The Eternal Value of Privacy

The lazy argument for security measures that are intrusive usually goes something like this: "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear." I think that we need a similar 'put it on a tee-shirt' phrase to counter that. Maybe we have it here

Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

???
Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy:
Filed in: liberty, privacy, security, ID_cards

Aramaic Lord's Prayer on Squidoo

Given the popularity of my postings on the Aramaic Lord's prayer in both my own visit figures and in terms of the ranking that they tend to achieve in search engine results, I decided I'd consolidate some of the better info into a single mini-site and Squidoo seemed ideally suited. So a touch of pride, and a roll of drums as today I discovered that the squidoo site has made it among the first out of the hat on a recent google search for "the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic".

My guess is that visitors may be either people of an 'esoteric bent' who have enjoyed purported translations such as Neil Douglas Klotz's, or Christians who have heard of it and are trying to find out more. So my question to you, dear reader, is what further info should I include to help these two disparate groups?
Aramaic Lord's Prayer on Squidoo
Filed in: Lord's_prayer, paternoster, Aramaic, abwun, translation, midrash, qaddish

Backs To The Future: Language and time-space

It's easy to forget the deeply metaphoric nature of even everyday language. We fail to notice most of the time how our thinking about time is actually about space imagined as if it's time. And that particular core metaphor [space=time] is normally envisaged with the future in front of us. But...

Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world – from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on – have not only characterized time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front of ego and the past in back. The Aymara case is the first documented to depart from the standard model,

But lest we think too easily that Aymara really is a bit counter-intuitive:

You can use the word "ahead" to signify an earlier point in time, saying "We are at 20 minutes ahead of 1 p.m." to mean "It's now 12:40 p.m." Based on this evidence alone, a Martian linguist could then justifiably decide that English speakers, much like the Aymara, put the past in front.
There are also in English ambiguous expressions like "Wednesday's meeting was moved forward two days." Does that mean the new meeting time falls on Friday or Monday? Roughly half of polled English speakers will pick the former and the other half the latter. And that depends, it turns out, on whether they're picturing themselves as being in motion relative to time or time itself as moving. Both of these ideas are perfectly acceptable in English and grammatical too, as illustrated by "We're coming to the end of the year" vs. "The end of the year is approaching."

If you're interested in pursuing the way that our everyday thinking is fundamentally metaphoric I would recommend Geoge Lakoff's books, especially Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh.
ScienceDaily: Backs To The Future: Aymara Language And Gesture Point To Mirror-Image View Of Time:
Filed in: language, linguistics, metaphor, space, Aymara

Cost of NHS IT programme 'to double'

The cost of setting up the vast NHS IT programme is expected to be double the government's original estimate

So of course the ID cards project is going to be in time and on budget.
Yeah, right.
Stop this madness now.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Cost of NHS IT programme 'to double'
Filed in: government, IT, UK

Watch The Convent

Four women, some believing some not all at different points in their lives, share the life of a convent for 40 days. It's really fascinating viewing not least because you get to see them all grow and develop and you see some good spiritual direction in action from time to time.
God bless the BBC! Because you can see it here, online, yes, really, go on, you know you want to.
BBC - BBC TWO - Programmes - The Convent
Filed in: convent, spirituality, Christian, TV, BBC, faith, growth

Converts to Christianity from Islam

In previous postings I've mentioned that it can be difficult to 'reply' to Muslims parading converts from Christianity because the danger that leaving Islam places most or at least many people in, they prefer to remain anonymous and not call attention to it if not for their own sakes, for the sake of their families and friends. However, there are some quite prominent people who have taken the hajj to Calvary and are willing to say so publically. So I salute them here and note how many of them have had to leave homeland and livelihood -something which most converts to Islam don't really have to contemplate doing.

Faith Freedom International :: View topic - High-Profile Converts to Christianity from Islam
Filed in: convert, Islam, Christian, testimony

Defying church, 12 Catholic women to be ordained here

I thought I'd blogged about a Roman catholic ordination of women last year on the Danube, but can't now find the post. But here's another taking place in the USA. Of course, the women are automatically excommunicated under the present rules, but it's interesting that they claim the Bishops ordaining them trace back to active RC bishops who did it in secret to avoid reprisals. I read this and wonder if the RC doctrine is that the magisterium expresses the mind of the church, as with the issue of birth control, it seems to me that the mind of their church is probably behind this... at what point do they admit that if they can't convince the faithful of their position, perhaps the Holy Spirit is saying something, particularly when other traditions have positive experience and cogent theological arguments that make sense even in RC terms.
It'll be interesting to watch this.

I found the comments of one of the protagonists very interesting for several of the points made...

I have had a number of women Catholic friends who complete their master's of divinity and then are ordained in other faiths."
The Roman Catholic Church, Ms. Schenk added, has changed more than most people realize.
"Taking interest on a loan -- that used to be the gravest of sins. It was OK to have slaves. Some bishops fought to keep slaves. Eventually, church teaching changed on that. 'The Mass will always be in Latin,' [Pope] Pius XII said. Six years later, it was in English.

The sense of vocation is clearly there, to abandon their church in order to pursue it, they are theologically literate ... and then there's the argumen about changing understandings, well demonstrated from tradition.

Filed in: church, RC, women, priests, ordination, catholic, order
Defying church, 12 Catholic women to be ordained here: