Thanks to Conversant, the excellent system I use to manage this website, you’ve always been able to subscribe to the site via email. Unfortunately, until now the method for doing so has been buried deeply in the member preference pages. But now if you’d like to participate in the goings-on here, all you have to do is to send an email to McMains-subscribe@free-conversant.com. This will create an account for you if you don’t have one already and subscribe you to the email version of the site. Conversely, if you get tired of the informed and elucidatory discussions that go on here and prefer to return to the dark night of loneliness and ignorance, you can do so by sending an email to McMains-unsubscribe@free-conversant.com.

The latest McMains family update is up on the home page. The big news is Maggie’s arrival, along with Kathy’s latest renovations, a new instrument in Sean’s collection, an update on the progress of church, and the latest kiddo news.

Frank McCourt’s second memoir ‘Tis traces his life from the time he arrives in America as a young man to the death of his parents several decades later. As with Angela’s Ashes, it is delightful story telling, alternately poignant, hilarious, and thoughtful. Interestingly, some of the episodes portrayed in the film version of Angela’s Ashes were taken from this book, rather than the previous one. If you’re interested in the Irish experience, both in Ireland and America, or you just enjoy good storytelling, give this one a read.

Not us, of course. Our friends the Morisetts celebrated 50 years of marriage this past weekend. They are an inspiration to us, as they’re still very lively and involved with each other, their church, and their community after all that time together. It’s great to have people with that joie de vivre living nearby whose company we can enjoy and experience we can lean on. Congratuations, John and Beth, and thank you!

This evening we had a big storm blow through San Marcos. As a bit of a treat for the kids (and for me), we turned off the outside lights and all sat on the front porch bench watching the thunder, lightning, and rain. One of the big principles of home schooling (which we’re doing with Emily) is to take advantage of opportunities to teach as they arise, so we discussed how to tell how far away the lightning is, the relative speeds of light and sound, and worked on multiplication and division to figure out the distances. Abigail and Liam didn’t follow any of that, of course, but were still enraptured by the dramatic weather. Storms are my second-favorite weather, just after the gusty, cool times that precede them.

Somehow my memories of The Black Hole are much fonder than, watching it now, the movie seems to merit. I had the novelization of the film on my bookshelf growing up, and read it repeatedly during my early teens. It was laced with photos from the film, so the imagery was all familiar during this viewing and the plot held no surprises. Though darker than Disney’s usual fare, it’s still pretty family-friendly, and has its fun moments, but I’d have a hard time recommending it to any but sci-fi buffs, alas.

Mad Max, which stars a very young Mel Gibson, is often badly acted, badly written, and stylistically rough, but manages in spite of these obstacles to be a heck of a lot of fun. If you enjoy wanton destruction, there’s plenty of it to go around. If you like Mel Gibson, there’s plenty of him too. If you like adorable kids, there’s one of them too. This one will probably go over better with most guys than with most gals, but being a guy, I give it a solid thumbs up.

The BBC News has a story up about the auction of the prosthetic ears Leonary Nimoy used while portraying Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek TV series. Also included in the auction are a plaster cast of William Shatner’s head, a couple original Star Trek movie scripts, Errol Flynn’s diary, and one of the original Energizer bunnies.

Over at Mark Morgan’s great site, Voices of Unreason, there’s a flame-filled discussion of Wicca going on. I don’t know enough about Wicca to have an educated opinion on that topic, but a bit of the discussion caught my eye, and I chipped in my 2¢. Feel free to drop in over there and contribute to the discussion.

Here’s my meager contribution:

Brian Carnell said:
Well put. It’s just another religion in the same way that Ba’hai (sp?) is
just another religion or Islam is another religion.

The idea of something being “just another religion” intrigues me. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Christian because I think it’s true, not because of the psychological release or emotional gratification it gives me. (Frankly, there are times when it’s an absolute pain and I’d rather not have to deal with it.) When I say I think it’s true, I mean that its postulates — that there is a god who created the world, that there was actually a person named Jesus who by his death altered our relationship to that god, etc. — are factual, even if we don’t have the means to incontrovertibly prove them in our current state.

The corollary to that is that if these things are not true, I want nothing to do with Christianity. Betrand Russell makes an excellent case that if there’s no god it’s better to face that true fact and get on with life than it is to continue deluding oneself. I agree with him entirely in that, but disagree with his opinion as to God’s existence.

Back to the original topic: I think of religions as being ultimately valuable only to the degree that they are true. Saying “just another religion” seems to put them all on equal footing. But if one cares at all about their truth, they can’t possibly all be on equal footing, since they say such radically different things. Christianity posits an infinitely powerful, personal god who is involved with the created world. Deism, by way of contrast, views God as powerful and personal, but uninvolved in his creation. Now, if God does exist, he can’t be both active in and uninvolved with creation, so one or the other is closer to truth. And if God doesn’t exist, they’re both a load of cheese, and should both be tossed out.

So, how does one think of anything as “just another religion”? If their only value is a false comfort, I want nothing to do with any such nonsense. But if there’s any truth in religion at all, they can’t all be on equal ground.

When we lived in Denton, Kathy and I would sometimes make our way to the local cinema for a date. On one of these occasions, we were standing in line outside the theater when we noticed a group of men, evidently from a group home, milling about in front of us with their two female attendants. Kathy and I quietly watched them for a while, smiling at their evident enjoyment at the outing.

As we followed them into the theater, one of them came up to me and stuck out his hand. I took it and began to shake it. “Hi there!” I said brightly to him. “I like beer!” he responded, standing about 4 inches closer to my face than most Americans consider polite. “Yeah, that beer’s good stuff!” He was still shaking my hand, and leaning a bit closer, said in what he thought was a conspiratorial tone of voice, “I’m a girl!” “No kidding? You certainly hide it well.” After another moment’s thought and a glance over at Kathy, still shaking my hand and losing the conspiratorial volume level altogether, he pronounced “I LIKE YOUR WIFE!”

We all broke up laughing at that point, and his attendant brought him back to the rest of the group, apologizing between gales of laughter. We smiled about that incident for days, and cut loose with an occasional “I LIKE YOUR WIFE!” from time to time.