Thursday
Bullets
The Seven Sisters? It rings a bell, but I'm not sure I've heard of the mainline Protestant churches referred to that way. The Sisters are: American Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists / United Church of Christ, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians. You know what they don't have? A GOP presidential candidate, at least according to Get Religion. They also, of course, don't have a SCOTUS justice. Interesting.
Satan Rising
Question: Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, was a disciple of whom? Answer: Ayn Rand. Link. I've actually read a little bit of LaVey and a little more Rand. I guess there are similarities, but I didn't appreciate the extent until I read that article over at First Things. Excerpt: "LaVey wasn't shy about admitting his debt to his inspiration. 'I give people Ayn Rand with trappings,' he once told the Washington Post. On another occasion he acknowledged that his brand of Satanism was 'just Ayn Rand's philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.' Indeed, the influence is so apparent that LaVey has been accused of plagiarizing part of his “Nine Satanic Statements” from the John Galt speech in Rand's Atlas Shrugged." * * * * * * * I was never able to appreciate Rand much, after I read Whittaker Chambers' 1957 review of Atlas Shrugged. I've come to appreciate her more these days, as I drift toward libertarianism, but I doubt I'll ever be able to get Chambers' critique, or Rand's notorious moral code and behavior, out of my head. LaVey, on the other hand, simply struck me as an idiot. Not dangerous, not insidious. Just stupid. Then again, evil is banal.
P-Cubed: Pure Pre-Pubescents
Factoid: "Kids who most frequently attend religious services are the least likely to engage in sexual intercourse before the age of fifteen." Link. This is cause to celebrate? 15? The trend doesn't hold through the ripe age of 17, or maybe through the actual marriage ceremony? Color me unimpressed. It almost sounds like the "virtuous" kids take off their confirmation robes and get randy.
(BTW: Nothing in this post should be interpreted as critical of the blogger who posted the story or the rest of her blog post. I strictly grabbed this snippet from the piece and commented on it. I didn't even get a chance to read the rest of her post, but based on a quick glance, it looked solid enough.)
Efficiency Rating Update
Well, by adding a little urgency to my work and remembering Simone Weil's observation that "in the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention," I increased my efficiency-rating (see Tuesday's post below) to 76% during the past two days. And man, it made a difference. I moved a big pile of work off my desk.
