Quote of the Day

"[O]ddly enough, the scriptures seem to be telling us, this is part of God’s gift to us. God intentionally chooses to be mysterious — for our sakes. If God were to be fully and completely revealed, if we were to see God beyond all hiddenness and mystery, our freedom would disappear. We would be forced to believe, forced to be obedient. No, this hiddenness is God's blessing.

Certitude is a spiritual danger. If we claim to know God’s ways without question, we limit God to the shape of our own minds. As St. Augustine put it 1700 years ago, 'If you think you understand, it isn't God.'

One of the troubling currents of our time is the tendency of religious people to speak as if we have seen God's face. A lot of what is being said in religious circles can suggest that some people claim to have God figured out, under control, in their pockets." - The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of Washington National Cathedral.

I lifted that from Sullivan's blog. If you look at his blog, you'll see several posts in which he appears to be licking the boot of those that kicked him. I suspect Sully is actually turned on by that.

In this instance, Sully is quoting a Catholic (Sullivan is Catholic by the way) who makes the point that all the other preachers who claim to "know God" are just full of shit. Sullivan seems to like that quote - yet still forgets that the Very Reverend works for an institution that thinks Sullivan is morally depraved and an "evil" in society.

Yet, Sullivan hangs in there with the Catholics anyway. Like I always say... it's Jews for Hitler syndrome.

Oh.. and what is "Very Reverend" anyway? Are there "Somewhat Reverend" priests in the Catholic church? I'd like to be "Not Very Reverend" Tom.

What Sullivan misses is that "belief" in religion is a lot like "belief" in UFO's. You have to be really flexible about your interpretation for each, because you don't have any proof of either. When you're sufficiently vague, you can make up whatever bullshit you want, and sell it to the masses so it fits the current needs of the institution.

The odds of Jesus showing up on Earth tomorrow? About the same as Aliens landing. But, what isn't in question is how cute the priest is. That's a real thing - and life is much better when you can focus on real things rather then made up things. Know what I'm saying?

Anyway.. moving on to a Sullivan quote.. this weekend, he has this to say about Iraq:

The question was never simply whether we knew the WMDs existed or not. The question was whether, without being able to know for sure, we could trust Saddam to keep such weapons away from terrorists. There's a realist case for the Iraq war: that the risks of inaction were too high, and that the threat posed by the entire region demanded a radical departure from the acquiescence to autocracy of the past.

Which, of course, is a really stupid thing to say. Sullivan just refuses to admit it was all one big giant fuck-up from beginning to end, because he makes his living being a pundit, and pundits who fuck up that bad tend to not make any money. Ask Judith Miller in 5 years.

Anyway, Sullivan is essentially saying "better safe than sorry", which of course begs the question, who do we invade next? Clearly there are rogue nations that actually DO have WMD's and they are just as capable of giving them to terrorists as Saddam was. Therefore, in Sullivan’s world, we should be in a perpetual state of warfare.

What a wanker..

** edit **

That pointy hat rules..