An Unusual Introduction to Arguably One of my Most Important Blogposts Yet
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
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