Wacky Wednesday Arizona's Conscience Law

Update 3/4/2014: Upon rereading the second stanza, it did not convey what was meant to be said. Therefore, it has been changed in the second and third lines. I am sorry for the confusion.

A counter for lunch is for all.
Grand Canyon State's holding the ball.
Comparisons work
For even a jerk
Unless the analogies fall.

And owners have rights to deny
A service to one that is high ‡,
Or raises the finger,
Or clocks one a ringer,
Or other acts that go awry.

Analogies are hard to align,
But here's one that's going to chime.
If 'Zona's law passed
When *More held his fast,
His head would have stayed all the time.

© 2014 Wondering Zygote Emeritus
wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com

Image Source HT
https://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei/photos/a.737221629640626.1073741825.205344452828349/882719645090823/?type=1&theater

*St. Thomas More was held in the Tower of London instead of revealing his beliefs that the supposed marriage between King Henry VIII and his second Queen was valid and that the King was the head of the Church of England (CoE). He was beheaded for treason for these beliefs. See the movie and play Man for All Seasons for more dramatic details.

‡ For those who are foreign and are translating this stanza: high = high on drugs and/or alcohol; the finger = the middle finger which is highly offensive; clocks one a ringer = punches and/or beats someone up.

The analogy between serving food to all people regardless of any ** accidental trait of a person is not consistent with requiring a caterer or photographer providing services for an event that either directly or indirectly supports an act that is morally repugnant to said caterer or photographer (etc.).

** An "accident" is a philosophical term for some trait that doesn't necessarily define a substance. An accident may change while the substance stays the same.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival Post II

This is for the weekly Catholic Carnival!

Be sure to visit RAnn at This, That and the Other Thing and check out some posts from other bloggers participating in Sunday Snippets this week. Why not join us and share a blog post or two from last week?

Question of the week: What is your favorite Bible verse and why.
My favorite Bible verse is 1 Corr. 15:16-17 (yes, two verses, but one sentence), "For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins." Since Christ has been raised from the dead, these verses remind me that my ultimate beliefs are hopeful, historical, reasonable, and not in vain.

For the week of February sixteenth:

February 17
Commentary on the Big Bang Theory Theme Song
The Big Bang Theory Theme Song Part V
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-big-bang-theory-theme-song-part-v.html

February 18
Commentary on the movie Ender's Game
Ender's Game Part I
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/enders-game-part-i.html

February 19
Commentary on Heidi Klum and Seal healing their marriage
Wacky Wednesday Klum and Seal
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/wacky-wednesday-klum-and-seal.html

February 20
Commentary on California breaking into 6 regions
CA Splitting Up
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/ca-splitting-up.html

February 21
Commentary on the movie Ender's Game
Ender's Game Part II
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/enders-game-part-ii.html

February 22
Commentary on the movie The Host
The Host Part I
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-host-part-i.html

The Host Part III

In the last post on The Host with Saoirse Ronan, the concept of the soul was introduced. In this post, I would like to look at another aspect of the soul, freewill.



***Spoilers Alert!*** There was a whole bunch of will assertion in this movie, especially in Saoirse Ronan's characters (two persons together for most of the movie).

But first, backing up further to see the larger view, the alien race that took over Earth was pushing their agenda to keep the native people from destroying themselves and their environment (as was mentioned in the first post). Unlike the Ender's Game movie, the reason for the takeover was not for land or resources, but to essentially save the planet by inserting an alien world government and populace (that sure sounds familiar).

This scenario of the movie seems forced. Why would a peaceful alien species who values non-violence forcefully take over people against their own will? Do they see themselves as the doing the right thing (good means and ends) or simply the necessary thing (good ends matter only, not means)? Do they really believe in free will?

This last question seemed to be a shock to the aliens. There was never reported to be a human that still asserted his or her (free) will after becoming a host. This is why Saoirse Ronan's alien character was alarmed and kept secret (for most of the movie) the fact that her host was asserting herself.

Perhaps the aliens did not believe in free will. I've argued before that if there is no free will (no God), there is no morality. If they did not believe, the alien actions would not have to be justified, since it's just those whom blind processes (nature) determine are stronger who get to decide (determinism). However, the hosts did assert their freewill, therefore, there are good and bad means (means matter).

The aliens who became friends with the humans realized that there was a right-and-wrong that the humans had at least a grasp of. This realization was attractive to them.

This attractiveness seemed to be ultimately an attractiveness towards God.

The Host Part II

***Spoilers Alert*** Other than the demonic-like parallels in The Host, it's magnificently surprising that the movie writers got the concept of the human host soul right (notice that I didn't write "human host's soul").



It's been said very often that people have a right to their body, specifying a type of ownership of one's body by the self. This is a modern concept called Cartisian dualism. Someone's body and concept of self are said to be two separate entities. (This is very evident in the abortion and same-sex "marriage" debates.)

The Christian concept of self is the integration of body and soul. Pope John Paul the Great summarized this concept best by referring to a person as an embodied soul.

In The Host, the alien "soul" who was really an embodied soul, not just spirit, seemed to be in competition with the hosting embodied soul. This was evident by the way that the main character host was able to physically overrun the alien symbiont by force of will.

Fr. Barron further explains the relationship of the soul to the body ("Faith Seeks Understanding Pt. 12: What is the relationship of the soul to the body?"):



Here's The Host Part I.

The Host Part I

The Host is a relatively new movie with Saoirse Ronan that was written by the same person as the Twilight series (I found this out just now). I never watched any of Twilight, but this Host movie was creepy.

It was creepy because it reminded me of a reverse demon possession.



Usually, in the Bible and in movies, when people are possessed by a demon, they try to destroy their host. For example, "Lord [Jesus], have pity on my son, for he is a [possessed] lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water." (Here's another example (Legion).)



There was a reversal of this tendency in The Host. The alien "souls" who were possessing the humans were stopping them from being violent to other humans and the Earth.

Why is this a bad thing? (Why don't you tell me in the comments below?) Perhaps it is because taking away someone's freewill is against God's prime directive (God's will).

(Speaking of prime directive, the Trill on Star Trek (Dax et al.; Dr. Beverly's Trill) had hosts who freely submitted to being used as hosts. So, the same objection can't really be raised in that case.)

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival Post I

This is for the weekly Catholic Carnival! This is my first one!

Be sure to visit RAnn at This, That and the Other Thing and check out some posts from other bloggers participating in Sunday Snippets this week. Why not join us and share a blog post or two from last week?

Question of the week: Name a favorite book and tell us what you like about it.
My favorite book for now is Fill These Hearts by Christopher West.
I like this book since it presents the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul the Great in a casual style. This style is further accentuated by his connections between the topic and popular music (a niche of my blog). It was so understandable, in my opinion, that I suggested it to a non-Catholic acquaintance for further understanding of the Theology of the Body (she's from Turkey).

For the week of February ninth:

February tenth:
Commentary on the movie The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp.
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-lone-ranger-part-i.html
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-lone-ranger-part-ii.html

February twelfth:
Commentary on the movie The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp.
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-lone-ranger-part-iii.html
Commentary on the creationism/scientism debate between Bill Nye and Bill Ham.
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/nye-ham-debate-wacky-wednesday.html
Commentary on the TV show The Big Bang Theory theme song.
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-big-bang-theory-theme-song-part-iv.html

February fourteenth:
A video of my Valentine from my wife.
http://wonderingzygoteemeritus.blogspot.com/2014/02/happy-saint-valentines-day.html

Ender's Game Part II

***Spoilers Alert!*** One other big thing in Ender's Game was that Ender unknowingly wiped out the entire alien species, except for what looked like a worker and a queen. This reminded me of that story in the Bible where the Israelites where commanded to put the ban on an entire people, or tribe.



The Israelite king tried to save one person from this enemy nation, but the Israelite prophet Saul chastised him and killed the last one himself.

Just like the whole creation/evolution debate, this genocide problem in the Bible had been thought about from the beginning of Christianity.

The one obvious move was to deny that the Old Testament is really inspired by God or reveals a God that Jesus was talking about in the New Testament. This banning of the Old Testament was declared a heresy called Marcionism by the early Church.

Another option was to see if these and other vexing stories in the Bible (like the creation story in Genesis) could be seen as more allegorical. Origin of Alexandria was a leading proponent of this idea.

Father Barron can say more about this option.



I think this allegorical option is a good one, especially since the Old Testament, "contain[s] matters imperfect and provisional".

Ender knew that the genocide he unknowingly carried out was wrong. He tried to make amends at the end of the movie.

The Church officially has the same take on genocide, it is to be rejected. She is with Ender. She teaches that "One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide."

Here's Part I.

CA Splitting Up

On yesterday's Wacky Wednesday, I reported that Seal and Heidi Klum may be patching up their marriage.

Not so good news for their state of California: it may be splitting up into six states.

[Tim Draper] proposed dividing California into six states. San Diego and Orange County would make up [1] "South California." [2] "West California" would include Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, while Bakersfield, Fresno and Stockton would make up the larger [3] "Central California." San Francisco and San Jose would be in the new [4] "Silicon Valley." [5] "North California" would include the Sacramento area, and [6] "Jefferson" would be home to the Redding and Eureka areas.

http://news.yahoo.com/petition-split-california-6-states-gets-green-light-213801353--abc-news-topstories.html

Well, Facebook is already prepared. It just added six more gender options to its list.



I already put in brackets ("[ ]") the six regional names that were proposed in the quote above. What do you think the names or nicknames of these regions should be?

Some ideas of mine:

[1] "South California." California Caliente
[2] "West California" California Cara
[3] "Central California." California Liberal
[4] "Silicon Valley." California Próspera
[5] "North California" California Corrupta
[6] "Jefferson" California Ventosa