Magic Statistics

No use trying to fight it, you're an eight-sided die, a d8. A fine example of simple elegance, the d8 is one of the least appreciated types of dice, and is often neglected. You are known to be quiet and shy, outward traits that conceal viscous sarcasm and mean wit. You are very smart, yet wise enough to hide your intelligence the quicker they found out how smart you are, the sooner they'll put you to work, which is something you can do without. People call you dark and pessimistic, or moody and cynical. You find little point in arguing.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

This is one of the most unsettling quizzes I've taken. The questions are so off-the-wall, e.g., What's your favourite Lucky Charm?, that I am amazed the results are so accurate, particularly the bits about sarcasm and cynicism. Lord, have mercy. (I would assume that viscous is a misspelling of vicious.)

via Siris.

UPDATE (20 Feb.): The StatWife is a d6, a normal six-sided die.

You are a good old-fashioned six-sided cube, otherwise known as a d6. Others know you to be plain, predictable, conservative, average, ordinary, and downright boring. You prefer to describe yourself as dependable, honest, practical and trustworthy.

Thank God for that.

UPDATE 2 (21 Feb.): The StatDaughter's result:

You are the rare, the overlooked, yet incredibly useful dodecahedron: the d12. You are a creative, romantic soul. You often act without thinking, but make up for your lack of plans with plenty of heart. You easily solve problems that stump others, but your answers tend to put you into even deeper trouble. You write long, detailed backgrounds for all your characters, and are most likely to dress up as one or get involved in cos-play. You can be silly at times and are easily distracted by your own day dreams, but are at the end of the day you're someone who can be depended on.

via Classical Anglican News Net.

To characterise Leon Wieseltier's review of the not-so-bright Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon as scathing would be putting it mildly. Already in his opening paragraph, Wieseltier calls it a sorry instance of present-day scientism and a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions. Dennett presents a story about the historical origins of religion, but it doesn't prove anything.

There are a number of things that must be said about this story. The first is that it is only a story. It is not based, in any strict sense, on empirical research. Dennett is extrapolating back to human prehistory with the aid of biological thinking, nothing more. Breaking the Spell is a fairy tale told by evolutionary biology. There is no scientific foundation for its scientistic narrative. Even Dennett admits as much: I am not at all claiming that this is what science has established about religion. . . . We don't yet know. So all of Dennett's splashy allegiance to evidence and experiment and generating further testable hypotheses notwithstanding, what he has written is just an extravagant speculation based upon his hope for what is the case, a pious account of his own atheistic longing.

Dennett portrays himself as a champion of reason against religious superstition, but that won’t fly, either:

It will be plain that Dennett's approach to religion is contrived to evade religion's substance. He thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason.

Thus, Dennett is the sort of rationalist who gives reason a bad name. I levelled some of the same criticisms at this book a while back, but not as eloquently or perceptively as Mr Wieseltier.

via Thinking Christian.

After talking to Muslim clerics for the past two weeks, Dr Patrick Sookdheo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says that they think they have prevailed in the argument over the Mohammed cartoons in Britain.

They think they have won the debate, he says with a sigh. They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not. The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent.

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law. It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue.

Dr Sookdheo was born in Guyana and raised a Muslim. His family moved to England when he was 10, and he converted to Christianity while attending university.

Read the whole thing.

Related story in today’s news from the UK: A new poll shows that 40 percent of British Muslims want sharia law implemented in areas of Britain that are predominantly Muslim.

UPDATE (13 Mar.): Later development here.

Liberal political weekly The New Republic asked editorial cartoonist Brian Fairrington to draw a full-colour cover to accompany a story on the Cartoon Jihad. They specifically requested a cartoon illustrating the clash of cultures aspect of the controversy. Mr Fairrington was contacted last Monday and was told the job had to be finished by Wednesday morning. He sketched a preliminary draft and then made several changes as requested by TNR. After receiving final approval, he stayed up until 4:30 am Wednesday morning working on the final version and then sent it off.

After all that, TNR decided to reject the cover because they felt it might generate a reaction. Isn’t that the whole idea behind political journalism? If the magazine doesn’t generate a reaction, it’ll go out of business. Or maybe TNR is afraid of this kind of reaction.

This pencil sketch of the rejected cartoon is posted at Daryl Cagle’s cartoon blog. (The blog doesn’t appear to have permalinks, so you have to scroll down to the entry for February 17th for the details.)

An editorial in the February issue of Anglican Journal suggested that some had hoped the church membership story would die a natural death. It’s not. The controversy is proving so persistent that the March Anglican Journal includes a column by Keith McKerracher, whose report to the House of Bishops last October first brought the issue to the fore.

Background information can be found here and here.

Mr McKerracher takes all sides to task in his column. To those who think the leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) would like the declining membership issue to be forgotten, he says:

Before anyone at church house opines that the national office hopes that the declining membership issue will go away, it might check with others before making that conclusion. I would be very surprised if the primate shares that view. From the enthusiastic response of the house of bishops to the presentation, I would guess that very few of them would hope that the issue dies.

At the same time, Mr McKerracher criticises some who used membership decline to attack ACC policies they disagree with, e.g., on same-sex issues or ordination of women.

These critics fail to recognize (or ignore) that the decline in church attendance in Canada began to occur at least a decade before any of these issues arose.

This is true. One could argue, however, that those two particular issues are merely the presenting symptoms of a more fundamental and long-standing problem in the ACC: loss of confidence in the biblical foundation of the church.

The church is established on the Gospel of Christ as presented in the Word of God. Since the 1960s, however, liberal theology with its deprecation or rejection of scriptural authority has been advancing among Anglican clergy. As loss of confidence in the Bible has become more widespread, loss of members has increased. From the news story in The Vancouver Sun last November:

His [Mr McKerracher’s] report shows that between 1961 and 2001, Anglican parish lists plunged from 1.36-million to 642,000, a decline of 53 per cent.

That decline is also quickening. Membership fell by 13 per cent from 1981-1991, and by a further 20 per cent from 1991-2001.

The rate of decline in membership is quickening. In statistical/mathematical parlance, ACC attendance is decreasing at an increasing rate. That provides some support for the hypothesis just offered, namely, that declining attendance is correlated with the increasing influence of weak views of the Bible and its authority. Admittedly, that has to remain a hypothesis until and unless an in-depth analysis of the factors at play is undertaken.

Many will agree wholeheartedly with Mr McKerracher that this problem is not going to fix itself. He says the primate and bishops appear ready and eager to engage the issue. I, for one, hope they do so ASAP.

via titusonenine.

The collect for today, Sexagesima, or the Second Sunday Before Lent, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Lord, God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:19-31
The Gospel: St Luke 8:4-15