The Drums of War

Today's headlines:
Ahmadinejad: Israel 'will be removed'
Diplomats Say Iran Starts Enrichment
US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
'10,000 would die' in A-plant attack on Iran

American Democrats have been increasingly hawkish on Iran, hoping that a strong military image will help them in the 2008 elections, and the mainstream media is following this stance. Also, see this map of purported U.S. military bases around Iran:


I suspect that this long-term problem with Iran was a reason for the Iraq war: Saddam may have been a threat, but Iran is far more problematical, with a very large nuclear program and inflamatory threats from its leadership. President Bush included Iran in the "Axis of Evil". The U.S. now has land bases nearly surrounding the country. The nuclear threat from Iran is most likely more directed towards Israel, although the U.S. is not immune to attack by means other than missles.

Now might be a good time to review the official Church teachings on war. Excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, article on the Fifth Commandment.

2304 Respect for and development of human life require peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war, and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is "the tranquility of order."⁹⁷ Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity.⁹⁸

2305 Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic "Prince of Peace." By the blood of his Cross, "in his own person he killed the hostility,"¹⁰⁰ he reconciled men with God and made his Church the sacrament of the unity of the human race and of its union with God. "He is our peace."¹⁰¹ He has declared: "Blessed are the peacemakers."¹⁰²

2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.¹⁰³

Avoiding war

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.¹⁰⁴

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."¹⁰⁵

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

2310 Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense

Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.¹⁰⁶

2311 Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.¹⁰⁷

2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties."¹⁰⁸

2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.

Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.

2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."¹⁰⁹ A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.

2315 The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversaries from war. They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations. This method of deterrence gives rise to strong moral reservations. The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations;¹¹⁰ it thwarts the development of peoples. Over-armament multiplies reasons for conflict and increases the danger of escalation.

2316 The production and the sale of arms affect the common good of nations and of the international community. Hence public authorities have the right and duty to regulate them. The short-term pursuit of private or collective interests cannot legitimate undertakings that promote violence and conflict among nations and compromise the international juridical order.

2317 Injustice, excessive economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust, and pride raging among men and nations constantly threaten peace and cause wars. Everything done to overcome these disorders contributes to building up peace and avoiding war:

Insofar as men are sinners, the threat of war hangs over them and will so continue until Christ comes again; but insofar as they can vanquish sin by coming together in charity, violence itself will be vanquished and these words will be fulfilled: "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."¹¹⁰

97 St. Augustine, De civ. Dei, 19, 13, 1: PL 41, 640. [City of God]
98 Cf. Isa 32:17; cf. GS 78 ## 1-2.
99 Isa 9:5.
100 Eph 2:16 J.B.; cf. Col 1:20-22.
101 Eph 2:14.
102 Mt 5:9.
103 Cf. GS 78 # 5. [GAUDIUM ET SPES]
104 Cf. GS 81 # 4.
105 GS 79 # 4.
106 Cf. GS 79 # 5.
107 Cf. GS 79 # 3.
108 GS 79 # 4.
109 GS 80 #3.
110 Cf. Paul VI, PP 53.
111 GS 78 # 6; cf. Isa 2:4

Destroy the World From the Comfort of Your Own Home

An article (registration required) in the February 2006 Scientific American magazine describes a new class of subatomic particle accelerators that can fit on a tabletop. Traditionally, these devices are huge; sometimes miles in size, and cost billions. The new plasma accelerators are small and cheap. Particle accelerators make forms of matter that haven't existed since Creation, so there is always the theoretical possibility that one of these exotic new kinds of particle could be highly dangerous, to the point of threatening the world or even the Universe.

Is doing this kind of research a mortal sin?



They also have an article on Jackson Pollock paintings. A researcher has determined that Pollock's drip-paintings have a fractal structure that is consistent over a huge range of scales. A "fractal" is a complex geometric object that has an increasing amount of detail as you look closer: sea-coasts, for example, have a fractal structure. A self-similar fractal, like Pollock's paintings, have smaller patterns that reflect the pattern of larger details. This is similar to the finding that the Classical architectural orders have a self-similar fractal structure, as do the buildings of Louis Sullivan and his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright: see the article The Fractal Nature of the Architectural Orders. Music also has a self-similar fractal nature.

The same magazine has two articles, "Hit" Songs Unpredictable, Thanks to Peer Pressure, and Expectations Influence Sense of Taste. The first article states that aesthetic judgments are situational, while the second article states that sensations are subjective.

I'd rather see studies on how closely test subjects can make objective judgments in spite of subjective and situational factors; now that is classic science! Traditionally, aesthetic judgments are just one form of moral judgment; and moral judgments are influenced by objective, subjective, and situational factors. Right reasoning tries to eliminate the nonobjective factors. These new studies just show that people don't try to be intellectually virtuous.

I used to like Scientific American better than now; in fact the best issue for me was the very first issue I got back in about 1976. For a while, the magazine often had politicized articles on the Cold War, of the kind that encouraged capitulation to the Soviet Union, later it had political global warming articles. The modern magazine is more subjective and kind of dumbed down, and I miss the rarefied scientific attitude of the old magazine. The editors seem to have forgotten the old definition: "science is the virtue of conforming the intellect to the truth".

New Bible Translation

Jimmy Akin has a good discussion on a new Bible translation from Ignatius Press. See the article Revised Ignatius Bible.

"It is the *only* English language translation of the Bible updated specifically to correspond to Liturgiam Authenticam."

Click to see the text of Liturgiam authenticam ("ON THE USE OF VERNACULAR LANGUAGES IN THE PUBLICATION OF THE BOOKS OF THE ROMAN LITURGY").

Here are some of the numerous problems of recent Bible translations, particularly those since the 1960s:

"Dumbing down". Biblical language is often complex, and there is a tendency to want to simplify passages. This is often a problem with youth Bibles. An extreme version of this tendency is to resort to general paraphrasing. Alternatively, people ought to be educated in difficult passages. It's the Bible: we should raise ourselves to it instead of dragging it down to us.

Popular idiom. Again, this is often seen in youth Bibles. This idiom changes so quickly that these Bibles seem comical within a few years. A bigger problem is that readers can get the wrong idea altogether, by assuming that Biblical personages have contemporary cultural attitudes. "Jesus was hanging with his homeboys back in the hood".

"Inclusive" language. This can be relatively benign, for example saying "brothers and sisters" instead of just "brothers". It can get heretical when "God the Father" is referred to as "god our mother and father", or even "goddess our mother". Actually only the traditional wording is "inclusive": "man" includes both males and females. "Inclusive" language is actually logically "exclusive".

Extraneous materials. The official "New American Bible" is notorious for its introductions and footnotes, many of which are controversial, possibly heretical, or even just plain wrong. A recent youth Bible includes pagan prayers and other such non-Christian materials.

Translation of YHWH. Observant Jews do not pronounce the name of God, and instead traditionally translate this name as THE LORD. While this may be a kind of scrupulosity, in order to avoid using the Lord's name in vain, it may actually be a good practice, and it is as traditional as you can get. Some recent translations use the name, and it sounds rather strange.

Messianic interpretation. After World War II, many Jews lost their faith and thought that God had broken His covenant with them. The prophetic books of the Old Testament were then translated to imply that they were talking about the restoration of the secular State of Israel, instead of the coming of the Messiah, which is the traditional interpretation. This has found its way into some Christian Bibles.

Missing books. Luther is responsible for this. It's amazing how many Catholics use Protestant Bibles, and even many Catholic Bibles are Protestant translations. The Orthodox actually have some additional books in their Bibles, but these don't add any new theology (for Catholics, that is).

Secular political translations. These can be any type of bias from progressive to "health and wealth" interpretations, based on current political movements. This is typical of Enlightenment-era translations.

Bad scholarship. Many translations are based on interpretations suggested by modern scholarship. In particular, the founders of the Historical-Critical method hoped to produced a scientific interpretation of the Bible. However, if we define "science" in the traditional way of "conforming the intellect to reality", then these modern interpretations are not scientific, since the results of the scholarship depend on the biases of the scholars. So we end up with Marxist, Feminist, or Post-Structuralist Bibles that don't agree with each other.

In Japan, Justice Is Not Only Blind, It Holds a Stopwatch

See the article: In Japan, Justice Is Not Only Blind, It Holds a Stopwatch

Japan adopted the statute of limitations on murder during the Meiji Restoration when it was desperately trying to catch up with the West in the late 19th century. Convinced that it could not become a modern nation without Western laws, Japan first adopted France's legal system, then switched to the German model because France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, said Morikazu Taguchi, a professor at Waseda University's law school in Tokyo.

"If it was said that advanced countries had it," Mr. Taguchi said, "it became an absolute must."

We have folks here on the Supreme Court who think that, too.

It was widely believed that Germany had the most enlightened, progressive, and liberal laws on the planet. Power there was centralized, society secularized, and military prowess emphasized. But within decades, both Germany and Japan were reduced to ashes.

Conservative and traditional is good. I've always had a higher regard for the old monarchies in Europe over their Modern republican counterparts. Extreme governmental changes inevitably lead to high bodycounts.

Secrets of the Code!

Scholars speculate that members of Opus Dei worship in this temple-like structure. Some say that they kneel before a stone containing fragments of the body of Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned in the Gnostic gospels.


I saw the new trailer for the notorious Da Vinci Code film last night. It looks like an exciting and entertaining piece of irreligion, conspiracy, and alternative history.

Not coincidentally, I received the following secret correspondence from a close friend at the Vatican, a monk in a Spanish religious order. Under no circumstances should anyone reveal this information.

Our little 'project' regarding the Da Vinci Code film must be considered a stunning success for the Church and for the Order. By carefully grooming numerous faithful Catholics in Hollywood for the last several years, we managed to infiltrate most aspects of the film production, from location scouting, financial management, casting, set construction, scripting, the soundtrack production, and even the final editing. While we managed to place associates in nearly all of the trades, we are most satisfied that one of the actresses, XXXXXXXXXXXX [name deleted for privacy], has been secretly a nun of the Order for the past seven years. Of our seventy-one associates in the production, only one was discovered to be a member of the Church.

While most viewers of the film will see it as an anti-Catholic, Post-Modern Feminist piece of propaganda, the hundreds of subliminal clues that we have placed in the film will have ultimately the opposite effect on viewers. These specially-placed clues and images, after some days, months, or even years, will give many viewers a strong desire to start a prayer life, have contrition for their sins, become obedient to the Magisterium, and to make Christ the center of their life.

An intelligent viewer can discern numerous clues that we have placed in the film. As a reward to the diligent, we have revealed some of the Church's closely-held secrets in code, including the real identity of the woman whom Christ considered greater than his Apostles, the verses removed from the Book of Daniel, and the secret that some of the true Popes actually lived in France and not in Rome. We have good reason to believe that the new Pope tacitly approves of these revelations.

Anyone who watches the film with the intent of confirming their anti-Church bias should be aware that unconsciously the opposite effect may occur.

Actually, the above is just a work of fiction. But it's based on scholarship. It could be true!