Posted on 12/24/2012 9:04:31 AM PST by Seizethecarp
A century ago next year, one of the most extraordinary events in the modern history of Christianity took place there. In the summer of 1913 the Aegean was penetrated not by pleasure-craft, but by the navy of the Russian tsar. A gunboat and later two transporters, complete with a party of marines, sailed up to a giant monastic house. A Russian archbishop tried negotiating with a bitterly divided community. When that failed, the troops opened up with a water-cannon, directed at the cells of monks on the losing side in a theological argument.
For six years the Russian monks of Athos—who had appeared in large numbers in the late 19th century and now exceeded the Greeks—had been at the epicentre of a controversy that also raged among the Russian elite, drawing in the court, the Duma, scientists and mathematicians. The argument concerned the holiness of the name, or names, of God.
The row began in 1907, when a book entitled “In the mountains of the Caucasus” was published. It was written by an elderly monk called Ilarion.
Ilarion had touched upon one of monotheism’s most sensitive spots. In any philosophical system in which the starting-point is the radical, primordial distinction between the Creator and the created, a hard question arises. To which side of the line should words, images or phenomena be assigned that belong to earthly reality but also pertain to God? And is it ever possible for something or someone to be on both sides of the line at once?
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Interesting story.
Words have import. Names can be Holy, at least in religion.
What of universally challenging statements, or claims, such as “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights”? Should they be deemed Holy, too?
The first ten amendments to the U.S.Constitution state the requirments for a group of people living free but with responsibility for themselves, defining the exercise of “free will” that the Hebrews felt so strongly about that they wrote a book and so are known today as “people of the book”. As a history of the Hebrews, the First Testament crystallizes the concept of righteous behavior.
How many governments, tyrannical Kings, and bloody dictatorships, have usurped those inalienable rights in order to acquire power for evil? Many have sought to disarm entire populations over the centuries, and there exists only one way to stop them from such efforts: rebellion.
I believe the answer lies within those ten amendments to our government’s Constitution, namely called out in the 2nd Amendment.
“How many governments, tyrannical Kings, and bloody dictatorships, have usurped those inalienable rights in order to acquire power for evil? Many have sought to disarm entire populations over the centuries, and there exists only one way to stop them from such efforts: rebellion.”
Can those who claim that they see no reason for citizens to have “assault rifles” be anything but either willfully ignorant of history or complicit in a conspiracy to disarm those who would be the last line of resistance to imposition of tyranny?
Russia, Germany, Japan and Iran were all briefly democracies before they were hijacked by gun-snatching totalitarians. Now we can add Egypt, Libya, and Iraq to the list.
For the next four years the US military will be fighting to make the world safe for secular socialist crony fascist governments in former Christian and “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood former Soviet-allied countries...except that Barry hasn’t realized that the Brotherhood is Islamist.
Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Code Pink’s participation in the Brotherhood-sponsored Gaza blockade-running boatlift shows how stupid these Alinski-commies are. The Brotherhood is conspiring to wipe them out down the road just as they are conspiring to co-opt the Brotherhood into happy world socialist government!
I believe that “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights” has attained the power of a prayerful incantation.
Great science fiction story about monks who were to
name all the name of God who were sold a computer to
do the job, “and as the last names were printed....
the stars began to wink out.”
Don’t remember if it was Heinlen or not.
Arthur C. Clark I believe. “The Nine Million Names of God”.
Great science fiction story about monks who were to
name all the name of God who were sold a computer to
do the job, “and as the last names were printed....
the stars began to wink out.”
Don’t remember if it was Heinlen or not.
Yeah, Clark.
I read so much SyFi as a teen ager I get confused.
My best high school chum’s mother was a Syfi nut and
had a collection going back to the 20s, worth a pile
now. Alas he’s dead now, went in for a stress test
and died on the treadmill.
Exhibit A on John Kerry’s dedication to make the world safe for World Socialist Gov’t, soon from the SOS perch unless derailed:
John Kerry’s Record in Latin America (and also backing Syria’s secular Rooski ally):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2971958/posts
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