Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is looking to have a busy day… No guarantees on any further postings…

He did want to share with you two quick items.

First, if you are in the greater Washington DC Metro area and like Beer, Bourbon, and pork BBQ, you might want to head over to the Timonium Fairgrounds on Saturday for the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival. If you miss the Maryland Festival, there is a second date in July in Charlotte NC.

Secondly… You need to go over and read from Cranky’s latest on Six Meat Buffet. Highlight:

“…as was the custom of the time, Pilate brought the bill before the people. “Which of these two bills would you like passed into law? Shall I pass the law that curtails the power of the Food and Drug administration to regulate the color of cheddar cheese or shall I pass the law which compels you to turn your headlights on when you operate your windshield wipers?”

Beauty…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will make a confession. In front of you all he will admit that he hasn’t read his loyal minion Bill’s web site in about a week. He could make all sorts of excuses for this, but there aren’t any really. Normally he reads the blogs of all his “Loyal Minions” daily… Sorry Bill…

That apology said, your Maximum Leader did want to nitpick on something Bill wrote just recently. Bill wrote a thoughtful and lengthly exposition on suicide recently. There is a lot there to comment upon. Especially since your Maximum Leader disagrees with a number of Bill’s conclusions. But your Maximum Leader will focus on one part of Bill’s essay in this post.

Bill writes:

The logic is “Thou shalt not kill” and if one kills oneself, it is sinful. But this is a very absolute proscription. It requires that a person in agony beyond any normal comprehension [it does exist, I’ve been there, bk] with no hope of alleviation must continue to suffer until they die without outside intervention. To take this position and blame God for it is to make God a partner to torture. This is totally incompatible with a benevolent God. However, if God cannot or will not violate the laws of nature to relieve this suffering which must grate against the omnibenevolent side of His nature, then He becomes by default a party to torture. In such a conflict, brought on by the very nature of the omnipotent God, the choice to end one’s life voluntarily seems hardly to be a sin, but rather the resolution of a difficult problem. By my reasoning, suicide under such circumstances is not a sin.

Your Maximum Leader will disagree with this particular passage - but perhaps not for the reason one mght think.

Why do we believe in an omnibenevolent God? Bill’s point above only holds true if one accepts that God is omnibenevolent. Why do we suppose that He is?

Excursus: It is funny that your Maximum Leader should focus on this point. He has an ongoing discussion with a particularly devout friend of his that always boils down to this point. If that friend is reading this (which is doubtful) take heed… All the stuff that follows is old-hat to you.

Your Maximum Leader for many years was caught up in the problem of evil. He looked at, accepted, then rejected, many answers to the problem of theodicy. Eventually he came to think that evil exists because God Himself allows it to exist. There is suffering, intractable pain, disasters, and all other ills because God allows them to exist.

One can try to construct the various arguments to try and preserve the concept of an omnibenevolent God; but at some point - as Bill points out - you always make God complicit in some “unsavory” proposistions. Most devout people have issues with making God complicit in suffering. But where do we stand if we accept God’s acceptance of evil and suffering?

Sometime it may be much easier to accept that God is beyond our poor human ability to define. Our attempts to define Him are nothing but limitations on God’s nature, limitations we impose on Him in an attempt to understand Him. But God is ultimately beyond our understanding. His purpose in setting about creating everything is beyond our understanding. Perhaps the existance of evil and suffering is also beyond our understanding.

To get this back to Bill’s points on suicide… As harsh as it is to say, perhaps God has a purpose to our suffering. A purpose which is not for us to understand.

Just something to think on.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on the Washington Post that “leading archeologists” are claiming the whole Discovery Channel/James Cameron “Lost Tomb of Jesus” is a publicity stunt.

Your Maximum Leader must ask, is it sweeps time again? Is Discovery looking to up its advertising rates? He forgets when these times of year are, but he suspects that when there is a rash of programming he wants to see - or programming that he hears/reads a lot about - it is generally sweeps time.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader likes this part of the WaPo article:

Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, expressed irritation that the claims were made at a news conference rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific article. By going directly to the media, she said, the filmmakers “have set it up as if it’s a legitimate academic debate, when the vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period have flatly rejected this,” she said.

Magness noted that at the time of Jesus, wealthy families buried their dead in tombs cut by hand from solid rock, putting the bones in niches in the walls and then, later, transferring them to ossuaries.

She said Jesus came from a poor family that, like most Jews of the time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. “If Jesus’ family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem,” she said.

Exactly.

You heard it from your Maximum Leader first.
Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw filmmakers James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici on the Today show this morning. They were talking about their new Discovery Channel film “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” Perhaps you saw the piece on the Today show, or perhaps you are just reading about it on the new wires or something. Here is a peice off the AP news wire. Here is the bit from the Today show itself.

Now… Your Maximum Leader is neither an archeologist, nor a theologian. Niether is he a statistician nor is he a DNA expert. But from time to time a few ideas cross his mind that no one else seems to mention.

Here is one… Why would Jesus’ family buy a tomb outside Jerusalem when they were from Nazareth?

After consulting his Times Atlas of the World, your Maximum Leader estimates that Nazareth and Jerusalem are about 60 miles apart. That seems like an awfully long distance to travel in ancient times with a corpse for burial. Also, doesn’t jewish law require burial as soon as possible? Your Maximum Leader always took this to mean a burial within a day or two. It seems as though it would take a while to go 60 miles. (Figure a cart drawn by an ox or ass travels about 4 mph over level terrain. That means it would take about 15 hours to travel 60 miles.) This little calculation doesn’t even begin to take into account preparation/purification of the body. Then the mourning period of the immediate family added on to the burial time and travel.

It all seems a little improbable doesn’t it?

Then there is the point made by The Colossus on his blog. Wasn’t Jesus’ family of modest means? Wouldn’t a crypt and fancy sarcophogi be a real luxury?

Unless Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary moved to Jerusalem at some point during Jesus’ life, it doesn’t make sense that they would spend lots of money on a family crypt there. Did your Maximum Leader miss something concerning Joseph and Mary’s residency?

Your Maximum Leader will admit that he might watch the special on Discovery. Just to see if this simple question is addressed.

Then again… It might just frustrate him and make him turn it off.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is hoping he isn’t going to have to get the boyz together for an improptu rescue mission…

” Of what is my Maximum Leader speaking?” you are likely asking yourself. Well, if you were keeping tabs on Robbo; you would know that the resident “bad boy” of the Llamabutchers is being hauled in front of his local “Cardinal Fang” and being made to talk.

If things go badly Robbo can call his Maximum Leader for a rescue mission. Your Maximum Leader and the Smallholder will swoop down on the unsuspecting Episcopalians with guns a-blazing (in the case of your Maximum Leader) or brandishing a very pointy pitchfork (in the case of the Smallholder) and save him from the clutches of those vestry members who will poke him with the comfy pillows or force him to answer the dreaded question. Cake or death?

Robbo… Your Maximum Leader is here if you need him.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been writing this piece for a while. He forgets when he started it. It was probably the week before/of Christmas. He’s been tinkering with it off and on. It doesn’t satisfy him. But, at some point he felt he just needed to hit the publish key…

Your Maximum Leader read something the other day. Contemplating the full implications of the item he’d read kept him up that night.

Yes. You read that correctly. Your Maximum Leader read something and it kept him from sleeping for a good hour or two one night. (And a few subsequent nights actually.) If you know anything about your Maximum Leader you would know that he likes his sleep and is loathe to lose any of it.

He thought he’d blog about it, but Christmas intervened and the item flew from his list of priorities upon which to opine.

Then he was catching up on reading blogs he’d missed over the past few days and came upon a post by his friend Buckethead. The post cited the very same article that kept him up. The item kept circulating in his mind. And finally, a post is now coming on this subject in an effort to exorcise this mental demon.

Did you happen to catch a brief piece in The Economist? The one entitled “Liberalism and neurology: Free to choose?” No? Well click here for it.

Didn’t click? Let your Maximum Leader excerpt a few passages:

In the late 1990s a previously blameless American began collecting child pornography and propositioning children. On the day before he was due to be sentenced to prison for his crimes, he had his brain scanned. He had a tumour. When it had been removed, his paedophilic tendencies went away. When it started growing back, they returned. When the regrowth was removed, they vanished again. Who then was the child abuser?

His case dramatically illustrates the challenge that modern neuroscience is beginning to pose to the idea of free will. The instinct of the reasonable observer is that organic changes of this sort somehow absolve the sufferer of the responsibility that would accrue to a child abuser whose paedophilia was congenital. But why? The chances are that the latter tendency is just as traceable to brain mechanics as the former; it is merely that no one has yet looked. Scientists have looked at anger and violence, though, and discovered genetic variations, expressed as concentrations of a particular messenger molecule in the brain, that are both congenital and predisposing to a violent temper. Where is free will in this case?

Free will is one of the trickiest concepts in philosophy, but also one of the most important. Without it, the idea of responsibility for one’s actions flies out of the window, along with much of the glue that holds a free society (and even an unfree one) together. If businessmen were no longer responsible for their contracts, criminals no longer responsible for their crimes and parents no longer responsible for their children, even though contract, crime and conception were “freely” entered into, then social relations would be very different.

…

Science is not yet threatening free will’s existence: for the moment there seems little prospect o anybody being able to answer definitively the question of whether it really exists or not. But science will shrink the space in which free will can operate by slowly exposing the mechanism of decision making.

At that point, the old French proverb “to understand all is to forgive all” will start to have a new resonance, though forgiveness may not always be the consequence. Indeed, that may already be happening. At the moment, the criminal law - in the West, at least - is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.

…

Nor is it only the criminal law where free will matters. Markets also depend on the idea that personal choice is free choice. Mostly, that is not a problem. Even if choice is guided by unconscious instinct, that instinct will usually have been honed by natural selection to do the right thing. But not always. Fatty, sugary foods subvert evolved instincts, as do addictive drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and cocaine. Pornography does as well. Liberals say that individuals should be free to consume these, or not. Erode free will, and you erode that argument.

In fact, you begin to erode all freedom. Without a belief in free will, an ideology of freedom is bizarre. Though it will not happen quickly, shrinking the space in which free will can operate could have some uncomfortable repercussions.

Heh. That is understatement for ye. “Uncomfortable repercussions.”

(Excursus: Okay… Your Maximum Leader pretty much excerpted the whole article. He fears that you are lazy and wouldn’t click. Then again perhaps you aren’t lazy, your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to risk you not returning… Your Maximum Leader, after reading the piece in The Economist, thought about it so much he had to go back and print it out. He printed it out and posted it upon his Villainschloss bulletin board. Right next to a copy of another opinion piece he printed out… The other piece he printed out in 2002 (and found on his bulletin board ever since). That other piece is entitled “Unpleasant Truths.”)

So what is happening to Free Will? Longtime readers will know that for many years your Maximum Leader and his good friend the Smallholder have been going back and forth about a genetic disposition towards homosexuality. While your Maximum Leader has not accepted that a specific “gay gene” has been discovered, he recognizes that further genetic research may well show the existance of such a gene or grouping of genes. Or, it is possible that brain research will show that a particular area of the brain might be formed in a way (thanks to a person’s genes) that predisposes them towards homosexuality.

As it stands now, the arguement goes, “you can’t object to a person being a homosexual if their genetic makeup predisposes them towards being gay.” Frankly, your Maximum Leader doesn’t object to a person being gay. It really isn’t any of his business. So honestly, your Maximum Leader doesn’t care if it is Free Will or genetics/neurology that might make a person gay. In this case, genetic predisposition towards this particular lifestyle is benign.

But when you talk about other genetic predispositions, ones that aren’t benign, then you start to get into a very scary area.

Your Maximum Leader had mentioned at some time in the past the (now discredited) studies of those men that have an XYY chromosomal pairing (as opposed to the “normal” XY pairing). It was believed, and who knows - future research might show again, that men with the XYY chromosomal pairing were prone to violence. While having the XYY condition did not act as a mitigating factor a criminal proceeding, who is to say that in the future it will not?
Consider for a moment the number of cases where women suffering from extreme PMS have had their criminal sentencing reduced or been found not criminally liable for their actions. (Here is an interesting PDF from an Austrailian doctor on this subject.) In the United States the “PMS Defense” was first used in the early 1990s by a Virginia surgeon. Alan Dershowitz wrote a piece lamenting the successful “deployment” of the defense. Your Maximum Leader remembered reading it at the time, and a quick Google search found a copy of it. It is here. It is interesting that Dershowitz wrote in the article: “Her acquittal sends a doubly dangerous message. First, that our hormones are beyond our control and that we are not responsible for how they manifest themselves. And second, that women with premenstrual problems are somehow less reliable and less predictable than other people. Neither is true.” Dershowitz’s statement that our hormones are within our control is particularly interesting. Will modern genetic research and neuroscience back him up on that?

We’ve established, for good or ill, a legitimate (if hard to utilize) defense against criminal prosecution involving hormonal changes. How hard will it be to make the short hop over to a legitimate defense against criminal responsibility based on one’s genes?

Now, you may be saying to yourself that your Maximum Leader is something of an alarmist on this. (Frankly, Mrs Villain and her sainted Father thought so.) Perhaps you are right. But consider carefully the past 30 years and how our understanding of human biology has changed our life. Then consider how that understanding how changed our behavior and attitudes.

Consider the recent peice from the Times of London that figured in a recent Opinion Journal piece. The Times article was “Science told: hands off gay sheep.” Here is what the good people at Opinion Journal wrote about this article:

A frequent complaint about social conservatives is that they are “antiscience” because in some cases (most notably embryonic stem cell research) they oppose scientific inquiry for moral reasons. But here, courtesy of the Times of London, is a case of social liberals who are antiscience for reasons of ends rather than means. That is, there are some things they do not think we should know:

Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

It is an article of dogma among gay-rights activists that sexual orientation is entirely biological in origin and that it is immutable. If one accepts these premises, it is harder to sustain the premise that homosexual conduct is immoral or hat gays should not be protected by antidiscrimination laws. But what if science determines that there are elements of environment or even choice at play? Seems to us gay-rights activists ought to think about alternative arguments rather than making their moral conclusions dependent on an empirical supposition that may or may not be true.

The italicized portion was the Opinion Journal quoting The Times. Blockquotes within blockquotes seemed a bit much…

What are the implications of a “straightening patch” that a pregnant woman could use to “remove” the hormonal tendency towards homosexuality in her child? What would be the implications if a “straightening patch” could be developed for a mature man or woman?

Isn’t the very discussion of homosexuality as a “hormonal condition” fraught with philosophical danger? If homosexuality is hormonally driven could one say that it is a “hormonal abnormality” and that heterosexuality is “hormonally normal?”

More insidiously, suppose that a “gay gene” is identified? It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that a pre-natal test could be developed to show if a human fetus had the “gay gene.” If parents found that their fetus/baby was going to be gay and they chose to abort the baby, what then? Your Maximum Leader reads that approximately 90% of pregnancies were terminated when there was a positive prenatal test for Downs Syndrome. Can one assume that there would be an alarmingly high rate of abortions if a fetus’/baby’s orientation towards homosexuality could be detected?

In this rather long and rambling post we see two streams of science that are, in their own way, moving towards challenging our basic ideas of free-will. The greater role in which our genes, hormones, or other human chemistry determine behavioral traits diminishes our traditional understanding of free will; but also opens up potentially distressing areas of ethical discussion about how to craft a human’s behavior through modifcation of genetics or hormones.

Many people will blithely dismiss the full implications of what is going on here. Others will justify manipulation by pointing out the benefits that could possibly accrue from manipulations. It is easy to do both. Afterall, if you could assure that your children (or grandchildren) would all grow up to be healthy, intelligent, athletic, and beautiful wouldn’t you? No need to bring them into the world if they will be sickly, mentally retarded, invalid, or just plain ole ugly…

You might be thinking to yourself, if you can find a cogent thought in this whole post upon which to build a thought of your own, if my Maximum Leader is so unsettled by all this; he must be against the research that is causing us to learn all this… Well… You’d be wrong on that count…

And in a way… That is a terrifying prospect in and of itself.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that Saddam Hussein is dead. Executed on orders of the judiciary of his country.

As he was last night, your Maximum Leader is filled with a little ambivilence towards this turn of events. He doesn’t regretthat Saddam Hussein has been executed. He isn’t upset that Saddam Hussein has been executed. If anything, he still thinks that hanging was probably too good for him.

With Saddam’s execution, one hopes that a chapter of Iraqi history can now be fully written. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that the history is yet complete. The full extent of documenting Saddam’s crimes against his people will continue. But at this point the documentation is filler. The story has ended. The last line has been written.

Your Maximum Leader will admit something to you all. Last night, before going to bed, your Maximum Leader was praying. As he was “wrapping up” his prayers a thought entered his mind. Your Maximum Leader thought he should, of all things, say a prayer for Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq.

Your Maximum Leader sat still and contemplated the full implications of that thought. When one thinks that he ought to say a prayer for someone it seems wrong at some level to not act on that impulse. But what do you pray for in this case? In the end, your Maximum Leader prayed that the people of Iraq can put Saddam behind them and build a new nation. He also prayed the God’s will be done with Saddam Hussein. It was probably more than he deserved.

Now your Maximum Leader supposes he could paraphrase the medieval Abbot of Citeaux and say “Kill Saddam. God will know his own.”

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw this quiz over on Bill’s site. So he took it.

Apparently your Maximum Leader, were he a saint, is Saint Benedict.

Which Saint Would You Be?

Saint Benedict is praying for you! To learn more about this holy monk go to the Patron Saint Index at http://www.catholic-forum.com
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Your Maximum Leader was hoping for Saint Augustine… But he’ll take what he can get.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure if there is some significance to the fact that this message, wishing all of you - the readers of Naked Villainy - a Merry Christmas is the 3000th post on this blog.

If there is significance to it, please write your Maximum Leader and let him know what it is.

Your Maximum Leader is signing off this blog through some point next week (most likely).

May all of you, and yours, have a very Merry Christmas. God bless you all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is filled with mixed feelings concerning the recent goings-on in the Episcopal Church. By now you’ve probably heard that a number of Virginia parishes have voted to seceed from the Episcopal Church USA and affiliate with another group of the Anglican Communion.

On the one hand your Maximum Leader realizes that these are diffcult and taxing times for all those involved and everyone involved should probably take some time to pray for guidance, understanding, and compassion. But on the other hand he’s hoping that some heretics get burned.

Wha? No heretics are getting burned at the stake? Drat.

More seriously… Did you read the piece by Bishopress Schori? The one in the Washington Post? The one that goes:

The Episcopal Church continues to focus on its mission of reconciling the world, particularly as it cares for the least, the lost, and the left out.

While the Episcopal Church laments the recent votes by some persons in Virginia congregations to leave this Church, we are clear that individuals may depart, but congregations do not. Congregations are created and recognized by the diocese in which they exist, and can only be closed by action of the bishop and diocesan governing bodies. Even if a large percentage of a congregation departs, the remaining people will be assisted by the diocese and the larger Church to reconstitute their congregation and continue in mission and ministry in that place.

These recent departures have received a significant amount of publicity, but they represent a tiny percentage of the total number of Episcopalians in the Church. We regret and grieve their departure, and pray that they may continue their journey as Christians in another home.
In the hope that some may decide to return, we intend to keep the door open and the light on.

Those Episcopalians who remain will be offered every pastoral assistance we can provide, in the hope and expectation that mission and ministry continue in their communities. Our Anglican tradition is a broad and comprehensive one, with space for people of widely varying theological opinions. We will continue to model an expansive welcome for all people.

Our mission as a Church is the reconciliation of the world. We will continue to feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate children, heal the sick, minister to those in prison, and speak good news to those who have only heard the world’s bad news. That is the work to which Jesus calls us, and that is the work we shall continue - with a priority of peace and justice work framed by the Millennium Development Goals. May God bless that which seeks to unite and build up and heal this broken world.

Let’s see here… Your Maximum Leader takes this as a polite way of saying “Yeah guys… Go play with your African friends. We’re keeping your churches. Have a day.” Your Maximum Leader is guessing that this whole thing will not end well.

It is interesting to read some of the more intelligent comments on the Schori piece in the post.

You know something… Bishopress Schori’s statement is filled with references to good deed and helping the poor and downtrodden. There is fleeting reference to “widely varying theological opinions” and that is the point to which your Maximum Leader would like to ask a question. Is it important that a church have some sort of core beliefs? Perhaps the core beliefs of the Episcopal Church are helping the poor and downtrodden. That is fine. It would also put the Episcopal Church in the same grouping as the Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. (Your Maximum Leader almost typed inthe Salvation Army, but the Salvation Army is a strongly Christian organization.) But at what point do some of those “widely varying theological opinions” need to be made a little less “widely varying?”

Your Maximum Leader is all for people being able to associate with like-minded people. Especially in matters of religion. Indeed, it seems vitally important to your Maximum Leader that one associate with like-minded co-religionists. In the case of the Episcopal Church, they seem to have reached an impass. The “widely varying theological” tradition appears to be a little too widely varying in areas that at least some people feel shouldn’t be so divergent. The Protestant tradition is filled with groups breaking off into other groups and becoming smaller, more homogenous organizations. Your Maximum Leader thinks the time of many “Episcopal Churches” in America is upon us.

For those of you readers who are members of the Episcopal Church, your Maximum Leader does actually feel for you. He hopes that you follow your conscience and do right by your beliefs.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader finds himself getting rather more emotional about things than he ever used to. He is sure that as time goes on he’ll find himself more and more emotional about things that had never, previously, elicited an emotional response. He figures much of this is the result of being a parent and having a longer view of life than he did when younger.

While your Maximum Leader wouldn’t call his parents “old” he recognizes that they are “older.” He reads that 50 is the new 30, which means that 60 must be the new 40. One presumes that 70 is the new 50… Your Maximum Leader’s grandparents are all dead. And he knows that one day, his parents will die. He’s talked, informally, with hisparents about their wishes for burial and such. He wants to know what they want to do so that he may act in accordance with their wishes.

Indeed, your Maximum Leader feels that it is encumbent upon him to respect their wishes so long as he is able to do so. Pretty much, short of some sort of twisted vile ritual dismemberment of the corpse, there aren’t many traditional burials to which your Maximum Leader would object. Even if their choice is not what your Maximum Leader would have chosen, it doesn’t make much difference. It is their choice, not his.

Your Maximum Leader mentions this to frame his mindset when he approached a recent article in the Washington Post. It is a 5 page (on the internet) article entitled “A Family at Cross-Purposes.” The article is about the dispute within the family of Billy Graham about the future burial arrangements for Billy and Ruth Graham.

First off, your Maximum Leader is inclinded to agree with the one commentator who said (in rather purple prose) that after the original Apostles, Billy Graham is the greatest Christian Evangelist in history. (Your Maximum Leader thinks that the commentator actually might have said that after the Apostle Paul, Billy Graham is the greatest evangelist in history.) Your Maximum Leader would put Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II as the two most significant religious figures of the past 100 years - and quite possibly the most significant religious figures in 200 years.

So we know that Billy Graham is an important person, and an inspriation to many. But, according to all accounts, he is a modest and humble man. A man truly touched by the Spirit and mindful of his place on Earth and before the Lord. This makes the news of the article that much more difficult for your Maximum Leader.

Billy’s elder son, and heir to the evangelical empire that has sprung up around Billy Graham, is Franklin Graham. Franklin, it seems, wants to bury Billy in a Disney-esque theme park replete with talking Holstein cows and gift shops. Ruth, Billy’s wife and Franklin’s mother, wants to be buried near a small chapel in the mountains. Other children appear to be taking sides. Billy, who it would seem could take a final decision on this, does not appear willing to do so. (Although it is possible that he may not be mentally able to take such a decision. There seems to be an undercurrent of mental frailty in the article. This is not the same a dementia or such. Just an inability to take such a decision. Your Maximum Leader saw similar behaviour exhibited by his own grandfather at times.)

The story made your Maximum Leader angry. Very angry. Mostly angry at Franklin Graham. (A reaction that was, perhaps, intentionally written for by the piece’s author.) Perhaps if you read the peice you will feel the same. Your Maximum Leader just hopes that Billy and Ruth Graham are buried together near the small chapel in accordance with Ruth’s wishes.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads on the new wire (yesterday actually) that Vatican archeologists digging under the Church of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome believe they may have found the tomb of Saint Paul.

Your Maximum Leader will have to admit a few things… First off, when he first read this piece he didn’t catch that the archeologists were digging at St Paul Outside the Walls. Your Maximum Leader thought they were actually digging in the Vatican itself. Your Maximum Leader thought the prospect of both Saints Peter and Paul being buried near each other was pretty interesting. Of course… Your Maximum Leader re-read the article and discovered he was wrong.

The second thing he thought was this… How amazing that they are digging in these great churches and finding such amazing stuff! Next thing you know they will find the sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene under the Roslyn Chapel in Scotland…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is, as is his want, listening to a podcast of “Speaking of Faith” from American Public Radio. The subject of this particular podcast is “The Heart’s Reason: Hinduism and Science.”

While listening to the podcast a particularly “new-agey” type of thought washed through your Maximum Leader’s brain. Here tis: As we learn more and more about the human genome and the possible genetic predisposition towards certain types of physical conditions or even behaviours; could it be theorized that our genes are actually a “karmic blueprint” for our life? If one accepts some conception of the transmigration of souls or some type of rebirth, could it be that one’s genes are the physical manifestation of some part of one’s karma? This is to say that if, in one life, you were a genetically predisposed to be a cancer afflicted obsessive-compulsive person; that in your next life “karma” might predispose you to be a robust-yet-scatterbrained person?

The strange things that pop into your Maximum Leader’s head sometimes… Of course what is stranger… Having the idea or actually taking time to write a blog post about it?

If you care to discuss, feel free to e-mail your Maximum Leader. Of course if you are a particularly attractive young woman who would like her karmic/genetic predispositions revealed by your Maximum Leader include a photo with your e-mail…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks if you, perchance, read John Derbyshire’s column on National Review Online yesterday? No? Well, it is entitled “God & Me” and the link is here.

Your Maximum Leader has always been a Derbyshire fan - as longtime readers know. While your Maximum Leader hasn’t linked to Derb’s articles all that much - he always reads them. Yesterday’s piece struck a chord in your Maximum Leader. You see, your Maximum Leader has written a similar piece about his own beliefs. Indeed, he’s re-written the piece about 3 times. Small changes here and there. Changes to try and capture a nuance of belief.

Your Maximum Leader will not claim to be in full agreement with Derbyshire’s comments. But there are some passages that are remarkably similar.

But you may not know what those passages are… Because, frankly, your Maximum Leader doesn’t think he has the guts to publish something so personal on the subject of his religious beliefs. Sure, your Maximum Leader can drone on and on about politics and his views on this or that. He might write things you agree with, things you disagree with, and perhaps things you find objectionable. But he just doesn’t feel up to publishing a Q&A on his religious views.

Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy cap (mylan cap for those of you wondering) towards John Derbyshire for having the guts to write honestly about just about anything.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was perusing his e-mail last night and found a link to an editorial from the LA Times. The author of the editorial is one Sam Harris. Mr Harris is the author of “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the future of Reason.” Your Maximum Leader’s never read that book, nor has he ever heard of Mr Harris. (NB to readers: shortly before posting this your Maximum Leader learned from another friend that this editorial was read - at least in part - yesterday on the Rush Limbaugh radio program. As your Maximum Leader doens’t listen to Limbaugh, that is news to him.)

Mr. Harris is a liberal. He says as much in his article. But he seems to have come to a number of conclusions about the nature of our odern world that are worth sharing. Here are some extended excerpts of Sam Harris’ LA Times Editorial of yesterday. (Here is the full link to the article.)

[But] my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world - specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that “liberals are soft on terrorism.” It is, and they are.

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world - for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities.

Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb - and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

…

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

I don’t know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world’s Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals.

Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration - especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq - liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.

…

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabahedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.

We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

…

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren’t.

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

Your Maximum Leader finds himself in agreement with pretty much everything that Mr Harris puts forth here. He quotes he article at length just in case you missed it.

Your Maximum Leader particularly cares for the line about people far scarier that Dick Cheney are out to get us… If that doesn’t send shivers down your spine what will?

Carry on.