Unconfirmed

I spent Saturday morning at a confirmation ceremony, sadly confirming what I'd read here in comments about "contemporary" worship music in Catholic churches.

The word contemporary is in quotes there because, as with the evangelical species of "contemporary Christian music," the word there doesn't quite mean what it usually means. It shouldn't be hard to be contemporary. One would think that writing music that sounds like it comes from another time and place would require additional effort, but that writing music that comes from one's own time and place ought to be completely natural, yet there's nothing natural-sounding about this awkwardly "contemporary" music.

Watching Philadelphia's bishop/cardinal preside over the ceremony I was reminded of something I once heard an Episcopalian bishop say. What happened at Pentecost, he said, was a miracle and a mystery. The disciples didn't quite know how to describe what they had seen so they described it to St. Luke as something like "tongues of fire" above their heads. Luke wrote that description down and, as a result, the bishop said, "2000 years later I have to wear this funny hat."

I was also reminded of this bit from comedian Ted Alexandro:

Q: Do you renounce Satan and all his works?

A: Well, I can't really say I'm familiar with all his works ...

Anyway, I was feeling warmly ecumenical throughout most of the ceremony, until the cardinal got to the part in his homily where he urged the kids being confirmed to consider a religious vocation. We need priests, he told the children, because we need the forgiveness of sins and "without priests there can be no forgiveness of sins."

That's the sort of thing that makes me want to nail some theses to the door of the church.

* * *

This letter to the editor, which was actually published in the paper, criticizes Rep. Mike Castle for mentioning that the world's oil supply is "finite." The letter writer disagrees, writing: "There is no scientific basis for alleging that Earth has a finite supply of oil."

My point here is not (exclusively) to laugh at the crazy person who thinks that our planet is infinite. That's barking mad, of course (see photo), but I'm not so much interested in the writer's delirium as I am in the fact that such a letter was published.

This raises, for me, two questions that I really don't know the answer to:

1. Before going to work in a newsroom, I had vaguely assumed that the opinion pages operated according to the old saying, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts." Over the past seven years, however, I've seen hundreds of published examples of things that are demonstrably untrue. I'm wondering what, if any, policies or principles guide different newspapers regarding factual errors in letters to the editor and op-ed pieces. I'm not speaking here of matters subject to debate ("Politician X is doing a good job" or "Kids these days!"), but of simple matters of fact. If a letter asserts that Cleveland is the capital of Ohio, or that talc is the hardest mineral according to Moh's scale, do editorial page editors have any rules or even guidelines for dealing with such mistakes and the letters that contain them?

2. I have attended, monitored, reported on and even conducted organizing meetings for activist groups across the political spectrum. All of these groups encourage their members to write letters to the editor and the advice they give for getting such letters published is remarkably similar. That advice always encourages the writers to get their facts straight and to avoid saying anything as full-gonzo nutty as suggesting that the Earth is infinite. Is that advice wrong?

Comments

[Chris]

@Sharaloth: for what it's worth, while I'm not religious, and not an expert on Catholicism in any fashion, I hold no animus against the Church of Rome. In fact, at least from the outside, it has always held an aesthetic appeal for me.

[Richard Hershberger]

My wife is Catholic and I have attended Catholic mass more than my share of times. Fred has nicely expressed why, both theologically and esthetically, I am not the least bit tempted. You can find Catholic churches which do the mass well, usually by being traditional, but this is a niche market and you have to search these places out. (Some of the masses shown on EWTN, aka The Catholic Channel, are quite nice.) Your run-of-the-mill local parish has absolutely dreadful music, or at best adequate music done poorly. There is a lot to be said for Vatican II, but esthetically it was a disaster.

[Froborr]

Yeah, I have to admit, the weird anti-Catholic stuff Fred's put out the last couple of weeks seems kind of, well, out of character.

Point taken on Bach, my mistake. However, we're still left with, among many others, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Haydn.

Facts, as the term is generally used, are statements which are true to the best of aggregate human knowledge. The term also has specialized meanings in law and journalism. The last is probably the applicable use in this case; in journalism, facts are statements which can be checked against public records or expert knowledge, as opposed to opinions. It is thus possible for a story to contain false facts (statements which, when checked, prove false); if caught before publication the story must be changed to remove the false facts; if caught after publication a correction must be printed.

[Richard Hershberger]

Frobarr: "In defense of Catholicism:

1) They have several hundred years of the best music of any religion in history -- do the names Bach and Verdi ring any bells? Or pipe any organs, as the case may be?"

As has been pointed out, Bach was Lutheran: one of my guys. Go with Vivaldi. He gets a bad rap today, largely due to that stupid remark by Shostakovich, but Vivaldi was the guy Bach tried to sound like (and a priest to boot).

"2) Their churches are the prettiest."

This is debatable at best. Post-WWII church architecture has largely been a disaster across denominational lines, though there are recent signs of improvement. Go back a bit further and you are in the neo-Gothic period, which everyone did well. You can make an argument that the Protestants copied Catholic architecture and there is some truth to this. More generally, there wasn't an across-the-board revolution in church archicture at the time of the Reformation, so it is not Catholic archicture so much as general Christian architecture.

"3) They've got style. Nobody does pomp and circumstance like the Church. And those hats are made of win."

The vast majority of Catholic parishes sadly lack style. Style is now a niche market in the church. Frankly, the Anglo-Catholics (who are Episcopalians playing Catholic dress-up) do it better.

"4) Confession is actually a pretty awesome idea."

This is a defensible position, but in practice modern Catholics very rarely do private confessions like you see in the movies. They mostly do public collective confessions, very much like you would find in any Lutheran or Episcopalian church (and undoubtedly many others).

The popular image of a traditional Catholic high liturgy is mostly gone nowadays. They gave it up in favor of folk masses. You will recall that Stephen Colbert has apologized for the folk mass: for good reason.

[Dorothy]

Regarding the abiogenic oil hypothesis: one vocal proponent is Thomas Gold. He has a book: The Deep Hot Biosphere, the Myth of Fossil Fuels, complete with a forward by Freeman Dyson.

[Jeff]

Where should a photographer stand to take a picture of "a cylinder of infinite length" end-on?

At the end of the lever. Duh!

because the character is two minutes away from being strangled

I think you mean suffocated. Not the same, really.

whatever the hell Creed sings

I know all the Cool Kids hate on Creed, but to these old ears, their music doesn't sound all that much different from decent Rock & Roll. And it's tons better than **ANY** emo music could possibly be. Yuck.

if caught before publication the story must should be changed to remove the false facts; if caught after publication a correction must should be printed.

Changed to the way a newsroom works; "should is optional, depending on whether the story is about a Democrat or a Republican.

[bulbul]

A small correction to my previous post: by "your" I meant "protestant", not "your, Fred". Your stuff, Fred, is brilliant.

Richard,
but in practice modern Catholics very rarely do private confessions like you see in the movies
What? Where? Definitely not in Europe or, as far as I know, Latin America.

[Izzy]

Jeff: Believe me, I'm with you on Emo. If I wanted to listen to whiny guys with floppy hair bitch about the crushing pain of their middle-class white suburbanite lifestyle, I'd read a lot more Catcher in the Rye.

Creed is...well, they're sappy, that's the problem. They're schmaltzy pop-ballad stuff--they don't have a beat, you can't dance to it. You might as well put on "Candle in the Wind" or some LeeAnne Rimes. Ugh. They're pretty indistinguishable from most Lite FM, though, yeah.

"Decent rock & roll" sounds a lot more like Aerosmith. Or at least Elvis.

[Keith]

I'm always a little surprised with the vehemence that people attack the catholic church. I was raised catholic and I never saw any of the stuff people complain of. Sure women weren't allowed to be priests and the music tended to be of the old variety, but there was no obvious hatred of anybody (women, gay people, protestants, etc).

Have you met the Pope? I'm sure you've at least heard of him. He's the guy with the funny hat who's trying to take the Catholic Church backwards into irrelevance, what with the defending pedophile priests and encouraging the spread of HIV/AIDS by trying to convince people that condoms don't work.

So long as he's speaking for Catholics everywhere, Catholics have a lot to defend and answer for. Same as anyone, religious or otherwise, who lets twisted old men make their decisions for them.

[Froborr]

I'm not sure I see much difference between demanding that Catholics answer for the Pope (most Cathlics I know care very, very little about what the Pope has to say) and demanding that Protestants answer for LaHaye and Jenkins or Muslims answer for bin Laden. No religion is entirely uniform in belief or practice, even though many try to be, and nobody is responsible for beliefs they don't actually hold.

[kodiak]

ok, before I read the comment thread here, I just have to say that I sprayed water on my keyboard with the "see photo" comment. Well done yet again Fred!

[Michael Cule]

As far as I can see there are two ways to account for the assertion that the Earth has an 'infinite' supply of oil:

1) The person writing the letter believes the Earth has a TARDIS-like internal structure, being bigger on the inside than the outside

2) That word does not mean what he thinks it does.

Or possibly he believes the world is coming to an end Real Soon Now and so the supply of oil will be sufficient: another sign of the wisdom of the Allmighty.

[Kristy]

Sharaloth: I think the main complaint is the idea, prevalent in Catholicism, that someone has to intercede for you with God, that you have to go through this priestly middle-man instead of just talking to Him yourself.

To say that without priests there can be no forgiveness of sins... ok, imagine for a moment that of this entire generation, and the next few, no one at all decides to be a priest. It just doesn't happen. The last priest in existence dies. What, does God shrug and go, "Welp, guess that's it! No more forgiveness of sins for you guys. Heh heh, have fun burning in Hell, kids."

It goes back to the "magic words" concept. As if God can't/won't forgive you unless you go through the ritualized process of asking someone else to make it happen. It's actually a pretty obnoxious idea, when you think through it. First because it turns priests into sort of demi-gods, who get to decide whom God will and will not forgive, and second because it makes God Himself out to be kind of a jerk. ("No priest? No forgiveness for you! Mwahahahahaa!") Which then directly contradicts the whole "God is love" idea.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't really think most Catholics or even most priests really believe in a jerk-God who won't forgive you unless there's a priest around to speak on your behalf, but that is the implication in statements like that. And yeah, it kinda leads to the impulse to nail up some theses.

[Kristy]

Froborr: but, as I understand it, Catholicism is supposed to be a top-down religion. Protestantism isn't - indeed, Protestantism, by its very nature, is sort of a reaction against the concept that the priestly hierarchy has spiritual authority over folk, and that the Pope can speak for an entire religion. Yes, there are Catholics who believe independantly of what the Pope tells them, but while that may, in some circumstances, make them good people or even good Christians, it makes them bad Catholics, and they'd probably do better in a denomination that doesn't pretend to believe that their spiritual leaders have this authority.

(For the record, I actually don't mind Catholics, finding them as individuals fairly inoffensive, as Christians go. But their theology does have some problems.)

[Izzy]

Re: Catholicism, I think that there are a couple things here. For the record, I have no more problem with Catholicism than I do with most organized and officially-sex-negative religions.

First, the Catholic Church has a very visible hierarchy. I'm not Catholic; I grew up very lapsed Presbyterian and am now an embarrassed agnostic pagan. (...and they shall know us by our red faces whenever Silver Ravenwolf puts out a new book). But I couldn't tell you who was in charge of the Presbytarian church as a whole, or even how decisions get made there. Likewise with any other branch of Christianity. I don't even know who's head of the Episcopalian church, and that's one of the more organized forms of Protestantism.

On the other hand, everyone knows the Pope. He's the Pope! He has the Popemobile! He may shoot Force lightning out of his hands if you piss him off.* And he's very obviously In Charge.

Second, the Church has been around, and visible, for hundreds of years. It's had a lot of time to fuck up, as organized anything will do; it's had a lot of time to do some really brutal things to the people "in its care." Some good things, too, but the bad stuff stands out more. Always does. It's also established a whole bunch of official, on-the-books rules that it's been really slow to change, for whatever reason.

Basically, if I see an asshat Presbytarian/Anglican/Methodist minister talking about how marriage is really between one man and one woman, or how the Founding Fathers never *intended* separation of church and state (thank you, guy at my cousin's baptism), I know that he doesn't speak for the whole church. I can go a couple miles down the road and find another preacher, of the same denomination, who thinks the exact opposite. But the Catholic Church has established Official Policy; it's Official Policy regardless of what individual Catholics, or even individual priests, think or do. (It's sort of like gaming that way: you can make all the house rules you want, but people are going to still judge the system by the fact that you can get eight successes with a chainsaw and still fail to kill a guy.)

Are all Catholics accountable for what the Pope says? Dunno. On the one hand, he's the head of the Church. If I was still a Presbytarian and the local pastor was saying horrible things, I'd consider myself obligated to either speak up and argue with him or to quit the church. On the other hand, the thing about the Pope's relationship with Catholicism is that he's very far away, both physically and mentally, from local worshipers: it's much more like my relationship, or lack of one, with GWB. And I'd get a little testy if someone suggested that I had to either send a bunch of angry letters to Bush or move to Canada.

*Also, electing Darth Sideous to the highest office was not among the best PR moves the Catholic Church could have made. Especially not now that he's proceeded to call for more exorcists.

[Glenda]

Froborr,

The Pope is the chosen head of the Roman Catholic Church, while Tim LaHaye is a minister of one sect of Protestantism. Jerry Jenkins is not clergy at all, nor is Bin Laden. The Pope is authorized to speak for the entirety of Catholics (whether they listen or not), but the others are not authorized to speak for their respective faiths (even though they often do anyway).

[Froborr]

Glenda: The Pope is authorized to speak for the entirety of Catholics (whether they listen or not), but the others are not authorized to speak for their respective faiths (even though they often do anyway).

Izzy: the thing about the Pope's relationship with Catholicism is that he's very far away, both physically and mentally, from local worshipers: it's much more like my relationship, or lack of one, with GWB. And I'd get a little testy if someone suggested that I had to either send a bunch of angry letters to Bush or move to Canada.

Am I to be held responsible for GWB's actions? I continue to consider myself an American, and I'm using my dollars and my votes to try to repair the damage he's done as best as I know how. Am I still complicit unless I reject my American citizenship?

Why should matters be any different for a Catholic?

[Froborr]

As for Catholic theology, well, I come from an entirely "works"-based background (doesn't use that terminology, though). I don't really see much meaningful difference between giving your priests intercessory powers or not; their primary function from my perspective is as moral guides and advisors, and from that perspective a Catholic priest is just as effective as a Lutheran minister or what-have-you.

[Izzy]

Froborr: I don't think so, no. Nor do I think I am--but with the exception of voting in November, and making snarky blog comments, I don't really *do* much, politically speaking.

And Catholic laity, I think, don't even get the voting option: Cardinals decide popes and priests and everything.

Sharaloth mentioned "Fred's shot at the Catholic Magisterium a little while ago" and my favorite idea is . . . didn't Fred say something about moving in with girlfriend or fiancee's family, the father being an ex-marine catholic? Can we assume one or both are aware of his blog and read it? Maybe there was a meta-textual reason to say that because of Fred's particular circumstances, and that we weren't the primary audience for that comment. Fred's posts aren't made in a vacuum, right???

[damnedyankee]

The thing that irks me is the casting of honest, legitimate criticism of the Catholic Church's policies, doctrines, and musical choices as "hatred" of Catholicism. You want hatred, Google Reverend Hagee. That's real hated of Catholicism, and Fred says nothing even comparable.

[Kristy]

Am I to be held responsible for GWB's actions? I continue to consider myself an American, and I'm using my dollars and my votes to try to repair the damage he's done as best as I know how. Am I still complicit unless I reject my American citizenship?

Why should matters be any different for a Catholic?

1) Because nowhere in the Constitution or the laws (American dogma, if you will) does it say or imply that the President holds any sort of spiritual or moral authority over Americans. He's head of one branch of the government, that's all. He DOESN'T speak for you, even though he can make decisions about what the country does. If the President is responsible for a new law, it's something you have to DO. Not something you have to believe. You're perfectly free to disagree with it, you just have to follow it. The Pope, however, does have spiritual and moral authority. When he states the church's position, it is expected, via Catholic dogma, that good Catholics will agree with him and believe what he says to believe, because he is the Pope. (Whether this is a realistic expectation or not is another story, but that's what the dogma claims.)

2) While both changing citizenship and changing religions involve a lot of soul-searching and hard moral and spiritual and emotional choices, on the level of purely physical difficulty there's no comparison. I'm not a Catholic the day I say I'm not a Catholic. I can disassociate myself with the Catholic Church by turning left on Main Street instead of right and ending up at the local Methodist church instead. Renouncing U.S. citizenship, however, is a wee bit more complicated than that.

[Keith]

I'm not sure I see much difference between demanding that Catholics answer for the Pope (most Cathlics I know care very, very little about what the Pope has to say) and demanding that Protestants answer for LaHaye and Jenkins or Muslims answer for bin Laden. No religion is entirely uniform in belief or practice, even though many try to be, and nobody is responsible for beliefs they don't actually hold.

Posted by: Froborr

Protestants and Muslims have a little more wiggle room when it comes to the likes of L&J and Bin Laden because they always have the ability to claim non overlapping magisteria: "Jenkins and Lehay are Evangelicals, I'm Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc. so it's none of my nonsense," or "Bin Ladin's a Wahabiist wacko who doesn't speak for all of Islam." This is valid. Likewise, I shouldn't be held accountable for Christopher Hitchens' or Sam Harris' actions just because our beliefs are on the same side of the spectrum.

Catholics, for better or worse, are in the same boat as the Pope. Worse, he's driving the boat. you can always be the smart Catholic who stands up and protests that the Pope is steering you over a waterfall. But if you stay in the boat even after he makes it clear he's not going to take your advice, that's your fault. Working to change course or wrestle the wheel away from the crazy Pope is also valid and noble but if you just sit there laughing at the dolphins and smelling the sea air, you have no one to blame but yourself. It's also bad form to criticize people on the shore who are just trying to point out that you're entering rough waters and maybe want to address that fact with your Pope.

Boy, that metaphor ran away with itself, didn't it?

[PurpleGirl]

Froborr, for Catholics there's a little thing called the "Apostalic Succession." All bishops are held to be descendant in a direct line from the Apostels but the Bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope) is held to be a special being of Rome and therefore, of Paul... he is first among equals (other bishops). That was one of ideas that animated the split between the Western (Roman) and Eastern (Greek et al.) churches. So, yeah, the Pope is the head of the church, period. He's elected by his peers (the other bishops/cardinals), not by ordinary lay members.

And while Lutheran's still claim their ministers to be in the Apostalic succession and I'm sure the Anglicans also still follow it, I don't believe other Protestants do.

[hapax]

I'm not Roman Catholic, but I think some others are exaggerating the Pope's authority a wee bit.

There's a distinction between the office itself and the individual holding the office. Like all RC sacraments, the sacramental/dogmatic/spiritual mojo adheres in the office, not the person. In other words, a Roman Catholic is perfectly free to think that any particular Pope is wrong, stupid, nasty, and an ass; the adherent is only bound to respect the opinions of the pope when he speaks by virtue of his office ("ex cathedra") which is rarer than you think.

In the same way, as a U.S. citizen, I can reject GWB and all his works, but by virtue of his office, I must acknowledge him as supreme executor of the laws, commander in chief of the armed forces, etc.

I feel no responsibility at all for his political decisions. But when he (or his surrogates) act in his official capacity, I bear some responsibility, whether I voted for him or not.

That's the way things work in an organized society. Otherwise, you have tyranny or chaos.

[mcc]

I'm always a little surprised with the vehemence that people attack the catholic church.

Hm. It doesn't really seem to me that Fred is attacking the catholic church here with any more-- or possibly even as much-- vehemence as he uses to attack his own apparent self-identified religious faction (i.e. "evangelicals").

[Jeff]

Ravenwolf

Anyone who picks this for a name should be "put down" (and not like babies are "put down" for the night). Adding "Silver" just compounds the crime. S/he prbably listens to far too much New Age crap.

[Kristy]

Jeff: yeah, I've been told in the past (not by anyone in my circle, praise Bast's sharpened claws) that I should pick a magical (excuse me, "magickal") name to identify myself in pagan circles. I keep telling them I'll get around to it.

And I'm sure I will. One of these lifetimes. Just not this one.

[Richard Hershberger]

"And while Lutheran's still claim their ministers to be in the Apostalic succession and I'm sure the Anglicans also still follow it,"

Yes, to the Anglicans. Lutherans, it is more complicated. The short answer is yes and no, but generally more no than yes. The long answer is, well, long.

[Jeff]

Jeff: yeah, I've been told in the past (not by anyone in my circle, praise Bast's sharpened claws) that I should pick a magical (excuse me, "magickal") name to identify myself in pagan circles.

How about Kali KittenEater? Lupus BunnyKiller? Raven TitmouseGrouse?

Aren't I a **BIG** help?

[hapax]

I've been told that walking into a Wiccan hangout and asking for "Raven" is roughly equivalent to going to an ancient Roman bath looking for "Marcus."

[Izzy]

Hapax: Hee. Yeah.

Honestly, while I can see the psychological use of having a different name to use in your spiritual life (to invoke Catholicism again, I believe that nuns and some orders of monks do this as well as the Pope) I can't take anyone with "Raven" or "Wolf" or "Moon" in their name seriously. (It's a bit like LJ or ff.net: the odds of a given person sucking go up with each inclusion of the following elements in their name: ravens, wolves, darkness, infernal beings, celestial beings, celestial *bodies*, fictional characters, and cats. "DarkTiger MoonDevil" is not someone you ever want to know.)

Silver Ravenwolf is infamous in pagan circles for putting out a series of books pretty much designed to appeal to teenagers who want to rebel against their parents, and for being the major force behind the current crop of Hot Topic Pagans and chicks who think they can cast love spells on that guy in homeroom. The lady's got a lot to answer for.

[Kristy]

Jeff: yer a helper.

Izzy: Oh, I know, I do get the theory behind it, but I just can't think of a "magical" name that I could seriously introduce myself by with a straight face. I mean, a nickname that you answer to, that other people gave to you, is one thing - I do know people who answer to things like Dragon or Phoenix or even, yes, Tiger. But to declare yourself that that's your name and ask other people to call you by it? Blarg.

(Although to be fair, my LJ name does include a mythological creature. I'm sure that would reflect badly upon me if you didn't know that my last name actually is "Griffin.")

[MikhailBorg]

It's a bit like LJ or ff.net: the odds of a given person sucking go up with each inclusion of the following elements in their name: ravens, wolves, darkness, infernal beings, celestial beings, celestial *bodies*, fictional characters, and cats.

Hmm. I do have "Borg" in my handle, but OTOH I really am a cyborg; I have the X-rays and exorbitant medical bills to prove it. So I'll award myself a pass on this one.

[Izzy]

Kristy: Izzy: Oh, I know, I do get the theory behind it, but I just can't think of a "magical" name that I could seriously introduce myself by with a straight face. I mean, a nickname that you answer to, that other people gave to you, is one thing - I do know people who answer to things like Dragon or Phoenix or even, yes, Tiger. But to declare yourself that that's your name and ask other people to call you by it? Blarg.

Yeah, it's always seemed a bit pretentious to me, too. I suppose if I was in a tradition that called for it, I'd try to go with something dignified and maybe Roman--Aurelia or similar. And if it was "everyone calls each other by these names during rituals," that'd be okay by me, 'cause I LARP enough that I'm sort of used to it. But I'm a grumpy solitary, and don't actually *do* much anyhow, so it's sort of a non-issue.

(Although to be fair, my LJ name does include a mythological creature. I'm sure that would reflect badly upon me if you didn't know that my last name actually is "Griffin.")

Well, one such element doesn't really increase the odds significantly; I've a few friends who're "darksomething" or "raventhing" and are fine. It's just when you start getting into the combinations that it gets Problematic. There's a geometric progression or something similarly mathy at work here.

[Kristy]

Ooh, fellow LARP-er! Where do you play?

[Bugmaster]

Magickal names are for weenies ! The true goal is to become so powerful that future generations will give your name to their children and grandchildren, in the vain hope that some of your immense wisdom and raw talent might rub off on them. When the name "Kristy, Devourer of Worlds" becomes as popular as "Raven Silvermoon" is now, then your mission will be complete. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha !

(Obligatory disclaimer: the above diatribe is written for comedic effect only and is in no way meant to insult Pagans, Wiccans, and other miscellaneous spellcasters.)

[Dymphna]

On spiritual naming -

My partner was raised by new agey parents, and I suspect his difficulty with certain elements of his upbringing is something akin to the Silver Ravenwolf issue. It wasn't that anything spiritual they did with him was wrong per se (sweat lodges, burning sage, etc), just that it was done without the context of a coherent community or historical tradition to keep it grounded and real. What some (like, say, the cultures his parents were immitating) would find truly fulfilling and a beautiful part of a coherent worldview he found baffling and vaguely embarassing.

Naming yourself Silver Ravenwolf comes across as pretentious, since it appears to have no meaning beyond the purely egotistical. It also gives me a sort of white-person (assuming she is a white person) pretending to be Native American-y vibe that is a bit unsettling. Being granted the name by a spiritual community, or earning it through a ritual with roots in one's spiritual tradition and an organic relationship to one's spiritual life is something else entirely.

OTOH, I grant myself online handles, and sometimes find great meaning in them. I think of them more as dedications or aspirations than anything else. But I prefer the humbling aspect of learning who I am as my given name - I didn't choose it, just like I don't choose a lot about who I am.

On liturgical music -

My main objection to the traditional music used in my church (Episcopalian) is not so much about the quality of the music as the "ownership" of it. Since a large portion of us didn't grow up in the church (we're the mainline denomination with the largest number of members who didn't start out in our denomination), we spend the hymn portions of our liturgy squinting at tiny text in the dark, trying to sight read the notes and sort-of-kind-of halfways taking in the lyrics. That does not tend to put me, at least, in anything like a worshipful frame of mind. Ghastly though praise music can be, it is also easily learned, and this frees me up for more spontaneity and a more embodied experience of the music (vs. the super-brain-oriented task of scrutinizing my church's traditional hymnal).

I wish we'd either take the time to learn a half dozen of the hymns and sing them regularly, and/or add some of the (in my opinion very beautiful) songs out of the American folk tradition, African-American traditions, and - yes - even some of the "contemporary" worship songs (Here I am Lord comes to mind as an example of praise music that is not Awesome God terrible).

[Dymphna]

Make that three LARP-ers.

[Dymphna]

Make that three LARP-ers.

[Izzy]

I'm in Boston, so I play a lot of the New England "Accelerent" games. I PC Aralis (awesomely squalid fantasy world) and Endgame (post-apocalyptic) and NPC a bunch of others, CP whore that I am. How 'bout you?

Dymphna: Pretty much, yeah. I'm all for creating traditions, and I certainly don't believe that all valid religions have to have Vast Historical Precedent. But there should be meaning besides "Hey, check out how Special I am," and SR's version of paganism, much like Scientology, doesn't seem to have that.

Also, yep, I believe she's white. Most chicks like that are.

[Jeff]

I've been told that walking into a Wiccan hangout and asking for "Raven" is roughly equivalent to going to an ancient Roman bath looking for "Marcus."

Or walking into a biker bar and asking for "Tiny" (always the biggest guy in a group).

There's a geometric progression or something similarly mathy at work here.

That sounds right. I don't think it's quite to the inverse-square (components in name vs coolness) factor.

[Kristy]

Izzy: I do the Camarilla White-Wolf thing. (I pimped this on an earlier comment thread when it first got put up, but darn it I'm proud of it, and I'll pimp it again until people throw things at me and tell me to stop.) Dymphna, how 'bout you?

And yeah... for a tradition to mean something it needs to have, well, meaning. That being said, though, you can create a new tradition (which sounds like an oxymoron but you know what I mean) that only means something to you, or to you and a small group - like my group's full moon beach trips, which are more about reaffirming our ties with each other than any spiritual significance (although it has a bit of that too.) There's a point where a "created" tradition crosses the line and becomes pretentious, but I'm not sure where it is.

...and ok, yeah, "Here I Am, Lord" gets a pass, despite the teeth-grinding grammatical error in the second line of the chorus. (I'm pedantic, leave me be.)

[Kristy, Devourer of Worlds]

Oh, and thank you, Bugmaster.

[Jeff]

BTW. LARPers: On a previous thread, Froborr seemed tjo think that LARPing a wizard would be difficult. I asked him why he thought that, but the thread pretty much ended before he could answer.

Do you think LARPing a wizard (or similar class) is more difficult than other classes? What's the hardest class to LARP? (I've only LARPed once or twice, in **VERY** short "adventures" -- no more than a couple of hours -- so maybe I'm missing how a long-form game would work.)

[Jeff]

like my group's full moon beach trips

Is that when you go, or is that what you see? [/snark]

[Kristy, Devourer of Worlds]

Is that when you go, or is that what you see? [/snark]

Knowing us? Little of column A, little of column B. *winks*

And I think (IIRC) Froborr was speaking of the mages from the WW system rather than your standard fantasy wizards. Which, I could see them being difficult to have in a mixed game (which is why we keep them separate, lol.) They're absurdly powerful, and if you know what you're doing you can pretty much make up your own spells. Fun for the player. Headache for the ST.

[Izzy]

I play nothing but, at least in boffer LARPs--I really can't fight at all well--and it's pretty fun. There are a couple ways to rep the combat spells (we use birdseed-filled packets for most of them, and there's a couple effects that everyone in the sound of your voice takes or similar) and we've done a lot of rituals with a combination of in-game effects, colored lights, chalk, and so forth. (Accidentally summoned Cthulhu once. That was fun.)

For me, the hardest class to LARP would probably be any sort of fighter-primary. I just don't have the dexterity or strength to stand up well in combat. Rogues don't have it easy either, though: at least in Accelerant, they have to be able to pick actual locks!

[Kristy, Devourer of Worlds]

Oh, boffer larp! Ok, ok, I gotcha. Always wanted to get into that, never had the time.

[Izzy]

Heh, yeah. LARPing is the Devourer of Weekends: I'm lucky that Scarily Long Term Dude is into it as well, or he wouldn't see me at all on weekends for four months out of the year.

And WW Mages are scaaary powerful. Mage is actually my favorite of the WW games, but PC Mages don't mix well with PC anything else ever, and oh my God are you right about it being a pain for the ST.