate is less tied in with noble birth than one usually thinks of, especially when one envisions a brave English knight riding off to war, or the oppressive, corrupt, morally bankrupt knights that were defeated by Bravehart. Knighthood is an ideal, rooted in the age of chivalry. The mercantile and, later, industrial revolutions kind of put a damper on chivalry, but the Church maintained several orders of knighthood that were awarded to the laity. One that most Americans should be familiar with is the Knights of Columbus

At its very base, the bestowing upon someone of knighthood is a positive raising of that person in social and personal status. But it is more than just something someone should be personally proud of. It is a responsibility to his fellow man. A common lay person has only two things to worry about: survival and salvation. He must survive as best he can, and ensure that he can attain the eternal survival of his soul. As part of this, he learns to cohabit with other people and help out his family and friends. This is a social obligation imparted upon us because human beings are social animals. What is also imparted on us is a desire for more. Greed. So we only share the bare minimum and horde the rest. A knight does not do this.

A knight was not only recognized for being better than (and I do not use this term hierarchically or in any way disparagingly towards non-knights, I myself am not a knight) the rest of his peers, but having a greater responsibility to take care of those around him in his community and family. A knight was raised to represent an ideal of the privileged benefactor who makes all around him his beneficiaries. Whatever he has in excess is utilized to help those in need. Whatever task he undertakes is done with a higher goal and purpose in mind. Nothing is done irrationally and nothing is done purely for self-interest. As a knight he has shed the immaturity of such emotive personal drives. As a knight, he has been raised to something more. He, like a Saint is a model of Christian virtue, has been raised to show that a social ideal is attainable. For the faithful, a Saint is a model of the attainability of Christian living. For the secular, a Knight is a model of the attainability of social responsibility.

Then comes the Enlightenment. The grandchild of the Reformation, the mother of the 19th Century's grandiloquent Democratic Revolution, the enlightenment saw a world where superstition and faith would not be necessary. Reason, logic, rationality would reign supreme. A beautiful vision, indeed. But one with a darkness hiding behind it.

Logically, and I'm pulling from several philosophers whose names I can't remember but I'm sure you'll be able to recognize the ideas, as animals, human beings have at their base the same fight or flight response as every other animal. Do you engage, or do you flee? It is risk versus reward, and ultimately, translates into a statement such as "the only goal of the individual is first survival, second propagation." What does propagation entail? Finding a mate. How does one find a mate? Flashy shows of those traits that are considered desirable. This extends much further than physical characteristics and includes money, power, and status. So the logical result of this is the promotion of the self above all others. The development of the Nietzschiean Overman. "We have killed god" says Zarathustra. "Now we must find the Overman." The Overman being the man who takes what he wants and cares nothing for what is caused subsequently. The Enlightenment's final gift to the world was a socio-political idea that the individual is worthy beyond anything else. His ideas, his wants, his desires are all first before everything else. And what better system to allow this individuality that knows no fetters save one's own chains than democracy?

The democratic revolution led to a universal celebration of the individual. We have taken this idea so far today that we have the even more dangerous ideas of cultural relativism. What is good for one culture may not be good for another and should not be judged. Quid pro quo, morality and ethics are malleable and subject to change. This is why questions such as euthanasia and eugenics (which both have the same root by the way) are suddenly back in vogue. It is fair to say, however, in defense of moral relativism, that its logical conclusions are not always supported by those that support moral relativism. Specifically, the holocaust may have been good for Nazi culture, but other than a few right-wing nutjobs with swastikas tattooed on their heads, nobody is going to say that the Nazis were right in what they did. But moral relativism says exactly that. And as the greatest moral relativists, we Americans should be celebrating the holocaust, not disparaging it. And the Jews should understand. I mean, we gave them Israel so they could have their own cultural development, their own homeland, their own piece of the pie from which to celebrate moral relativism.

End the dripping sarcasm.

It is rare for someone to be confronted with a slippery slope argument and actually say "You know what? Maybe you're right." But every time someone has declared "this is a slippery slope!" it has turned out to be true. Equal rights for minorities turned into special rights. Democracy for the landed gentry turned into democracy for all. Vatican II turned into a massive debacle of epic proportions, and the legalization of homosexuality is shortly turning into the promotion, not just recognition, of homosexuality. If you don't believe me, check out what's going on in Quebec with the "equity strategy" in regards to school systems, especially parochial schools that will soon have to promote something they don't believe in. Canada has less freedom of speech than America, and all the hippies want to go live there? Get a haircut and a job, put down the reefer, and then we'll talk. But overall, the truth that rational, reasoned democracy has evolved into an irrational modernist "embrace everything new because it is new" philosophy is living proof that the erosion of the Second Estate, the destruction of a true and lofty ideal, has been nothing but demoralizing and destructive for society. I will not suffer myself to make a list of all the pros and cons between democracy and monarchy (for I am supportive of neither), but rest assured that I truly believe the cons of democracy far outweigh their pros, especially as we have in the modern world.

The question we all need to ask ourselves today is not "who will I vote for in the upcoming elections?" but "Why am I voting?" If the answer is "It is my civic duty" then stay at home. Your blind allegiance to the democratic process is worth just as much as one who irrationally refuses to vote. If your answer is "To promote my deeply-held values, my lofty ideals, the immutable and unmovable morality and/or ethic to which I subscribe," then I'd say go and rig your local elections.

Are there people whose votes should be worth more than others? I would have to say yes. But shouldn't we be more worried about the tyranny of the minority, as Thomas Jefferson said, than whether or not our current president is a terrorist? Without an ideal, one that is rooted in society as opposed to a far off golden time as prophesied by Methuselah in Animal Farm, democracy is worthless. It is modernism. And heaven help us if our democratic process ever embraces the downright absurdity of post-modernism. Change for the sake of change is like progress for the sake of progress--the ideology of the cancer cell.