"Year of our Lord"?

Just noticed that (again) on my diploma.

Forgive me for asking...

Who's our Lord again?

 

YHWH

But the reference, "Anno Domini", stands for the year of His manifestation on earth, supposedly 2,005 years ago. But they missed it by about 4-6 years.

Not the answer you were expecting, I suppose.

 

All of my Navy promotion certificates and many other Navy certificates state the date as "year of our Lord". I'm sure it has happed, but I never seen anyone complain, nor did I ever see alternate certificates, which omitted the "year of our Lord" phrase.

 

When you apply to be admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, they ask you whether you want the "Our Lord" version or not.

I always thought my wife's Georgetown J.D. diploma was cool. It's all in latin and starts out (my translatuion) "Greetings in the Name of Our Lord and Savior J.C. etc."

My wife is, of course, Jewish.

 

Our Lord is the reason you had the intellectual capacity to earn the diploma.

 

Are you admitted to the SupCt bar? Have you ever argued a case? Just curious, I've never even set foot in a federal court.

As for your wife, G-Town is very impressive. You, like me, obviously married up in the world intellectually. (No offense intended)

Your wife could always do the Messianic thing like me and the wife, then there'd be no problem with Jesus Christ on the diploma, though I personally prefer Jeshua!

 

The chance that either I or my wife would adopt the religion of the oyvehim is significantly less than zero. A joke, no doubt?

No, I'm not admitted to the Supreme Court Bar. The reason I looked into it, though, is that I was in an brief period of private, solo practice (unemployment) and took on a federal case or two. In order to even file a petition for habeas, you have to be admitted. It doesn't demand much; a hundred bucks and three unblemished years at the Bar.

Fortunately, a State position opened up and, with regret, I decided to dedicate myself to public service!

 

Re: Re: "Year of our Lord"?

Ahh...Lord Hermes.

 

Well, "My Sweet Lord" is Lord Krishna.

 

If voles lit their farts there'd be as much heat and light...

 

Re: Re: "Year of our Lord"?

Nah! The reason people have the intellectual ability to earn diplomas is because of so many advantageous random mutations that have led to humanoids having brains that are relatively large compared to total body mass. But I'm sure that, if humanoids had been stuck with smaller brains compared to total body mass, they would have adapted their educational system, such as it is, accordingly. ~ Ted.

 

I KNOW I am going to regret saying this BUT there is NO contradiction between believing in God and accepting modern science, so long as each body of wisdom is restricted to its proper sphere.

 

In the Judeo-Christian historical context of the United States, the term "Our Lord" is a direct reference to Christ Jesus. Try as they might, organizations such as the ACLU are vigoriously trying to remove His name from every vestage of public display. Someday they will have their wish and they will be forever seperated from Him in hell.

 

I'm not familiar with that word "oyvehim". A reference to Messianics? A distorted Hebraic transliteration of "Jeshua"? Just curious.

Yes, of course, my tongue was rather well embedded in my cheek. But of course, when I run across a Jew who at least is in some respects "my brother", I can't help but wish.

Why not Jeshua? He fit so many of the criteria stated in the Scriptures and by the Prophets for Messiah--if not the traditional expectations of Messiah as a political leader--and one would be hard pressed to find any teacher or philosopher in world history with a more Hebraic, traditional Jewish mode of teaching and mindset.

 

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Now that is a scary though. With the educational system is such disarray it would be frightful to image it any worse or the standards any lower.

 

Re: Re: "Year of our Lord"?

I guess that the United States is an outgrowth of European civilization. And historically, medieval Europe kind of identified itself as being "Christiandom". Spain was Muslim, but the interlopers were something to expel, not embrace.

But since the Renaissance that identification of Europe with Christiandom has faded dramatically. In the 15'th century there was a wave of interest in ancient paganism and in the philosophical (and occult) traditions. The 16'th century brought widespread interest in creating an entirely new philosophy and a new method from the ground up on secular principles. The 17'th century saw the astounding (was it fortuitous?) success of that movement in the scientific revolution. The 18'th century saw all the new ideas seeping down from the intellectuals to the mass of the people and becoming social movements. The 19th century saw the industrial revolution, the arrival of ubiquitous powered machinery, urbanization and the transformation of people's daily lives. The 20'th century saw the new impetus becoming global.

And inevitably all of that stuff circled back and influenced how people perceived their old religious certainties. Traditions were observed through secular eyes, subjected to historical, philosophical and textual analysis. The interest in new foundations permitted and encouraged intelligent people to question all the received ones. Doubt and religious creativity multiplied.

In other words, in 2005 Christianity is no longer simply the culture's default intellectual mode. It isn't the automatic unexamined presupposition. It doesn't provide the foundation for all of the rest of society as it once did.

Religious alternatives are rapidly multiplying. To just take one Silicon Valley city of about 60,000 people, Milpitas is crawling with Hindus. The town features one of America's most important Jain temples. There's a significant Sri Lankan Buddhist congregation. There are Chinese syncretists with their clan temples. You can find several varieties of Muslim. There's lots of Vietnamese.

Sure you can find your Catholic church and the usual array of Protestants. But they don't automatically define religion for everyone else any longer. That's the point and that's the tendency. More and more it's cutting across ethnic lines. You have your Korean Presbyterians and the corresponding Caucasians sitting there, practicing their Zen.

No matter where you are located, even in rural Mississippi, you can log onto the internet and have every imaginable permutation of religious thought available to you in an instant.

Ironically, it's the same influence that Christian missionaries have tried to exert on the rest of the world for several centuries. The world strikes back...

So I'll predict that what the 21'st century will bring us is a marketplace of religious ideas. A smorgabord of faiths. A la carte religiosity. Pick a faith that suits you, or create your own.

It's the Californication of religious certainty. I think that once again California is at the forefront of a significant social change.

The tide of globalism is going to make it harder and harder for countries to identify themselves with one unquestioned belief system. It will be even harder if nobody has the slightest clue how to justify their traditional beliefs to people who don't already share them.

That will leave people all over the world in the position of having to make a conscious choice. But people will have little to guide them beyond the local social pressure and convention that's unraveling at an accelerating pace.

And that in turn will shine a bright new spotlight on the philosophical problems of religious choice, religious truth and religious epistemology.

 

A.D. = Anno Domini = Year of Our Lord.

Use whichever one you want, all three mean precisely the same thing.

OR (like many History and Discovery Channel specials) use...

C.E. = Common Era

Of course, my arch-conservative father insists on interpretting C.E. as "the Christian Era" but he is rarely allowed out of the house, and then only to attend LCMS services.

 

He he he!

He he he!


Abner

 

Hey Robb, if he's an arch-conservative Lutheran, what's he doing in the LCMS?

(Sorry. Couldn't resist. Have a swell day.)