So, today - November 24 - is the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species."
I could rhapsodize about the awesomeness of Darwin's book, but instead I'll just point you here, to give you a little sense of how important Darwinism is to modern biology. Whatever the haters* tell you, Darwin's theories continue to provide the foundation for our understanding of life on Earth. So thanks, Mr. Darwin. We owe you one.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, here's your daily dose of irreverent (Darwinist) humor:
(H/T Sam)
*Oh, and as for the other kind of haters - not the Bible-beaters but the Alfred Russell Wallace Fan Club who insist that Darwin was a plagiarist - I say unto thee, "Pffffbbbbtt."
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
It appears to be Mahoney Time
This going to be a "cool things I learned in science class" post. You have been forewarned.
This morning in biochemistry class, our professor gave us the Willy Wonka factory tour of an enzyme known as ATP synthase*, which I will now recap even more briefly for your reading pleaure. Trust me, it will be quick and painless, and it's worth following the sci-talk to get to the coolness.
ATP synthase has two components, F1 and Fo.** F1 is a ring of three α-β subunit pairs, and the action happens right in between the two members of each couple. And what action is it? The conversion of ADP and free phosphate to ATP!
(If that doesn't mean anything to you, just think of it as the creation of high-energy fuel for the cell. Good news.)
Anyway, each α-β pair has three configurations - or moods, if you will: liking ADP, liking ATP, and liking nothing at all. They change mood based on the orientation of the γ stick. Don't worry about how it works. The γ stick spins around, pointing to each pair in turn, causing them to like ADP, then ATP, then nothing. This catalyzes the process of turning ADP to ATP and then letting it go.
But, in a Thomist vein (Lewis Thomas, that is, not Aquinas), we have to ask "What makes the γ stick spin?"
Well, that's where the Fo unit comes in. The Fo is a cylinder made up of α-helices, and the γ stick from the F1 sticks down into it like an axle into a gear. The actual dynamics of what happens were beyond the scope of our lecture, but suffice to say that there is a proton pump that that uses the proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane to make the Fo unit spin. Think of it like a water wheel: because of pumps elsewhere in the membrane, there are a lot of protons outside, so when the Fo's channel opens, they all happily flow in. The Fo uses this current to power its spinning. As the Fo spins, it takes F1's γ crankshaft along with it, clacking the other end across the catalytic α-β pairs and driving the synthesis of ATP.
[/science]
If you don't see why this is cool at this point, I'm afraid you may not even see the coolness after I enthuse about it, but here goes:
ATP SYNTHASE IS LIKE A TINY MACHINE INSIDE YOUR CELLS!
Yes, an actual machine. With moving parts. How unbelievably cool is that? I'll tell you: it's very unbelievably cool.
As Julien Offray de La Mettrie wrote in his 1748 L'homme Machine, "The human body is a machine which winds its own springs." Though he was largely concerned with locating the soul in a mechanistic body, I think he would have been ecstatic to know about ATP synthase. Granted we would have had a lot of biology and chemistry to cover before he could even understand what was going on ("OK, so... humours? Right out. Now let's talk about cells...), but this little protein complex really is the perfect example of how mechanical our bodies really are. And because this is a machine involved in creating usable energy for the functioning of the rest of the cell, it's also a fantastic example of the body winding its own springs.
OK, that's enough swooning over science for now. The title of this post, in case you are wondering, is in tribute to the late Professor Mahoney of Princeton's history of science faculty. The man's enthusiasm for machines - and the reading thereof - left a fairly indelible mark on the minds of his pupils, and loomed large over all our explorations into the history of science.
Notes:
*"This is the machine that extracts the juice of the snozberries, and it's connected to the tubes full of luminiferous aether, but it's really rather complicated so don't worry about exactly how it all works. Just trust me, it works."
**That's "F one" and "F oh," not "F zero." The o stands for oligomycin, an antibiotic that poisons the Fo unit.
This morning in biochemistry class, our professor gave us the Willy Wonka factory tour of an enzyme known as ATP synthase*, which I will now recap even more briefly for your reading pleaure. Trust me, it will be quick and painless, and it's worth following the sci-talk to get to the coolness.
ATP synthase has two components, F1 and Fo.** F1 is a ring of three α-β subunit pairs, and the action happens right in between the two members of each couple. And what action is it? The conversion of ADP and free phosphate to ATP!
(If that doesn't mean anything to you, just think of it as the creation of high-energy fuel for the cell. Good news.)
Anyway, each α-β pair has three configurations - or moods, if you will: liking ADP, liking ATP, and liking nothing at all. They change mood based on the orientation of the γ stick. Don't worry about how it works. The γ stick spins around, pointing to each pair in turn, causing them to like ADP, then ATP, then nothing. This catalyzes the process of turning ADP to ATP and then letting it go.
But, in a Thomist vein (Lewis Thomas, that is, not Aquinas), we have to ask "What makes the γ stick spin?"
Well, that's where the Fo unit comes in. The Fo is a cylinder made up of α-helices, and the γ stick from the F1 sticks down into it like an axle into a gear. The actual dynamics of what happens were beyond the scope of our lecture, but suffice to say that there is a proton pump that that uses the proton gradient across the mitochondrial membrane to make the Fo unit spin. Think of it like a water wheel: because of pumps elsewhere in the membrane, there are a lot of protons outside, so when the Fo's channel opens, they all happily flow in. The Fo uses this current to power its spinning. As the Fo spins, it takes F1's γ crankshaft along with it, clacking the other end across the catalytic α-β pairs and driving the synthesis of ATP.
[/science]
If you don't see why this is cool at this point, I'm afraid you may not even see the coolness after I enthuse about it, but here goes:
ATP SYNTHASE IS LIKE A TINY MACHINE INSIDE YOUR CELLS!
Yes, an actual machine. With moving parts. How unbelievably cool is that? I'll tell you: it's very unbelievably cool.
As Julien Offray de La Mettrie wrote in his 1748 L'homme Machine, "The human body is a machine which winds its own springs." Though he was largely concerned with locating the soul in a mechanistic body, I think he would have been ecstatic to know about ATP synthase. Granted we would have had a lot of biology and chemistry to cover before he could even understand what was going on ("OK, so... humours? Right out. Now let's talk about cells...), but this little protein complex really is the perfect example of how mechanical our bodies really are. And because this is a machine involved in creating usable energy for the functioning of the rest of the cell, it's also a fantastic example of the body winding its own springs.
OK, that's enough swooning over science for now. The title of this post, in case you are wondering, is in tribute to the late Professor Mahoney of Princeton's history of science faculty. The man's enthusiasm for machines - and the reading thereof - left a fairly indelible mark on the minds of his pupils, and loomed large over all our explorations into the history of science.
Notes:
*"This is the machine that extracts the juice of the snozberries, and it's connected to the tubes full of luminiferous aether, but it's really rather complicated so don't worry about exactly how it all works. Just trust me, it works."
**That's "F one" and "F oh," not "F zero." The o stands for oligomycin, an antibiotic that poisons the Fo unit.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A still more glorious dawn awaits
The further beyond our senses we venture, the greater will be our incredulity. We cannot see the teeming cauldron of reactions boiling in each of our trillion cells, and we cannot resolve the titanic grandeur of the galaxies, full of stars. Not from where we stand. In the past, our human universe was limited by our complete inability to see beyond our own "macro" link in the Great Chain of Being, but men like Galileo and van Leeuwenhoek gave us mechanical appendages, allowing a select few initiates to peer beyond, into the micro and the mega.
But the large majority of people do not have access to such tools, and many who read Nature's parables do not know how to interpret them, for "...seeing they may see, and not perceive." We are not actors on the micro and mega stages in everyday life, and we cannot perceive them with our unaugmented senses, so our brains have not yet caught up with our science, and we have a hard time conceiving of both the vast and the infinitesimal.
Science asks us to contemplate the nearly infinite, and religion blinds the man who would look on the face of God. In religion's circumscribed crystalline sphere, we are held comfortable in amniotic embrace (this is my body...) and fed by umbilical vein (this is my blood...) - directly into the gut, bypassing the head entirely. We do not smell, do not taste, do not analyze spiritual nourishment, but imbibe it intravenously. Please don't chew on the body of Christ while He's transubstantiating.
Richard Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, was written to make the case for evolution. Every previous book, he says, started from the presumption that evolution is fact; the latest, though, aims to present the evidence. I agree with this approach. I think the greatest buttress of prejudice is ignorance, and an anti-scientific viewpoint is rarely anything other than prejudgment.
Still, I don't know that a book will go far enough. I've bought into the scientific outlook to the greatest extent possible, and it is still incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around things like the fact that the largest black holes in the galaxy could be the size of fifty billion suns. I don't even know how big a billion is, really, nor how big the sun is. How can I conceive of such a fact? I can't. This whole line of thought occurred to me in Biochemistry lecture because I made the mistake of thinking about how the glycolysis pathway we were studying is churning incessantly in my cells, and the minute concentrations of reactants and products and regulated by other pathways, and hormones, and gradients... and all in all, the whole system (which is, by definition, life itself) is far too complex to actually understand.
This is actually part of the reason I'm excited about augmented humanity, too. I think that if we can augment our senses, we'll be able to experience a larger slice of the universe's micro-macro-mega spectrum. With our everyday consciousness expanded, we'll be better equipped to confront a vast and complex reality that is daily growing in size and complexity. I guess I'm just saying that as we chew on tougher and more gristly questions, it wouldn't hurt to have sharper teeth and a detachable jaw.
Note: The post title is from that autotuned Carl Sagan music video I posted a little while ago. Really, do yourself a favor and check it out now if you didn't before. Or even if you did - it's worth a few viewings, at least.
But the large majority of people do not have access to such tools, and many who read Nature's parables do not know how to interpret them, for "...seeing they may see, and not perceive." We are not actors on the micro and mega stages in everyday life, and we cannot perceive them with our unaugmented senses, so our brains have not yet caught up with our science, and we have a hard time conceiving of both the vast and the infinitesimal.
Science asks us to contemplate the nearly infinite, and religion blinds the man who would look on the face of God. In religion's circumscribed crystalline sphere, we are held comfortable in amniotic embrace (this is my body...) and fed by umbilical vein (this is my blood...) - directly into the gut, bypassing the head entirely. We do not smell, do not taste, do not analyze spiritual nourishment, but imbibe it intravenously. Please don't chew on the body of Christ while He's transubstantiating.
Richard Dawkins' latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, was written to make the case for evolution. Every previous book, he says, started from the presumption that evolution is fact; the latest, though, aims to present the evidence. I agree with this approach. I think the greatest buttress of prejudice is ignorance, and an anti-scientific viewpoint is rarely anything other than prejudgment.
Still, I don't know that a book will go far enough. I've bought into the scientific outlook to the greatest extent possible, and it is still incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around things like the fact that the largest black holes in the galaxy could be the size of fifty billion suns. I don't even know how big a billion is, really, nor how big the sun is. How can I conceive of such a fact? I can't. This whole line of thought occurred to me in Biochemistry lecture because I made the mistake of thinking about how the glycolysis pathway we were studying is churning incessantly in my cells, and the minute concentrations of reactants and products and regulated by other pathways, and hormones, and gradients... and all in all, the whole system (which is, by definition, life itself) is far too complex to actually understand.
This is actually part of the reason I'm excited about augmented humanity, too. I think that if we can augment our senses, we'll be able to experience a larger slice of the universe's micro-macro-mega spectrum. With our everyday consciousness expanded, we'll be better equipped to confront a vast and complex reality that is daily growing in size and complexity. I guess I'm just saying that as we chew on tougher and more gristly questions, it wouldn't hurt to have sharper teeth and a detachable jaw.
Note: The post title is from that autotuned Carl Sagan music video I posted a little while ago. Really, do yourself a favor and check it out now if you didn't before. Or even if you did - it's worth a few viewings, at least.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Three-score and beyond
The postbaccalaureate students for whom I am the TA are currently working on a particularly grueling organic chemistry lab. The resolution of enantiomers lasts three long lab sessions and is fairly unforgiving in terms of technique. I see the hollowness in their weary eyes and remember what it was like, almost exactly one year ago, as I slogged through the same drudgery.
It was, in some ways, the last straw for my already tottering sanity - the Amadis de Gaul to my Alonso Quixano - and it drove me to the excesses with which you, my faithful readers, are perhaps already acquainted. Unlike a Lovecraftian unfortunate, my madness did not mark the end of the tale but its commencement, and it was this brain-sick humour that pervaded the remainder of my postbaccalaureate endeavors.
The first fruit of my strange affliction still savored of the soil from which the mad tree had sprung, and so was directly concerned with the resolution of enantiomers. It only loses luster the more I describe it, and with so little merit at the outset (Einhard, Einhard, Einhard...), it cannot afford much tarnish.
The following appeared in my laboratory notebook, under the heading "VII. Resolution," without explanation:
Ένάντιος means “opposite” in old Hellenic speech
So ’twixt two twinned enantiomers, they’re mirrored, each in each
But do not be so hasty as to hastily suppose
That these two twinned enantiomers you can superimpose
The truth is made quite tangible by basic polarimetry
Whereby the matched-up molecules reveal their true asymmetry
When two enantiomers are present in the same proportion
The light that’s been plane-polarized will suffer no distortion
But when the brew’s scalemic, and there’s excess of one strain,
The light that’s been plane-polarized is twisted ’twixt the twain
To disconnect the duo, purge from each its pal’s pollution,
The chymist breaks the brace and pares the pair by resolution.
It is a daunting prospect, this most subtle separation
The chymist must use all his cunning in the distillation
And ne’er be shy to use his whole experimental coterie:
Extraction, crystallizing, and evaporation rotary.
Into an Erlenmeyer weigh the acid of the Khan
(Six grams in honor of the Russian princes feasted on)
Then methanol is added, eighty cubic c’s complete,
And to dissolve the acid, we apply judicious heat
Five mils methylbenzylamine, but of the alpha kind,
Are added once the brew is hot, and swirling they’re combined.
A scattering of prism seeds are subsequently sown
Then for a week you’d better leave them bloody well alone
For in the flask the seeds will grow, and if you don’t harass it,
The dragon’s teeth will spawn a host with orthorhombic facets
Wait half a fortnight’s passing, and recommence no quicker,
But once a week’s gone by you may decant the mother liquor
The crystals are collected by a plain vacuum filtration,
Then dried and weighed and subject to percent-yield calculation
Take half the mother liquor and decant it, without spilling,
Into a rounded flask, and simply start simply distilling.
Once thirty milliliters have been carefully collected
Pour all the liquor left into the flask that you selected
Watch carefully the level of the distillate distilled
For once you’ve sixty mils, the quota has been quite fulfilled.
Distilling takes a while but stay busy while you’re waitin’
There still is much to do and idle hands are tools of Satan!
While distillate is dripping you’ll begin another task
Put all the crystals in a fifty milliliter flask
We add three-molar natrium hydroxide to the mix
To form an amine with C4H12N2O6
The free amine sits in a less-dense layer up above
And in a sep the aqueous may then be drained thereof
Anhydrous sulfate sodium add to the ether extract
For it will bind to any excess water it can contact
By now your distillation should be totally complete
But if the flask cools down the crystals may become discrete
So quickly pour the last remains of liquor most maternal
While yet the liquid temperature’s still gen’rally infernal
And when this Erlenmeyer becomes cool enough to hold
Immerse it in an icy bath and crystals will unfold!
These needles of ammonium tartarate (double plus)
Should form along the bottom of the flask without a fuss
But this takes time as well so while your crystals are complying
Go back and find that flask where your amine solution’s drying
Decant the ether off the salt where it was left to bask
Into a dry, weighed, fifty cubic c round-bottom flask
Then clip it to the Rotovap, release the vacuum vent,
And spin that little bugger until all the solvent’s spent
With all the liquid gone and only amine still remaining
The new weight of the flask is what you need to be obtaining
Now all that’s left is just to find the optical rotation
A measurement of passing light’s compuls’ry aberration
Inside the polarimeter, light waves are polarized
And when you see a dark spot your rotation’s realized
You’re not done yet, though sun may set, and certain it’s quite late
Go back to your old crystals of ammonium (plus, plus) tartarate
In your Buchner place the rocks and drain the methanol off
And store them in a place that’s dry so liquid levels fall off
One week to wait, but what’s another week? You’ve waited three
Then find their optical rotation, right down to a degree
And now you’re done, and you have seen events that were quite nice occur:
Successfully you’ve isolated isomer from isomer!
© D.S.E. 2008
It was, in some ways, the last straw for my already tottering sanity - the Amadis de Gaul to my Alonso Quixano - and it drove me to the excesses with which you, my faithful readers, are perhaps already acquainted. Unlike a Lovecraftian unfortunate, my madness did not mark the end of the tale but its commencement, and it was this brain-sick humour that pervaded the remainder of my postbaccalaureate endeavors.
The first fruit of my strange affliction still savored of the soil from which the mad tree had sprung, and so was directly concerned with the resolution of enantiomers. It only loses luster the more I describe it, and with so little merit at the outset (Einhard, Einhard, Einhard...), it cannot afford much tarnish.
The following appeared in my laboratory notebook, under the heading "VII. Resolution," without explanation:
Ένάντιος means “opposite” in old Hellenic speech
So ’twixt two twinned enantiomers, they’re mirrored, each in each
But do not be so hasty as to hastily suppose
That these two twinned enantiomers you can superimpose
The truth is made quite tangible by basic polarimetry
Whereby the matched-up molecules reveal their true asymmetry
When two enantiomers are present in the same proportion
The light that’s been plane-polarized will suffer no distortion
But when the brew’s scalemic, and there’s excess of one strain,
The light that’s been plane-polarized is twisted ’twixt the twain
To disconnect the duo, purge from each its pal’s pollution,
The chymist breaks the brace and pares the pair by resolution.
It is a daunting prospect, this most subtle separation
The chymist must use all his cunning in the distillation
And ne’er be shy to use his whole experimental coterie:
Extraction, crystallizing, and evaporation rotary.
Into an Erlenmeyer weigh the acid of the Khan
(Six grams in honor of the Russian princes feasted on)
Then methanol is added, eighty cubic c’s complete,
And to dissolve the acid, we apply judicious heat
Five mils methylbenzylamine, but of the alpha kind,
Are added once the brew is hot, and swirling they’re combined.
A scattering of prism seeds are subsequently sown
Then for a week you’d better leave them bloody well alone
For in the flask the seeds will grow, and if you don’t harass it,
The dragon’s teeth will spawn a host with orthorhombic facets
Wait half a fortnight’s passing, and recommence no quicker,
But once a week’s gone by you may decant the mother liquor
The crystals are collected by a plain vacuum filtration,
Then dried and weighed and subject to percent-yield calculation
Take half the mother liquor and decant it, without spilling,
Into a rounded flask, and simply start simply distilling.
Once thirty milliliters have been carefully collected
Pour all the liquor left into the flask that you selected
Watch carefully the level of the distillate distilled
For once you’ve sixty mils, the quota has been quite fulfilled.
Distilling takes a while but stay busy while you’re waitin’
There still is much to do and idle hands are tools of Satan!
While distillate is dripping you’ll begin another task
Put all the crystals in a fifty milliliter flask
We add three-molar natrium hydroxide to the mix
To form an amine with C4H12N2O6
The free amine sits in a less-dense layer up above
And in a sep the aqueous may then be drained thereof
Anhydrous sulfate sodium add to the ether extract
For it will bind to any excess water it can contact
By now your distillation should be totally complete
But if the flask cools down the crystals may become discrete
So quickly pour the last remains of liquor most maternal
While yet the liquid temperature’s still gen’rally infernal
And when this Erlenmeyer becomes cool enough to hold
Immerse it in an icy bath and crystals will unfold!
These needles of ammonium tartarate (double plus)
Should form along the bottom of the flask without a fuss
But this takes time as well so while your crystals are complying
Go back and find that flask where your amine solution’s drying
Decant the ether off the salt where it was left to bask
Into a dry, weighed, fifty cubic c round-bottom flask
Then clip it to the Rotovap, release the vacuum vent,
And spin that little bugger until all the solvent’s spent
With all the liquid gone and only amine still remaining
The new weight of the flask is what you need to be obtaining
Now all that’s left is just to find the optical rotation
A measurement of passing light’s compuls’ry aberration
Inside the polarimeter, light waves are polarized
And when you see a dark spot your rotation’s realized
You’re not done yet, though sun may set, and certain it’s quite late
Go back to your old crystals of ammonium (plus, plus) tartarate
In your Buchner place the rocks and drain the methanol off
And store them in a place that’s dry so liquid levels fall off
One week to wait, but what’s another week? You’ve waited three
Then find their optical rotation, right down to a degree
And now you’re done, and you have seen events that were quite nice occur:
Successfully you’ve isolated isomer from isomer!
© D.S.E. 2008
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
And there is much to be learned
This is the kind of thing that makes me very happy, so I have to share:
[From The Symphony of Science, via Gizmodo]
A modern popularizers of science music video! This is sort of the equivalent of Gilbert and Sullivan writing an educational musical about Pepper's Ghost*, in that it entails the use of a popular medium to propagate the ideas of popularizers to a wider audience. It is not, of course, any kind of substitute for their actual work - nor does it pretend to be - but it reminds us of something that science often forgets. Namely, that one of the discipline's most powerful tools in securing its own future is the inspiration of wonder and enthusiasm among the public. Sometimes, setting a spark to the tinder means using somewhat silly autotuned jams, or grand pageants of ghostly visitors, but what may be lost of the content is made up for in fascination.
There is also, I think , no concern that such offerings dim the public esteem of science, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, and primarily in this instance, the silliness is being propagated by an outsider, and not by Sagan & Co. themselves. But secondly, and more importantly, I think even if the esteemed scientists themselves had been responsible for the video, it would only have served to show that they have a sense of humor and creativity. Science does not anyone's help in being perceived as an ivory-tower enterprise. A little humanization can go a long way.
And, come on, don't those videos just make you smile?
*Note: This is the article that launched a thousand ships, so to speak, by introducing me to John Henry Pepper and his marvelous, patented ghost-machine. One thesis later, I shake my fist at J.A. Secord as I continue to be consumed by popularizers of science and Victorian magic. So enjoy it, but beware.
[From The Symphony of Science, via Gizmodo]
A modern popularizers of science music video! This is sort of the equivalent of Gilbert and Sullivan writing an educational musical about Pepper's Ghost*, in that it entails the use of a popular medium to propagate the ideas of popularizers to a wider audience. It is not, of course, any kind of substitute for their actual work - nor does it pretend to be - but it reminds us of something that science often forgets. Namely, that one of the discipline's most powerful tools in securing its own future is the inspiration of wonder and enthusiasm among the public. Sometimes, setting a spark to the tinder means using somewhat silly autotuned jams, or grand pageants of ghostly visitors, but what may be lost of the content is made up for in fascination.
There is also, I think , no concern that such offerings dim the public esteem of science, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, and primarily in this instance, the silliness is being propagated by an outsider, and not by Sagan & Co. themselves. But secondly, and more importantly, I think even if the esteemed scientists themselves had been responsible for the video, it would only have served to show that they have a sense of humor and creativity. Science does not anyone's help in being perceived as an ivory-tower enterprise. A little humanization can go a long way.
And, come on, don't those videos just make you smile?
*Note: This is the article that launched a thousand ships, so to speak, by introducing me to John Henry Pepper and his marvelous, patented ghost-machine. One thesis later, I shake my fist at J.A. Secord as I continue to be consumed by popularizers of science and Victorian magic. So enjoy it, but beware.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
"And ðærof gehergode eal þæt hē wolde."
As something of a follow-up to Sunday's blasphemies, I thought I'd throw a bone to any pious types who may be reading this blog. Yes, I know you're out there, and I know it's been rough. My writings are a spiritual minefield, rife with all manner of execration and godlessness, but just... so... tempting...
Well, I applaud your perseverance in this self-administered test of faith. I'm honored to be the wilderness to your Christ, the Bathsheba to your David, the absolute-shitstorm-of-disasters to your Lot, and the desire-to-avoid-filleting-your-firstborn to your Abraham. Your faith will be rewarded: not in the next life, but in this very post. As a kind of thank-you for wading through all the worldly muck, here's a more celestial post, for people like you, about people like you.
For though you may sometimes feel like a long-lost wayfarer in the firmament, drifting alone from star to cold star, suffocated in the spiritual vacuum but for the life-support system of Christ's love (this bread is my CO2 scrubber, this wine the urine recycled through the catheter of your exposure suit's integrated bioproducts/waste-reclamation system), know that you are not alone. The light of the Lord has penetrated even to the furthest reaches of galaxy! Set phasors to "save" and shout hallelujah, for the Klingons have found Jesus!
That's not just the unreasonable extension of my dumb astronaut metaphor - it's actually true [via TR].
Yes, I kid you not, Klingons for Christ Jesus is not the chromosomally-deficient brainchild of my gravid yet cyclophosphamide-swilling brain. These guys are for real. Well, OK, maybe "for real" is not the best way to put it, but they certainly exist and they seem to take themselves seriously.
Most of their creed seems to involve selectively reading the Bible with an eye toward the more bellicose verses (but hey, that's nothing new: Glenn Beck thinks that beating swords into plowshares is commie propaganda, and the geniuses at Conservapedia are basically doing the same thing, except in a much scarier way). You know, "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight..." (Psalm 144) - that sort of thing.
But what I find really fascinating, actually, is their take on Jesus. Around the turn of the last millennium, Jesus was basically that hippie Reconstructionist rabbi who's always going on about finding God in the family love of appreciating the warmth of a spring day when life is renewed through the green fuses of the flowers that shine with the divine spark of love like a baby's eyes looking at its mother. OK, Klingons, deal with that.
And they do. I quote, altering neither the color of the text nor the abundance of punctuation marks:
Anyway, what I'm really getting at here is (surprise, surprise) something medieval. While we tend not to mention wrinkly-headed aliens in the same breath as William the Conqueror (Despite the physical resemblance. Oh snap! Alfred's thegns represent!), there are some striking parallels between the Savior of the Klingons and that of the Anglo-Saxons, at least as represented in Wulfstan's eleventh-century "Apostles' Creed."
The Creed was read as part of a short sermon entitled To Eallum Folke given by Wulfstan (bishop of Worcester, archbishop of York). Perhaps it's just my amateurish tendencies, but to me, the text reads quite a bit more rugged and manly than most Christian liturgy. Take a gander:
Yeah, that's right: this is not your Lamb of God. This Jesus is here to kick ass and heal lepers, and it looks like he's all out of lepers. Seriously, I'm not taking all that much poetic license with the language, either: "Hē to helle fērde and ðærof gehergode eal þæt hē wolde." According to Bosworth, "gehergode" means "to harry or ravage," or "to make predatory attacks upon." This is, in two words, Viking Jesus.
The awesomeness of Viking Jesus is apparent, and my guess is that the language used here is intentionally geared toward the warrior culture of the Anglo-Saxons to whom it was being preached. Like a teen pastor who uses Christian rock for his youth ministry, Wulfstan knew his audience and knew what they wanted. The pagan gods were paragons of strength and cunning, warrior gods who ate frost giants for breakfast. Why believe in some Mediterranean pansy who turned the other cheek instead of swinging a battle axe?
The answer is the same for both the grim men of yore and the pimply fanboys of today: in the right light, Jesus was a badass.
As a side note, this interpretation kind of explains Mark 16:8. It's different than the version of the story told in the other gospels, and it's given people some interpretive trouble. Some women come upon the newly-arisen Christ, "And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid" (KJV). Well, no kidding. Ever seen Serenity? You know the part where the blast doors open to reveal River standing on a pile of massacred Reavers? [1. Spoiler alert! 2. I can't find a version with the original soundtrack, so... buy the DVD]. Now imagine that she's a dude in a tunic who got crucified a couple days before. I know I'd run.
Now, here we could discuss the ways in which religion is multivalent, and its amorphous nature enables it to offer something to all who seek its wisdom. Just as Jesus plundered Hell and took thereof all that he would, so too can anyone plunder the Bible and take from it exactly what he wants. But instead of expostulating any more, I'm just going to revel some more in the idea of Jesus clawing his way out of Hell, punching through the boulder at the cave mouth, and climbing - climbing! - up to Heaven. Ka Plah, indeed, my friends. Ka Plah.
Well, I applaud your perseverance in this self-administered test of faith. I'm honored to be the wilderness to your Christ, the Bathsheba to your David, the absolute-shitstorm-of-disasters to your Lot, and the desire-to-avoid-filleting-your-firstborn to your Abraham. Your faith will be rewarded: not in the next life, but in this very post. As a kind of thank-you for wading through all the worldly muck, here's a more celestial post, for people like you, about people like you.
For though you may sometimes feel like a long-lost wayfarer in the firmament, drifting alone from star to cold star, suffocated in the spiritual vacuum but for the life-support system of Christ's love (this bread is my CO2 scrubber, this wine the urine recycled through the catheter of your exposure suit's integrated bioproducts/waste-reclamation system), know that you are not alone. The light of the Lord has penetrated even to the furthest reaches of galaxy! Set phasors to "save" and shout hallelujah, for the Klingons have found Jesus!
That's not just the unreasonable extension of my dumb astronaut metaphor - it's actually true [via TR].
Most of their creed seems to involve selectively reading the Bible with an eye toward the more bellicose verses (but hey, that's nothing new: Glenn Beck thinks that beating swords into plowshares is commie propaganda, and the geniuses at Conservapedia are basically doing the same thing, except in a much scarier way). You know, "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight..." (Psalm 144) - that sort of thing.
But what I find really fascinating, actually, is their take on Jesus. Around the turn of the last millennium, Jesus was basically that hippie Reconstructionist rabbi who's always going on about finding God in the family love of appreciating the warmth of a spring day when life is renewed through the green fuses of the flowers that shine with the divine spark of love like a baby's eyes looking at its mother. OK, Klingons, deal with that.
And they do. I quote, altering neither the color of the text nor the abundance of punctuation marks:
"Indeed, Klingons accept the teachings of Christ as part of a warrior tradition. Christ brings not peace, but a sword. And this batlh'etlh is a sword of honor indeed!Well, I've been told. They also discuss his sufferings on the cross, comparing the unpleasant proceedings to something called the Klingon Rite of Ascension. Something tells me these guys really enjoyed The Passion of the Christ, but not for the reasons Mel Gibson was hoping.
Ka Plah!!!"
Anyway, what I'm really getting at here is (surprise, surprise) something medieval. While we tend not to mention wrinkly-headed aliens in the same breath as William the Conqueror (Despite the physical resemblance. Oh snap! Alfred's thegns represent!), there are some striking parallels between the Savior of the Klingons and that of the Anglo-Saxons, at least as represented in Wulfstan's eleventh-century "Apostles' Creed."
The Creed was read as part of a short sermon entitled To Eallum Folke given by Wulfstan (bishop of Worcester, archbishop of York). Perhaps it's just my amateurish tendencies, but to me, the text reads quite a bit more rugged and manly than most Christian liturgy. Take a gander:
We believe in one mighty God who shaped and worked all things.
And we believe, and earnestly know, that Christ Godson came to mankind in our need.
And we believe that he was born to a clean maiden, Holy Mary, who never had intercourse with men.
And we believe that he endured much, and fiercely suffered for our every need.
And we believe that man hung him from the cross, and forced him unto death, and he afterwards was buried in the earth.
And we believe that he journeyed to Hell and thereof plundered all that he would.
And we believe that afterwards he rose up from death.
And we believe that afterwards he climbed up to Heaven.
And we believe, and earnestly know, that he on Doom's Day to the great doom cometh.
And we believe that all the dead must then rise up from death and seek their great doom.
And we believe that the sinful must then immediately go to Hell, and there with devils dwell in burning fire and eternal ruin—no end will ever come, not for all time.
And we believe that good, full-Christians, who here in the world well-pleased God, must then immediately go into Heaven, and there afterwards have a dwelling with God Himself, and with his angels, always in eternity. Amen.
(Translation mine)
(Emphasis on the sweet parts also mine)
(Emphasis on the sweet parts also mine)
Yeah, that's right: this is not your Lamb of God. This Jesus is here to kick ass and heal lepers, and it looks like he's all out of lepers. Seriously, I'm not taking all that much poetic license with the language, either: "Hē to helle fērde and ðærof gehergode eal þæt hē wolde." According to Bosworth, "gehergode" means "to harry or ravage," or "to make predatory attacks upon." This is, in two words, Viking Jesus.
The awesomeness of Viking Jesus is apparent, and my guess is that the language used here is intentionally geared toward the warrior culture of the Anglo-Saxons to whom it was being preached. Like a teen pastor who uses Christian rock for his youth ministry, Wulfstan knew his audience and knew what they wanted. The pagan gods were paragons of strength and cunning, warrior gods who ate frost giants for breakfast. Why believe in some Mediterranean pansy who turned the other cheek instead of swinging a battle axe?
The answer is the same for both the grim men of yore and the pimply fanboys of today: in the right light, Jesus was a badass.
As a side note, this interpretation kind of explains Mark 16:8. It's different than the version of the story told in the other gospels, and it's given people some interpretive trouble. Some women come upon the newly-arisen Christ, "And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid" (KJV). Well, no kidding. Ever seen Serenity? You know the part where the blast doors open to reveal River standing on a pile of massacred Reavers? [1. Spoiler alert! 2. I can't find a version with the original soundtrack, so... buy the DVD]. Now imagine that she's a dude in a tunic who got crucified a couple days before. I know I'd run.
Now, here we could discuss the ways in which religion is multivalent, and its amorphous nature enables it to offer something to all who seek its wisdom. Just as Jesus plundered Hell and took thereof all that he would, so too can anyone plunder the Bible and take from it exactly what he wants. But instead of expostulating any more, I'm just going to revel some more in the idea of Jesus clawing his way out of Hell, punching through the boulder at the cave mouth, and climbing - climbing! - up to Heaven. Ka Plah, indeed, my friends. Ka Plah.
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