Hilzoy made a good point about this recently-- if you're trying to memorize apparently arbitrary facts (these guys sunni, those guys shia) it's hard and you'll mess it up, but if you know the basic narrative (Osama is a Saudi, and they're mostly Sunni, and so were the Saddam crew, though they were in the minority in Iraq, which is why Iran is psyched about the situation, because Iran is mostly Shia, and they fund Hezbollah, and so on) it fits together much more easily. So it's scarier, in a way, when people make these mistakes, because the mistakes suggest ignorance of the big picture, and the big picture is strategically important. It's not like, say, failing to know the exact number of US military personnel, or something not so important in the larger scheme.

I was seriously horrified when I read that, LB. Reyes has been on the Intelligence Committee during the entire Global War on Whatever It Is This Week, and he doesn't have the first clue what al Qaeda believes. It's really inexcusable. Read a freaking newspaper, dude.

It's somewhat odd that the Reuters writer didn't see fit to mention the other people who Jeff Stein gave the same quiz to. In his original article on the topic he pans Reyes' poor answers but does mention this:

To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.

For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

That's more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.

1: Exactly. I'm horrible at proper names -- when Bush got that 'name the leaders of these five countries' question in the 2000 campaign, I had mixed feelings. While it was clearly the sort of stuff a presidential candidate should know, I'm vaguely well informed, and I didn't have any idea for most of them.

But the Sunni/Shi'a stuff is about which terribly important non-state organizations are loosely affiliated with which states; nothing in the Middle East makes sense on a narrative level without it.

3: Oh, the Democrats aren't dumber than the Republicans, they are just, sadly, as dumb.

What it drives home to me is how little what we think about matters to the day-to-day of these guys, and how much other considerations govern them. I've been pondering what Shia/Sunni means, and what significance it might have for us, and what we do, at least since 1979.
And all I have is curiosity and a feeling it matters. This is profound evidence of how very, very different the world looks to our elected representatives than it looks to me.

As cultural differences increase, so does the appearance of homogeneity, I bet. Or, as Trent Lott put it, they all look alike.

5: The Republicans on the Intelligence Committee didn't even know the connection between the sects and the militias in Iraq. I call that a lot worse than not being able to match Sunni with al-Qaeda.

Besides, despite the Bush presidency I am still sympathetic to the idea that the leader doesn't have to know these things, but he has to know how to hire people that do. This is where the Republicans have really screwed up. So Bush didn't know that Islam had sects when he decided to invade Iraq. The reason it became a disaster is that none of his underlings explained it to him, or even took it under consideration.

I wonder what percentage of Congress thinks that Afghans and Iranians are Arabs.

9: they're both Mexicans, right?

9: An overwhelming majority, I'm certain.

I wonder what percentage of Congress thinks that Afghans and Iranians are Arabs.

Don't make me cry, apo.

I'm wondering today whether the administration thinks that a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be a good thing...

I'd like to think that the person we elect to be President should be smarter and wiser than 99.9% of the population.

And that the Chairman of the House Intelligence committee should have comprehensive knowledge of the divisions that are driving the civil war in Iraq.

And that the Education Secretary should beat Lenny in Jeopardy.

Upon second glance it seems unfair to say that Reyes 'doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shi'a on the most elementary level' when he actually did demonstrate knowledge of the most elementary level, especially since other HPSCI members who were interviewed really didn't know the difference on the most elementary level.

Like last time this came up, I'm not sure how much the labels matter. If the guy couldn't remember the names of the sects but knew the general structure as FL sketched it in #1.

But then I think about it and realize that whether it should be or not, we're going to be stuck in the middle East mucking things up for a long time, and we'd expect our leaders to know that the Pope wasn't Protestant and that China was communist, so shouldn't they know this, too?

I won't make you cry, Ogged. But Josh Marshall might.

Another point, and one I'm not sure is widely appreciated. The folks who brought you the Iraq War have always been weak in the knees for a really whacked-out vision of a Shi'a-US alliance in the Middle East. I used to talk to a lot of these folks before I became persona non grata. So here's basically how the theory went and, I don't doubt, still goes ... We hate the Saudis and the Egyptians and all the rest of the standing Arab governments. But the Iraqi Shi'a were oppressed by Saddam. So they'll like us. So we'll set them up in control of Iraq. You might think that would empower the Iranians. But not really. The mullahs aren't very powerful. And once the Iraqi Shi'a have a good thing going with us. The Iranians are going to want to get in on that too. So you'll see a new government in Tehran. Plus, big parts of northern Saudi Arabia are Shi'a too. And that's where a lot of the oil is. So they'll probably want to break off and set up their own pro-US Shi'a state with tons of oil. So before you know it, we'll have Iraq, Iran, and a big chunk of Saudi Arabia that is friendly to the US and has a ton of oil. And once that happens we can tell the Saudis to f$#% themselves once and for all.

Now, you might think this involves a fair amount of wishful and delusional thinking. But this was the thinking of a lot of neocons going into the war. And I don't doubt it's still the thinking of quite a few of them. They still want to run the table. And even more now that it's double-down. I don't know what these guys are planning now. But there's plenty of reason to be worried.

True fact: A student presentation I saw this semester listed the popularity of different religions world wide. The chart included separate categories for "Christian" and "Catholic." I asked about this, and the presenter said "well catholics aren't Christian, because they are like, more orthodox or something." Now they are complaining about their grades.

Rob, I've come across that too, usually among evangelicals who use "Christian" in some really narrow way that I don't understand. My best guess is it involves being born again, which is compatible with though not entailed by being a practicing Catholic. But it's always puzzled me.

Duh, Catholics are papistic idol worshipers! Practically pagans!

17/18 -- it's common practice among evangelical Christians to use "Christian" to mean "like us". Catholics are not sufficiently like us to qualify. (I had an argument as a 13-year-old with my First Baptist friend over whether Catholics were Christian.)

Having given money to Nader, which could have been used to mess up the close states, would have been more worth ruing than voting in a not-close state. But even there, the degree to which none of us could have imagined how bad it could get really exonerates nearly everybody, except Nader himself.

papistic idol worshipers

Romish Whore is the canonical version, I believe.

My Catholic sister-in-law works in Wake Forest* which, while a small town, is just a few miles north of Raleigh so isn't in the sticks or anything. Yet she's had co-workers tell her that she isn't Christian.

*Not, incidentally the town where Wake Forest University sits, as it moved to Winston-Salem and the old campus became BatShitInsane Southeastern Baptist Seminary.

Wrong thread

I thought "Romish Whore" denoted the church itself, not it's adherents.

Romish Johns?

And the whole interaction is mediated by Romish Pimps. perfect!

I was hoping that Pelosi would go a bit further down the depth chart on House Intelligence and tap Rush Holt as the new chair. In addition to the gotcha moment described above, Reyes has apparently joined the Saint John McCain "One Last Shot" chorus supporting an infusion of *additional* troops into Iraq.

Sigh.

I'm really wondering how bad Hastings would have been. Politically impossible, sure, but I'm a sympathetic audience to his claim that he was railroaded. Anyone know anything about his competence level?

28: You know, I just realized what a ridiculous affectation that "Sigh" is when added to the end of a comment or post. I suppose I shan't ever allow myself to use it again.

Sigh.

Ha, I'd never heard the word "Romish" before. I thought "Popish" was as bad as it got w.r.t. sneering, faux-objective words for Catholics.

Search Google and you get this faux-objective site: "Blasphemous pretensions can emanate from so elusive, but for Rome so convenient, a doctrine!"

"You're listening to the Jungle; I'm Jim Romish."

I wondered about this at ObWi, but I'll wonder it again here. Why the hell doesn't a congressman on the Intelligence Committee have a bright bookish young aide dedicated to giving him a hour-long lecture on important stuff he should know about once or twice a week?

Stories like these really are a national embarrassment.

The "who's really a Christian" thing has always been baffling and a bit amusing to this Jew. My evangelical acquaintance was once complaining about how "real Christians" were an under-represented minority in government.

Ego. That would involve admitting that he had no idea.

I bet the smart ones do have exactly that, though.

Definitely had the "Wait, Catholics are Christians?" conversation more than once. Followed by "Wait, why would *you* know?"

And the 34 conversation too.

Rob, I've come across that too, usually among evangelicals who use "Christian" in some really narrow way that I don't understand. My best guess is it involves being born again, which is compatible with though not entailed by being a practicing Catholic. But it's always puzzled me.

Blah, blah, Catholics worship saints, blah, blah, justification by works, blah, blah, we threw out the parts of the Bible that were harrrrd.

My take on it: someone who uses the word 'Christian' in such a way is probably worshipping at the altar of the Republican party, jingoism, and iPods. This is improved on my opinion from high school, which was generally, 'Your church was founded five minutes ago, your personal Jesus is about warm fuzzies up your suburban ass, your house of worship is a community center with a damn basketball court in it, and you're qualified to judge how again?'

It has long been my ambition to bait Cala into a an anti-protestant rant. I sense my moment is at hand.

Hey, don't Catholics worship Mary, also?

I always forget whether we do that before or after helping the Whore of Babylon do her makeup.

You help? I thought you just had one of your magicians transubstantiate her sin into eyeliner.

The magic is powered by the rosary!

Many protestants use "Christian" to mean "saved" (i.e., "born again"). Which of course in their minds excludes a lot of Catholics -- most probably. (Which is why a lot of evangelical teens go on "mission trips" to places like Mexico to try and convert the heathen Catholics.) Catholics shouldn't take too much offense, though: these same people would generally be equally comfortable saying a Baptist was "not really a Christian" (again, meaning "not saved"), if they judged the individual insufficiently devout. The label doesn't bring salvation -- it's what's in your heart. The difference I suppose is that they'd be likely to label a Baptist as presumptively a "real Christian" unless they got to know the individual and judged him otherwise, whereas Catholics are likely to be judged presumptively with the heathens, because of their idolatry and whatnot. But most such people would allow that a Catholic might be a Christian -- if they really asked Jesus into their heart, this to be evaluated on a strict case-by-case basis. Which is more than they would typically allow for, say, Mormons.

It wasn't until I went to college that I realized that there really are people out there who still think Catholics are idol-worshippers and polytheists. I did run into one person in grade school who said that Catholics weren't Christians, which I thought weird at the time, but mostly I grew up in Catholic central and I just had no idea.

Mr. B. grew up in Bible Belt central, though, with immigrant parents. It's really interesting how much stricter his sense of Catholicism as a specific and distinct theology is than mine.

So, Cala, what's your candidate Goofiest Doctrine?

Are Roman Catholics Christians? from noted theologian and cartoonist Jack Chick.

Spoiler: No.

B, that's nonsense. We know that all Christians are polytheists.

My take on it: someone who uses the word 'Christian' in such a way is probably worshipping at the altar of the Republican party, jingoism, and iPods.

Hey now, leave my mp3s out of this.

There's plenty of reading on this,if anyone's actually interested. The evangelical consensus unquestionably that, as a general matter, Catholics are not Christian, again with case-by-case exceptions.

Wow, I didn't know half this stuff. For example, that Catholics wear wedding dresses to confession.

Shadow Divers author Robert Kurson had a magazine article (I believe published in Esquire, which also published his absolutely horrible and enthralling "My Favorite Teacher") about his wife, a Bob Jones U. and then Harvard Law graduate who lost her faith. Among the other things it mentioned was the fact that his wife's class got the day off of school to go heckle the Pope when he was in town.

Thanks, FL, that's what I meant to link to.

Case-by-case my ass. You were saved because you stood up in your little Nikes and Juicy sweatsuit at your basketball-gym-church and your friends applauded while concentrating on their purity rings. And your theology is kindergarten pablum. We have the fucking Jesuits. Come back to me when you research Philosophy.

My hometown is predominantly mainstream Protestant and Catholic (there are six Catholic churches in a two-mile radius), but the Assemblies of God people, some of whom were my close friends, could drive me mad on this point. Even though I was one of those good Catholics who was saved.

Brock, I am fully informed on this prejudice of mine, and I'll admit it's a prejudice. It's weird that this prejudice has only gotten stronger the less practicing I have become, but whatever, their church is in a gym.

That Kurson article Snark links to in 52 is SO GOOD. Highly recommended.

And my vote for goofiest doctrine is Limbo, even though it's not technically a doctrine, because it's so deliciously ad hoc.

Cala, and Brock, could we delve into this a bit? Brock's 44 is in line with my suspicion in 18, but I'm getting puzzled by just what's necessary for being saved/born again apart from believing core doctrines of Catholicism, in particular the divinity of Jesus. What, precisely, is added by doing whatever's necessary to become born again?

40: I actually think that the Mary idolotry is one of the biggest points in the Catholic Church's favor. At least we recognize that women kinda matter, somehow.

51 -- no, you're not getting it -- she's just wearing the veil.

58: As long as they're virgins, that is.

(Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Porky Piggin' it".)

Limbo is pretty awesome, but the Church has kind of backed away from that, right?

Come back to me when you research Philosophy.

Weak, and not in keeping with the rest of the rant.

LB, I think Emanuel's getting accused unfairly based on what I've seen - an anonymous aide who says he had cursory knowledge of rumors.

Arg. Brock's quite right on the basics. The big points of contention are a) Catholics believe that it's not just enough to have faith, but that you have to prove your faith by doing good works. Proof of the pudding. To evangelical Protestants (and Lutherans), this sounds like saying that Christ dying wasn't enough for your own salvation. b) Mary is just a nice holy woman for Protestants. She isn't worshipped by Catholics, but she's *nearly* co-redemptrix, and is venerated a lot more. c) And a lot of it is just ritual vs. anti-ritual. d) and then there's the whole sola scriptura thing.

I could recite the creed if you want. That's pretty much it.

The nitty-gritty is pretty much the same. Fully human and fully divine Jesus, death, resurrection, faith. They're a little more obsessed with eschatology and the threat of science, but in fairness, we just got it out of our systems earlier what with Galileo and the whole thing.

Yeah, Limbo's out. My personal vote for most bizarre belief is the literal transubstantiation thing. Dude, you can *taste* that that's neither flesh nor blood.

60: I know, but at least it's *something*. Plus there's at least the hint of an idea that motherhood might matter. And (from where I sit) at least the (traditional) anti-abortion stance was intellectually consistent.

62: It's not official. But it's pretty much 'hey, we worked out this whole Aristotelian project and shit! we discovered a new world/what do we do about dead unborn babies/what do we do about virtuous pagans before Christ', let's annex on this waiting room.

63: Oh come on. There are aesthetic criteria for rants now?

65: right, but since being Catholic (typically) involves believing in the fully divine, fully human Jesus, why isn't being Catholic sufficient but not necessary for being born again? Does being born again require believing that believe is sufficient, which Catholics reject? Go, Book of James, go!

Oh come on, B! You're tasting the accidental properties, not the essence!

My sense is that the born again thing is somehow rooted to the objection to infant baptism. It's that superstitious desire to play-act the moments of the bible: you have to go wade into the river ala John the Baptist for it to be real, b/c that's what happened in the bible.

68: You know, surprisingly, you can't get answers to those questions when you ask. I think it's just that most Catholics figure that the christening is sufficient, and God will work out the rest, and the evangelicals seem to want to pin it to this moment where you stand up and weepily accept Jesus as your fuzzy bunny mentor.

And yes, I know I'm being unfair. This is a lot of pent-up high school rage and blah blah, very nice actual evangelicals when they're not trying to evangelize me.

69: Maybe so. But like Cala, I'll bigotedly assert that at least we drink wine and don't pussy out with that fucking grape juice shit.

I'm the wrong person to opine on this, but isn't there a distinction between factual belief and faith? That is, if Satan existed, he would probably know Christ's nature, but wouldn't be born again because of that knowledge and belief. I think the required mental/spiritual state required for being 'born again' is different from an intellectual acceptance that Jesus is God, and that Baptists would generally say that Catholic doctrine does not reliably produce the proper state (although some Catholics might get there on their own/through grace.)

Doesn't the "born again" thing also amount to a repudiation of the idea of original sin? At least, in the sense that by being born again you get rid of it?

But that's the same -- Catholics shed it through baptism.

I'm getting more confused.

Good point, LB; belief by itself still requires the acceptance of the gift of Jesus' sacrifice. Which I find weird, you blood-lusting pagans, but whatever. Still, wouldn't most orthodox Catholics have this too? I guess my point could be made shorter: what about being born again isn't redundant for a believing Catholic?

72: Enjoy your wine in Hell, heathen. Strangely, for a person who in no way considers himself a Christian, I find infant baptism to be utterly bizarre.

your house of worship is a community center with a damn basketball court in it

Hey!

I think the idea is, if you're a Catholic, nothing, which is why Catholics don't pull attitude at Protestants these days much. If you're an evangelical Protestant, on the other hand, the idea is that 'Sure, Catholics claim to accept Jesus as their savior, but all the doctrinal weirdness around thinking that works matter, and Mariolatry, and idol worship, means that they mostly don't really. They claim to be born again, but are lying/deceived/mistaken.'

78: The Mormon temples? places of worship in Samoa cracked me up. Every one perfectly painted cream-color, and every one with its accompanying basketball court.

not entirely sure why RC's aren't christian, but I think I heard once that it involves potpourri.

your house of worship is a community center with a damn basketball court in it

"Schul with a pool."

75, see 77. The Catholic rationale for infant baptism, obviously, is to save the souls of children who die in infancy. The Protestant objection is that it's obviously not a conscious choice on the infant's part, and therefore doesn't constitute a "real" embrace of Christ. Anyway, my understanding is that the Catholic church deemphasizes the saving the souls of babies thing nowadays and talks about it more as a ceremony of initiation into a community, which would of course make it even less worthy in the eyes of your real bible-thumping born-again types.

Yeah, what do Protestants do about dead little kids?

Yeah, what do Protestants do about dead little kids?

Aren't you familiar with the Left Behind books? All the children on earth will go up to Heaven in the Rapture, along with a few million North American adults. This is because they are innocent and have not yet chosen to follow the devil.

You can only be born again when you reach a level of maturity where you are actually making the decision to be born again. It's kind of like the age of consent.

there's a fabulous bit in Tristram Shandy where he quotes a French Jesuit advising that baptism be administered to still-born infants in the womb, via a suitable conduit (via con dios, too!)

Sterne starts riffing on it, and suggests that mayb we should just baptise the sperm pre-ejaculation, via a suitable conduit.

Except he puts it much better, and he puts it all in a *footnote*, which makes it post-modernly fabulous beyond belief.

In defense of basketball courts, however: I suspect that one reason more folks are going to these megachurchs and so on is because those churches, under the aegis of community and service, provde things like after-school programs, sports programs, book groups, babysitting, and so on. They're really picking up on the whithering away of public services, which explains (I think) why the distinction between church and state is ignored by a lot of Christian fundamentalist types. When fundamentalism itself was a minority religion, there was good reason for fundies to support church/state separation; now that fundamentalist churches provide necessary services to middle-class families, it brings in a *lot* of people who then come to believe that "faith based organizations" do a better job of this kind of thing than government programs. In any case, I don't see why, theologically, the idea of a church creating programs that help families with kids is a problem.

and talks about it more as a ceremony of initiation into a community

The phrase from the protestant infant baptisms of my childhood, always understood to be symbolic, was "the nurture and admonition of the church."

I've noted this before, but my wife taught at a Jesuit University here, and was surprised to find how many of her students, lifelong Catholics, thought the symbolic interpretations of the sacraments were the Catholic ones, not vice-versa. Would come up in literature discussions.

86: Indeed. There was actually a serious debate around that time about baptising in utero. And I believe that there was, and had been for a while, a genuine preference (at least from the Church fathers) to kill the mother, if necessary, in order to get the baby out in time to baptize it, even (or especially) if it were likely to die as well.

I think the similarity between this kind of thinking and current anti-abortion arguments is too obvious to point out.

"Think," of course, s/b "wish."

88--

yeah, always amazing that everyone is not immediately and unquestioningly on-board with the idea that the sacraments change their substance but retain all of their accidents.

I mean, what could be more natural?

87: Yes indeed, and it's explicit. The famous Willow Creek has a branch now in downtown Chicago; the ad for it on the CTA shows young women in a dance class, with the caption, "This is church."

87 - It's that it seems so distinctly unserious. I'm not a religious guy, but really, that's my objection to a lot of things about that whole strain of modern-day Protestantism. I can accept someone earnestly thinking that I'm doomed to burn in Hell, but it's a bridge too far to take it from someone who seems to have put as much thought into the Gospels as I have into my fantasy baseball team. (See also The Prayer of Jabez.)

87: I'd like to buy that as a reason, but I can't, given that the Catholic church I went to as a kid had all of those things but didn't have a basketball hoop where the crucifix should be. It's not that I object to having a gym nearby where people can socialize or to social programs or to babysitting. It's having a multi-purpose room serve as the church, playroom, and basketball court that bothers me on some deeply prejudicial and silly level.

83: The Protestant objection ignores that there this whole Confirmation process which is your grown-up initiation into the faith, where you choose it after having learned about it or at least attended the classes. I can see thinking that someone who was only baptized didn't have a say, but not so much the confirmed person.

surprised to find how many of her students, lifelong Catholics, thought the symbolic interpretations of the sacraments were the Catholic ones, not vice-versa

This has to do with the massive gap between official church doctrine and actual practice in most parishes. The Vatican's pretty much repudiated Vatican II, but most parishes still retain a lot of its elements (and most adult Catholics grew up while it was still supported at the Vatican). In the meantime, Prostantism has increasingly emphasized literalism as the basis of its theology; so no wonder it seems that they, rather than we, are more likely to think that the eucharist is literally Christ's body. After alll, they think that the world was literally created in 7 days.

Mr Tristram Shandy's compliments to Messrs. Le Moyne, De Romigny, and De Marcilly; hopes they all rested well the night after so tiresome a consultation.--He begs to know, whether after the ceremony of marriage, and before that of consummation, the baptizing all the Homunculi at once, slapdash, by injection, would not be a shorter and safer cut still; on condition, as above, That if the Homunculi do well, and come safe into the world after this, that each and every of them shall be baptized again (sous condition)--And provided, in the second place, That the thing can be done, which Mr Shandy apprehends it may, par le moyen d'une petite canulle, and sans faire aucune tort au pere.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/sterne/laurence/s83l/s83l.html

I haven't looked at that in decades--must re-read it one of these days.

But like Cala, I'll bigotedly assert that at least we drink wine and don't pussy out with that fucking grape juice shit.

Church of Scotland can use anything they like for Communion. In the bad old days, they used oatcakes and whisky. In theory, it could be a Big Mac and a Coke.

95 cont: In fact, I think that the counterintuitive distinction in terms of who relies on literalism and who doesn't has everything to do with the historic Protestant belief in a *personal* relationship with god, unmediated by priests, biships, etc. Catholicism, it seems to me, is more comfortable with a kind of elitism that allows the educated to actually *interpret* things; Protestantism, since it believes that everyone should read the bible and interpret it for himself, is gonna have to exert institutional control another way, e.g. by insisting on its literal truth. Plus, you know, that much better supports the idea that the truth in the bible is accessible to everyone; after all, you don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about it in order to know what it means.

95: Do you have the sense that this is a north american effect, primarily? My fairly ignorant impression was that Vatican II didn't cause more than a ripple in south america, for example.

Also, to what degree are you really talking about Pentacostalism (is this the correct description?) rather than Protestant? As I understand it, there is a huge difference between CoE or United and southern charismatic churches, for example.

a multi-purpose room serve as the church, playroom, and basketball court

Dude, the basketball court, also known as "the cultural hall," is a separate room from the place of worship. It's just off the place of worship, and if you've got a big congregation, sometimes they'll take down the dividing wall so that people can be seated in there---but they're two separate rooms.

And temples don't have basketball courts. The temples are the big architectural monstrosies you aren't allowed into; the "wards" are the littler places where people go every weekend, and they're the ones with the basketball courts.

And a child isn't a moral agent until the age of eight.

Aw Jeez. Here is Brian Ulrich, who speaks Arabic I think, on Karzai Falling in Afghanistan.

How do I put this? Sunni/Shia is important, but probably no more important than Catholic/Protestant a few hundred years ago. First, and most important is family/tribe. Then you find ways to form coalitions with other families/tribes. There are Shia Iraqis and Shia Iranians, but some are Iraqis and Iranians before they are Shia. Some are Shia first, but not many.

Th Methodist Church in Dallas will not join the Methodist Church in Boston to wage war on Baptits, but they once did sorta wage war on each other. There are almost as many variants on Shia or Sunni as there are tribes and families.

Zeyad of Healing Iraq had a long three part series on tribalism in Iraq that I saved to my hard drive, but can't seem to find in his archives today. Maybe I will search later. I would characterize the tone as:"In 1730, the assholes out of Anbar raped Basra again." Sometimes it was assholes out of Ramadi or Samarra. Yes they were Sunni assholes. But mainly just tribes of assholes.

I am not certain that Sunni/Shia is very important. It will be Iranian jerks with Basra jerks that incite NE Saudi jerks to grab the SA oilfields. They will call it a Shia jihad.

If they still did oatcakes and whisky, I'd seriously consider conversion.

Vatican II didn't cause more than a ripple in south america, for example

Au contraire! It gave rise to liberation theology, the smashing of which is, I think, a major factor in the last two popes' selection and approach. God fucking forbid that the center of power shift away from the European church hierarchy.

Yeah, what do Protestants do about dead little kids?

Batter and deep-fry them.

On preview, the conversation has moved on, but this is my first comment, and it's long and all typed out, so I'll post it anyway. The big difference between Christians of the born again variety and Catholics (and even other protestant denominations, which they also shun), at least as it was explained to me when my family left the Catholic Church and started going to a born again one, is the saved by grace alone thing. Born again Christians believe that you have to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior" in order to be saved. This means, 1) accepting that you are a sinner, irredeemable on your own merits; 2) that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins; 3) that the only way to get to heaven is to ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins; 4) and then actually ask Jesus to "come into your heart" (relevant Chick tract here. The real tract has a picture of a big chasm with the sinner on one side, Jesus on the other, and a cross acting as the bridge between the two). And you actually have to *go through all the steps and pray the prayer*. Some Catholics believe these things as well and therefore qualify as Christians by born again standards. But most don't, and the Catholic Church certainly isn't emphasizing it.

The big thing born again preachers often say is "it's not a religion, it's a relationship." They see Catholicism as exactly the opposite- the modern day equivalents of the pharisees. Since for born again christians, the relationship is the key to salvation, Catholic's can't be saved. In fact, the Catholic Church is usually seen as extra bad, because it's encouraging people to believe that they are going to heaven when really they're headed towards eternal damnation.

JM -- do Mormons practice baptism?

100: The specific group I'm thinking of (the Assemblies of God in my hometown) had one, large multipurpose room where everything happened. Bible studies, Superbowl parties, church services, basketball tournaments, everything but the money changers. (Okay, that last was uncalled for. Mostly.) I have no idea on the Mormon traditions as I think I know about three LDS people, but from what I know nearly none of my rant applies.

More reflectively, and less bigoted-ranty, what I am mostly objecting to is a small class of born-again teenagers who, it seemed, would one week be into death metal, go to a service with a Christian friend on Sunday, be 'born again' (and now listening to Christian metal), and come into school on Monday and explain how I wasn't really Christian, but they were, because they accepted Jesus just last night! And didn't you know that you were going to hell? It's like the conversion came with anti-Catholic literature.

Hence the 'but your religion was invented two years ago because your pastor didn't like his old church' sort of gut reaction.

The Vatican hasn't repudiated the Second Vatican Council.

You're right about the tide of literalism in protestant churches and the enervation of mainstream protestantism in the same period. AWB has written passionately about this. My catechism in 1965 seems as remote to me sometimes as the Mithraic Bull. And I'm glad most Catholics think that, since it makes so much more sense.

108: I said "pretty much" repudiated.

76/79: I've been away and haven't caught up on the thread yet, so sorry if I'm repeating, but you can throw out all your theological explanations (which, if pondered, will only confuse you, as it seems like Catholics should meet all the criteria): the reason Catholics aren't considered "born again" by most protestants is simple. If you ask a Catholic "are you born again?" or "when did you accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior?", they will look at you with a puzzled look of curiosity. Ergo, they are heathens, despsite "believing" a lot of the rights things and reading (for the most part) the right holy book.

It's interesting too (on a different point) that most Protestants accept the entire Nicene Creed. They think Catholics went bad sometime after that.

106.--Yep. For people born into the church, it's at eight years old. Converts get baptized when they enter into the church.

I was baptized Roman Catholics at the insistence of my grandparents but my brothers were not. From what I can tell, it was more important that I, as a girl, be baptized for some reason relating to women being virtuous and the moral center of a household while my brothers will eventually find salvation through the love and guidance of a good woman. Or something.

Not even "pretty much." There's been some changes as the Vatican is trying to centralize authority, but Vatican II embodied a set of really serious sweeping changes (role of the laity, the vernacular, etc.) Marxist Liberation theology wasn't part of Vatican II, so clamping down on that isn't really a repudiation of anything except Marxism.

Is liberation theology necessarily marxist?

It wasn't part of Vatican II, no. But it was partly the result of the social effects Vatican II had in local and regional churches.

115: I would say no, although a lot of liberation theology is linked more or less directly to political goals that are, or could be described as, Marxist.

115: Not all of it, though there is a natural correlation between the two, if you interpret Jesus' mission materially and as about class struggle.

uh, sociology practiced w/out a license and all, but does it seem like a large part of the commenters here--not only on this thread but at the site altogether--are either Roman Catholic, or Jews? Or in some of our cases, employing writers of both persuasions?
Is this just the old line Democratic religious affiliations emerging again? Or is it something about ethnicities that love to argue? Or ethnicities that are big on guilt-tripping mothers (which might explain our host's Mexican persuasion)?

(or: ethnicities over-represented in the academy. or: invent your own irresponsible sociological speculation!)

Anyhow--damned few genuine Christians.

103: interesting, thanks. I really don't know much about all this (obviously)

I think it's because all the Protestants are not slacking. You know - Protestant work ethic.

121--
excellent point. Get back to work!

As a Presbyterian, I can assure you that Presbyterians are brought up to know absolutely nothing about the history of their doctrine or what sets their worship practices apart from other denominations. The same is true for all the "liberal main-line denominations" which have become inclusive and open-minded recently and as a result are losing millions of people to the "You're with us or against us, and by that I mean you're on our basketball team" denominations.

Ned -- you need to read some Chick -- he will set you straight about ecumenicism.

112 -- If a child dies before receiving baptism (or if a person dies without being converted to Mormonism and baptized), can s/he receive baptism by proxy?

Normally discussions of "religion" here just piss me off, but this one was unique -- in that it actually talked about real practices and doctrines of particular groups, instead of completely ignorant and unfounded generalizations about some mysterious thing called "religion" that's probably pretty dangerous.

Liberation Theology employed Marxist analysis to a certain extent, with the changes necessary for Latin America -- where there had been no real industrial revolution, etc. From my reading in liberation theology, it wasn't just an instrumental thing of pasting Christian stories on top of Marxist ideology, but a sincere (and to a large extent, justified) conviction that certain goals of Marxism and of primitive Christianity overlap (a parallel that was also seen from the Marxist side -- see Engels' text on early Christianity).

Vatican II probably didn't really mean all the cool things that the liberals thought it meant. JP2 and Ratzinger were apparently trying to reign in the excesses, which ended up meaning interpreting Vat2 as narrowly as possible -- not overtly violating it, but going against its "spirit." Having become somewhat jaded about the Catholic Church, I think that a lot of people were naive about how radical Vat2 was. For instance, as far as the "opening to modernity" thing, Ratzinger now thinks that they've pretty well opened up as far as they needed to, cherry-picked the good stuff, and can now lock down again. Was this a betrayal of the "spirit" of Vat2? I don't know -- what would a straw poll of the Vat2 fathers look like if we showed them either the status quo or some liberal paradise where all priests are married lesbians? I bet I know what they'd pick (I'd personally pick the latter).

BLAH.

125.--Yes, although I'm doubt it's considered necessary in the case of a child who died before the age of eight. Fun fact: when I was a young teenager, I was the proxy by which some fifty or so names were baptized. I have no idea who they were, and their names all ran into each other.

All at one go?

111 pwned by 105. Which was the first post ever by quijote. I feel like that means extra-special bad luck for me, for some reason.

As a Presbyterian, I can assure you that Presbyterians are brought up to know absolutely nothing about the history of their doctrine or what sets their worship practices apart from other denominations.

That's recent, Ned. My catechism, in 1965, was out of the Westminster Catechism, and covered that in detail. And I was examined, by the session, on those doctrines. That the situation today is as you describe I won't deny; I've found as much myself, when talking to neighbors and friends. They literally don't know anything about this.

It's not rare to find liberal/mainline seminarians who have basically never opened the Bible.

119: ethnicities overrepresented in big cities?

I grew up thinking America was 50% Catholic, 25% Jewish, 25% other.

128.--Yep. You get dunked over and over again, until you're tired and have cholorinated water up your nose. Fortunately, the water in the golden ox-footed baptismal is kept warm.

I thought a "catechism" was specifically a Catholic thing.

I do remember being taught what the hell the Nicene Creed was talking about, and the reason why baptism is pointless, but that's about it.

131: It seems like reading the Bible would only make it harder to follow contemporary Christian dogma.

I can't tell if 133 is serious or a joke.

119: Sorry, I won't fit your theory. My mom was a Presbyterian who converted to marry my dad and then spent the rest of her life being pretty hostile to Catholicism. And her guilt trips were never of the Catholic type; instead, they were the miasma of guilt (rather than guilt trip, which implies a more focused object of the guilting) one breathes in while being raised by a self-involved depressive who one feels one has to support in order to ensure that mom doesn't totally lose it.

Other than that, though, she was pretty good at teaching me not to feel guilty about your standard Catholic issues, e.g., sex.

I grew up thinking America was 50% Catholic, 25% Jewish, 25% other.

Pretty much, although I'd have guessed 1/3 each.

I grew up thinking America was about 75% Catholic, 1% Jewish, and the rest was probably split evenly between Southern Baptists and WASP Protestants like myself.

I didn't meet a Jewish person until I was 22 years old. (That I was aware of.)

I think I'd go with 70% Catholic, the odd Mormon, the odd Jew, and "other."

I didn't meet a Hispanic person until I got to college. In fact, I don't know if I've ever met one, in the sense of actually being introduced as a peer.

135: but that's true of reading generally, unless carefully constrained.

Um, like, wow Ned. That amazes me.

I didn't mean a Lutheran until college (that I was aware of...it wouldn't necessarily come up, obviously).

It depends on what kind of dogma you're talking about.

Presbyterian dogma seems to be very vague. A lot of "Why not?" and "Who knows?" and "We can only assume". This book was recommended frequently.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Ned, but 133 was serious.

I think my biggest ethnic/religious realization in college was that anti-Semitism really did exist. Not because my college was anti-Semitic, but b/c the presence of a lot of Jews on campus was often remarked upon by non-Jews in a mildly disparaging way.

Well there aren't Hispanics everywhere, you know.

And once I got to college I had this sad truth to deal with. It was only left-wing activism that ever put me in contact with Latino-type people.

144: Really? Depending on the state, that doesn't seem unlikely to me at all. Aren't Latinos quite geographically concentrated?

I didn't meet a Scientologist until I was 25.

LB, this may shock you but I've never met a Samoan.

Well, nowadays Latinos are everywhere, I think, but yeah, I realize that it's not shocking in the sense that not everyplace has a huge middle-class Latino presence. I meant "wow" in the sense that that's just so alien to my own experience. I remember in the last place I lived finding it amazing that although there were Mexican immigrants (mostly working as farm labor, as far as I read), you absolutely never saw them, nor did the grocery stores stock any Mexican foods. So yeah, I know they can be invisible, but still, wow.

The older I get the gladder I am I grew up where I did. A girlfriend of mine recently sent me a link to an article that said that my hometown was one of the few cities at the time in which whites weren't a majority.

152: Ok, Ned, you really need to spend some time in California.

Even in the sixties, one's exposure to church history, doctrine, and theology must have varied enormously by congregation, teacher and minister (usually the same person). We moved just after I turned fourteen to a community very much like Northbrook, — in every respect — and in the new church, those doctrines were never mentioned. I thought then that it was assumed but I wonder now if they'd ever heard of them.

(Also, I never to my knowledge met a devotée of the Hare Krishna sect, until I was in college.)

(I have yet to meet a worshipper of Wotan.)

Heh. My perception was 1/3 Baptist, 1/3 Methodist, 1/3 miscellaneous.

I have only once met a Samoan in the continental US, so we're not that far apart. Pretty small Samoan community in NYC.

157, have I got the song for you.

158 was me.

160 -- Oh I know they exist -- I sort of think my fave cartoonist Patrick Farley counts himself among their number -- just never met one.

161 was almost unnecessary.

Can I just say that I'm intensely disappointed by the Sunn0)))))))))))))))))))))))) lyrics? I mean...the music certainly sounds serious. But how can you take it seriously any more after going to that page?

I've had friends/associates who were (or whose parents were) from Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Croatia, the Azeri region of Turkey, Albania, Slovakia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Armenia, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Russia, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Benin, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, and rural West Virginia. But have only met a couple people from Latin America.

153: In the Northern midwest, a visible Hispanic presence away from the big cities arrived quite rapidly in the mid-to-late nineties. I've been driving from Chicago to Ohio and Wisconsin for thirty years. Until the late nineties, my nephew ran a lawn care business in Columbus with no Mexican workers. Not by design, they just weren't there. Now small cities, like Waukegan, Illinois and Sheboygan, Wisconsin have become places with a visible and vocal Hispanic life, sometimes politically dominant. Even in tiny towns there's no missing them.

Is there anyone here who's never met a Native American?

166.--I grew up with a couple of Cherokee Mormons.

OK, I am a bewildered Catholic, but if it is only God's Grace that saves then how can a person's actions have any effect? I include accepting Jesus Christ as Savior as an action. God's Grace is a blessed mystery.

The matter of works, well corporal acts of mercy and the mnay mentions in the Gospels of DOING good things. They might not save (cf Grace) but they are essentially good.

And regarding infant baptism. What, we only need to be saved after the age of consent? Until then we have a "Get into heaven free" card? Sheesh! So it is being able to see the consequences of our actions that kicks us out of the garden? What about those with no consciences? I think I prefer original sin (and I don't much like that either).

God's Grace is a blessed mystery.

This is Calvinism in a nutshell, is it not? I don't think most evangelicals are Calvinists, though.

I'll cop to the Calvinistic tendency. I just add a lot more mercy into my personal theology. The amazing thing is that so far I've been able to keep it inside the bounds of Catholic theology (as I understand it).

I was a sponsor for a nephew's confirmation and the texts used there also stressed that ultimately it is all up to God who gets saved and too that ultimately it is all a mystery.

Works for me.

so how come nobody has been pushing the idea of consecrated water deliveries, anyway?

It is compatible with Catholicism that God in his infinite mercy can save whoever the hell he damn well pleases: Muslims, atheists, anyone trying their best to live a good life. (Which might perhaps even include: everybody. Maybe hell exists but no one goes there.) It's salvation through Jesus, but the idea is that Jesus's sacrifice is powerful enough to cover all. Of course, we'll never know, so one oughtn't willingly take such a risk. (And the religious life is the path to true happiness, anyway.)

Evangelical protestants in contrast have no problem saying anyone and everyone who doesn't believe and confess and be baptised in the name of Jesus will burn in hell forever, with maggots eating their still-feeling corpses.

fireproof maggots

The best kind.

It is compatible with Catholicism that God in his infinite mercy can save whoever the hell he damn well pleases

Funny, I thought this was pretty much backward: that Catholicism required sacraments for salvation, while Protestantism imputed salvation to arbitrary grace alone.

Well, right, obviously good works are seen as a good thing. I mean, supposedly if you're leaving an active christian life, good works will be a part of it- they are considered a "fruit of the spirit". But the good works will come as a result of the decision to be born again. And the only action/work that can save, in the born again christian mindset, is the decision to accept God's grace.

I do think born again christianity, at least the southern california brand of it that I've known, is suprisingly calvinist. I had this realization in the middle of a debate with one of my religion professors in college and it pretty much drove the final nail in the coffin of any religious belief I had. I think my professor realized it at the time, too, which made for an interesting moment.

Also, on preview, the Catholics missionaries and priests I know have pretty much backed away from requiring sacraments for salvation and towards the far more humble view that we have no way of knowing or understanding the will of god.

159: My dad's wife's family are all Samoan.

169: I kinda like the doctrine of original sin, on the grounds that it's a fabulous metaphor for the problem of evil and the idea that we should reject holier-than-thouishness.

What about the whole blaming it on women part?

176: As I understand it, and I'm probably wrong about this, the 'doing good works' bit isn't salvific on its own, but is a way to keep the faith alive. It's easy to be saved if all you have to do is say it, but it's more meaningful if you actually have to live it. So it's not so much that you're saving yourself by doing good deeds, but that in doing good deeds you're realizing what it is to be a person of faith.

Catholicism used to be very strict about the relationship between the sacraments & being saved (hence the mad rush to baptize infants), but my understanding is that went out the window sometime around the discovery that there was a whole nuther continent that hadn't been evangelized to, and surely it wouldn't be fair of God to send everyone to hell. I think the current understanding is that everyone is saved through Christ, but 'through Christ' doesn't necessarily mean explicitly professing the creed, i.e., if God wants to save the human race he can figure out the details. Or as my dad used to put it 'God isn't going to send someone to hell for worshipping a flat rock because he doesn't know any better.' Or if you read Narnia, it's okay if you worship Tash because Aslan understands.

I think the doctrine of original sin has some appeal if you believe you yourself are on the whole a good person, but you recognize that you have bad impulses. Original sin explains that in a way that doesn't make you evil.

I suppose original sin would be a good metaphor for the problem of evil, but the problem with that is that it's not a metaphor.

Arg, I missed that. It's only a fabulous metaphor for the problem of evil if you're getting the problem of evil wrong.

180 - Seriously? Because I thought the Catholic Church formally rejected universal salvation in favor of particularism around the time of Origen.

There's a take on original sin that I'm okay with...more that as a result of that action we are born into a fallen world that leads us to commit individual sins, than that we individually are born with a stain on our soul. I think Benedict has even semi-endorsed this. It still doesn't work for me but it's better than the popular conception.

This is all very vague and quite possibly wrong, so actual Catholics can correct me.

i grew up in midwestern small town and thought that jews, catholics, blacks, and (india) indians were each about 3% of the population. Hispanics were just in san diego or something.

And regarding infant baptism. What, we only need to be saved after the age of consent?

I realize this is the vestigial bits of my Baptist upbringing speaking, but a baptism that isn't the result of a conscious choice just strikes me as pointless, and entirely about the parents, not the child.

The problem with baptisms at an age of consent and the lack of a doctrine of original sin is that every not-so-great decision after the age of consent then becomes your own willful choice for sin.

I clearly remember how scared I was when I got baptized, at eight: now every decision I make can be held against me!

184- seriously. There's no question this doctrine is in stark contrast to earlier Catholic texts, which unequivocally declared that everyone not in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church would spend their eternity with the fireproof maggots. But that's not the modern understanding. It takes quite a bit of finesse to work the old pronouncements into the modern theory without admitting contradiction or error, but it can be done. Now Catholics are to encouraged to hope and pray that none suffer the fate of hell, to recognize that Jesus' sacrifice had the power to redeem all mankind, and certainly not to presume that we mere mortals can discern something as grandiose and mysterious as the Almighty's eternal judgment.

My dad was given the choice of being baptized at eight. He chose not to and remains a heathen to this day.

Heathens would be a good name for a movie satirizing a clique of vindictive atheists.

Pious much?

Did y'all heathens know that, in a time of crisis (which for some people includes "my child isn't going to baptize my grandbaby!"), a lay person can do a baptism? I know a woman who baptized her grandchild once while bathing it.

Somehow this amuses me.

Like, totally.

192 to 192.

"192" s/b "194"

Keep trying, SB.

194 to 192, and that's the last of it.

My dad informed me when I was eight and about to be baptized that he thought the Mormon religion was absurd. Apparently, waiting until the last possible moment to give his opinion had already become a tradition by the time it was my turn.

200?

Did y'all heathens know that, in a time of crisis (which for some people includes "my child isn't going to baptize my grandbaby!"), a lay person can do a baptism? I know a woman who baptized her grandchild once while bathing it.

Presumably this is how Flanders baptized Homer.

I must have missed that one. Flanders isn't Catholic, anyway. Is he?

My dad informed me when I was eight and about to be baptized that he thought the Mormon religion was absurd.

That's bizarre. Was he still attending and stuff?

Flanders isn't Catholic, anyway. Is he?

Apparently you missed that one too. (No, he most certainly isn't.)

Yeah, well, whatever.

203.--This taps into the weirdness of my identifying myself publicly as a jack mormon. My father is, was, and has always been a core atheist. My mother, however, is sixth or seventh generation Mormon, has two prophets in her family line, and raised us in the faith--albeit, effectively, as a single mom in that community.

My father is, was, and has always been a core atheist. My mother, however, is sixth or seventh generation Mormon, has two prophets in her family line, and raised us in the faith--albeit, effectively, as a single mom in that community.

Whoa, that's totally my family. Dad's an atheist/agnostic, my mom's family is Mormon going back several generations in Utah, and she's the one who raised us in it.

And aren't you from Northern Cal? My dad's from Benicia. This is all too weird.

I told you that your family's photos gave me serious reason to wonder whether we were related!

My dad's from the Yukon, though, which gives my siblings and I hope that we've escaped the various genetic weirdnesses that have plagued my mother's side of the family.

I think we've determined this before, but my mother's side of the family is the Hirum and Joseph F. descended branch of Utah Mormonism. My extended family has intermarried with a number of the other old Mormon families, of course, but I really shouldn't give a full genealogical here. Anyway, I'll bet we're cousins of some sort, yet to be determined.

Or, this is all an elaborate story, and one of these days you're going to slip up and I'll figure out you're one of my sisters fucking with my head.

Original sin? What, like poking a badger with a spoon?

No, no, no, gswift, you missed your cue. This is where *you* reassure *me* that you're not one of my cousins.

Now, try again.

Now I really want to know if you two are related.

I'd say that the odds are pretty good that our families have intermarried at some point.

Hey, gswift, send me a line at my suddenly enabled email, and let's sort this thing out once and for all.

Poking badgers with spoons: Tired
Overclocking capybaras: Wired

216: ouch and wow.

Original Sin as a topic is more like poking a skunk with a fork. Luckily, few are poking.

BPhd & teofilo are right about emergency baptisms. Even a baptism done by Ogged, as long as it uses water, the core Trinitarian phrasing, and the intent to perform a Christian baptism is valid if still illicit. (Western Orthody is more permissive than Eastern. The Eastern church says this is a true baptism only if done by a Christian.) I remember being taught some of this at age 12 and being fascinated at the distinctions between valid, licit, illicit, and invalid. I thought it was pretty cool that someone had thought this all through.

Oh, I see in the wiki on this that the Roman church didn't decide until this century that LDS baptisms don't count as "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." In Vatican-time that was a quick decision.

Now I really want to know if you two are related.

From the names she emailed me, I don't think so, but I'm pretty ignorant of who all's on my maternal grandfather's side, so there's an outside chance.

gswift, did you see the Webley reference from this afternoon? There's one you don't get to use every day. You might be related to John Moses Browning.

You might be related to John Moses Browning.

Doesn't look like it. A lot of geneological records can be seen on the LDS church's site familysearch.org. Throw John Browning in with a Utah location, and his year of death, 1926, and you can trace him back quite a ways in the ancestral files. Those particular Brownings have been here a while. One was born in Jamestown in 1646.

Got a favorite Browning? Mine is the last one, the High Power pistol.

Hi Powers were ahead of their time. I've never owned a Hi Power, but love 1911's. Unfortunately, my taste in 1911's outstrips my budget. Since I don't have the pesos for a Nighthawk or Brown, I might end up getting a Kimber seeing as they finally pulled their heads out of their asses and went back to an internal extractor.

Given that we're both descended from relatively old Mormon families, I'm still presuming that we're cousins of some sort until proven wrong.

218: I heard about that Vatican pronouncement at the time, but it puzzles me. Back when I was a Mormon and baptized people, I used a completely Trinitarian formulation (dating from the early, Trinitarian period of Joseph Smith's theological development): "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." It's an odd prayer in Mormonism, the only one in the name of all three members of the Trinity. But the wiki makes it seem like the Vatican doesn't count it because the Mormon who pronounces it might have something else in mind when they recite it, other than what the text says. Are 'Father', 'Son', and 'Holy Ghost' not rigid designators?

DaveB, the trinitarian problem is how one puts those three identities back into a single God. My understanding is that, for more orthodox Christians, "father," "son," and "holy Ghost" are nowhere near as rigid designators as they are for Mormons.

I can't say whether gswift is related to JM, but if my guess as to his identity is correct, then it seems that he's related to me. And that we share Roger Williams as an ancestor: whom see, if anyone is wondering who is and who is not a Christian. This is through the person I figure to be gswift's maternal grandfather, although for him the line goes through Nauvoo, for me it's just hanging around the old home place for about 300 years.

Um...my great-grandfather was a janitor in the Bangor, Maine city hall building for a couple decades. Am I related to any of you people?

227:

I'm not anonymous or anything, I just use first initial and last name as my handle so that any Google search on my name doesn't pull a bazillion examples of my internet ravings.

So I'm G. Swift, my mother's father is a Wightman. I imagine that'll tell you if you're guessing right.

223--
"they finally pulled their heads out of their asses and went back to an internal extractor."

well that sounds like a case of right tool for the right job.

is this the thread for the resurgent non-Jew, non-RC unfogged readers? Man, Jamestown throwdowns and everything. Wasp much? Next we're going to learn that ogged came over on the Mayflower.

Ogged came over in a black BMW.

Well, Columbus came over in a Pinto with his ninos, as I recall.

My ancestors sailed to America on pigs.

My maternal ancestors are Irish peasants, and my paternal ancestors can be traced back to Queens in the early twentieth century, at which point they are lost in the mists of time.

220-22 -- Some joke needs to be inserted punning on "Browning motion".

I'm going to claim not to be related to any of y'all.

229 -- If you ever become interested in doing so, the Wightman ancestry is easily traceable.

230 -- Ogged is 400 years old? I guess that would explain a few things.

If you ever become interested in doing so, the Wightman ancestry is easily traceable.

I ran across that wightmanfamily.com site a month or so ago. I keep meaning to order some books from them. Looks like they've put a lot of good material together.