Science does not explain compassion, love, beauty, fear, justice, etc., etc., throughout an entire lexicon of factors endemic to the human condition and the world in which we live.

People will sacrifice their lives for ideals, love, and other reasons. Are we to imagine that these are not forces active in the world? And frankly, almost everything that makes life worthwhile cannot be definitively explained by science. (My wife and I have a great fondness for cats and dogs… what’s the explanation?)

If it were, in fact, possible for science to definitively explain all these qualities, then perhaps scientists could make some argument about explaining “God”. However, they cannot, and I have met very few who even have the kind of mind required to think about this sort of thing.

There have been some, like Sir Arthur Eddington, who were able to see some greater and intelligent mind behind the array of factoids and scientism, but this is rare.

And from our angle, I think part of the way we get at loggerheads is that the omnipotent quality of God is always the one that creates challenges. Much Biblical language is taken from the idea of people at court addressing the majesty of a king. And, of course, both kings and omnipotence then get lost in the implications of theodicy. This is one of the reasons I am so fond of Paul Tillich. He attempted (and often succeeded, I believe) in translating mythic imagery into ideas that can be considered by the university mind.

However, let’s hypothesize a view of God that excludes the omnipotent part and instead centers on the omniscient part. There is a divine, all-knowing nature of the universe that sees and comprehends every factor from the largest to the smallest. This nature can only be experienced, not proved or demonstrated. (Although in fact, divine nature, is, of course, demonstrated in a variety of ways throughout history — divine healings, divine rescues, etc., etc.)

Anyway, this is simply one way that I talk about these matters from time to time when i want to encourage a benevolent view of divine Nature while bypassing this tiresome argument asking us to show them a God acting as Creator and demonstrating that creation under laboratory conditions.

(I once saw an amusing book with the title, “God Proven Scientifically: Announcement To Be Made Shortly By the White House.”)

I absolutely, 100% agree, in that the original referent is not Jesus Christ in most of these Psalms: it is the individual speaker. However, I’m operating out of a Catholic spiritual (rather than academic, which would say precisely what you do) perspective, in which the Old Testament is read in reference to the New. Many of the Church Fathers comment that what we see in the Psalms is an exchange between the Father and the Son, and tradition has played this out in the East and West: In monasteries, you will see the choir split into two sides; one side chants the psalms to the other, in recognition of this exchange, (traditionally) running through the Psalter in a week’s time.

Again, thanks for both your humor and your article!

I deeply appreciate the Pope going to Britain. I think we have now had an opportunity to see what happens over 50 years of proselytizing by atheists, atheist-existentialists, scientific materialists and post-modernists.

If the water drips long enough, it can wear away the rock, so now by eroding Christian belief, England has been left vulnerable to takeover by Islam. I heard Peter Hitchens talking about this on the radio. There may not be much Christianity left in Great Britain, but there is a lot of fervent Islam.

If the Church of England had simply done its job and carried out its religious tradition, there might be a bulwark against Islam. As it is, we hope very much that the Pope is influential on his trip.

Here’s a question. The monarch of Great Britain is coronated in a ceremony that is a deep acknowledgment of the Christian faith. Even the throne sits upon an important altar stone. So what happens when the predominant religion is Islam? Do they throw the coronation ceremony out with the king?

Incidentally, I apologize for rushing Cthulhu into full communion with the Catholic Church. Your bus sign in no way suggested that full communion had occurred. In addition, I apologize for claiming that the Starry Wisdom cult was implied by the Cthulhu sign. Clearly, the Starry Wisdom cult was created by devotees of Nyarlathotep.

I should have made certain that the reader understood I meant the Esoteric Order of Dagon. The cult was devoted to the worship of Dagon, Hydra, and Cthulhu. It was founded by Captain Obed Marsh around 1840 in Innesmouth, Massachusetts.

You really hit the nail on the head with the Anglican Communion and the cause of its hemorrhage. Churches – whether Catholic or not – don’t exactly do well when they break away from their deeply embedded traditional structures, and Catholics know this well: we are only now starting to address some of the problems created by “going along with the times,” which really poisoned the well in the Vatican II era.

This would suggest that the Catholic Church has now recognized the Starry Wisdom cult that was established in Providence, RH, some time around 1844 by Enoch Bowen. Moreover, this would suggest that the Catholic Church is now in communion with the Starry Wisdom, and it is now possible for a Catholic to participate in the Eucharist during Starry Wisdom worship ceremonies.

Anyway the Protestant churches have not yet been recognized, nor are we in official communion. My assumption is that Roman Catholics find Cthulhu a more desirable than Baptist Christians. I simply must protest…

Secondly, as for the gals wanting ordination, I would say be careful what you wish for.

In the Protestant world, we have had women a pastors for a long time, and it is no longer rare, and often they do a good job. So if women in the Catholic Church would like to become Methodists or Presbyterians or Baptists or something, we would be happy to welcome you into our fold. And if you wish to seek ordination we will not stand in your way.

However, when women began to push for ordination in the Episcopal Church, it was the beginning of the Episcopalian downfall.

The Episcopal Church has fallen in to fragmentation, and many Episcopalians have quite the church for another, or dropped the whole thing altogether. The remaining Episcopalians are in turmoil, anxiety and argument. Suspicions and paranoia are commonplace. And this all started because women insisted that they have to change the entire hierarchic structure of the church.

I understand that these horrible scandals have opened the door to people who would like to justify a lot of fundamental and systemic changes in the church. However, the reasons for a celibate, male priesthood are deep and enduring and not suject to superficial reconsideration.

So if the gals want to press for ordination, I hope they realize that they would be virtually destroying the Roman Catholic Church as everyone knows it. There would probably be dozens of schisms and sects and alternative dogmas — some of the very ills that they criticize Protestantism for.

So, ladies, if you want to become an ordained minister join us out here in the Protestant world where we have a very old and venerable tradition of acceptance of women ministers. We will be happy to have you. But, of course, you will no longer be a Catholic, and you will no longer be able to enjoy the incredibly rich and layered and nuanced tradition you are leaving.

I’m relieved to find that Catholics are no less susceptible to crypto-Southern gothic psychosis than Protestants.

(Protestant ministers who run establishments for people to watch girls in bikinis shoot machine guns — Protestant ministers who run Bigfoot museums — ordained Protestant clergy who operate snake farms on forgotten routes of highway that stream through desert country…)

So Pope Michael reassures me that we Protestants are not alone. And, of course, one cannot discount the fact that this church actually has attracted a congregation. And moreover there appear to be earnest and wholesome young men who have discovered their vocation in Pope Michael’s church.

I only wish that Flannery O’Connor was still alive to review this movie. Now that would be one heck of a delicious review.