{"id":40155,"date":"2012-11-27T09:54:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-27T16:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=40155"},"modified":"2014-12-30T11:01:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:01:26","slug":"marc-barnes-is-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/11\/marc-barnes-is-fantastic.html","title":{"rendered":"Marc Barnes is fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s his typically insightful (and in this case, Ecclesiastesesque) post on the consequences of limiting one\u2019s horizons to a nature that has been, as Paul says, subjected to futility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[T]he modern world sees destruction as something bold, brave and ballsy. We see sin \u2014 always destructive \u2014 as a solid in an otherwise watery universe.\u00a0 The vandals, arsonists, gangsters, home wreckers, and serial killers; the self-destructive, self-righteous, and self-serving; the womanizers, tyrants, and abusers \u2013 we are most of these things, and we think at least one or two of them badass. This is the modern thesis: The man being good is afraid to be bad, and the man being bad is hardcore. The Joker is cooler than Batman. It\u2019s a problem of poetry more than anything else: Goodness is a soft thing, while badness is lauded as hard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if we come from Nothing and are going to Nothing, what boldness can there be in destruction? The law of entropy will kill our families, reduce our houses to dust, and slowly, steadily, bring about all the super-hardcore-ness we can imagine. There is no rebellion in hastening the inevitable. A killing spree may shock society, but it is a boredom to the universe, who ultimately kills everyone. To objectify a woman into a sex object might give men a thrill, but it is pathetic to the universe, who is busy rendering her into a corpse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like that.\u00a0 Some time ago, I tried to get at something similar in a little piece I wrote called \u201cTruth Cancer and the Redemption of Rebellion\u201d arguing that Christ was the most interesting rebel and subversive character in history since he is a rebel against the Police State called \u201cthe world\u201d which the Prince of this World has erected after being cast out of heaven.\u00a0 Marc gets the same thing and tries to awaken in postmodern readers the thought \u201cThe Matrix (the world system\u00a0of spiritual slavery and nihlism dominated by the Prince of this World)\u00a0has you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the comboxes, a relentlessly fundamentalist devotee of Bob Sungenis\u2019 geocentrism and various other Protestant literalist obsessions perfumed with Catholic smells and bells (a Mr. DeLano), shows up for a while to utterly misread Marc and appoint himself combox inquisitor.\u00a0Then some atheist shows up to be a counterpart fundamentalist to DeLano\u2019s fundamentalism.\u00a0Things look dark for a while as the conversation spirals toward a State of Total Dumbness that is the intellectual equivalent of 0 degrees Kelvin.\u00a0 But then, Mike Flynn (\u201cYe Olde Statistician\u201d) turns up to carry the thankless burden of trying to talk sense to DeLano and Struck.\u00a0 He fails, naturally, through no fault of his own to make an impression on Mr. DeLano\u2019s and Mr. Struck\u2019s hermetically sealed brains.\u00a0 But for onlookers who are capable of listening to common sense, he provides a valuable little set of lessons about how to think about such matters as a Catholic. Check out the link both for Barnes\u2019 and YOS refreshing lucidity.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s his typically insightful (and in this case, Ecclesiastesesque) post on the consequences of limiting one\u2019s horizons to a nature that has been, as Paul says, subjected to futility. [T]he modern world sees destruction as something bold, brave and ballsy. We see sin \u2014 always destructive \u2014 as a solid in an otherwise watery universe.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-40155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-doings-on-other-blogs"],"yoast_head":"\nMarc Barnes is fantastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's his typically insightful (and in this case, Ecclesiastesesque) post on the consequences of limiting one's horizons to a nature that has been, as\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/11\/marc-barnes-is-fantastic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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