Althouse: "I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside... We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity."

July 31, 2010

"I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside... We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity."

Prince Charles feels a sense of purpose.

Is that really so terrible?

59 comments:

Anonymous said...: What a friggin' sanctimonious blowhard!

What else is there to say?

I can't think of anything.

I'm really tired of the era of friggin' sanctimonious blowhards. It's been going on for... what? Two decades.

Will the coin ever flip? Will we ever shift into an era of not giving a shit and raising hell for the fun of it?

World savers! Will the era of the sanctimonious world savers ever end?; 7/31/10, 9:55 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: But it isn't a living entity. Most of the universe is hydrogen atoms.; 7/31/10, 9:59 AM
X said...: It's sort of like The Prince and The Pauper except with him as the prince and us as the paupers.; 7/31/10, 10:00 AM
GMay said...: I can't think of a better thing for a figurehead to work on.; 7/31/10, 10:00 AM
Gabriel Hanna said...: A mind so open his brain fell out. Like David St Hubbins, he believes virtually everything he reads...; 7/31/10, 10:00 AM
MnMark said...: Is "feeling a sense of purpose" so terrible?

It kind of depends on the purpose, doesn't it? Hitler sure felt a sense of purpose.; 7/31/10, 10:01 AM
Gabriel Hanna said...: The Royal family has its own homeopath, did you know that?

The NHS runs five or so homeopathic hospitals at taxpayer expense. The equivalent of millions of dollars of taxpayer money are being spent for what is literally water and sugar pills.; 7/31/10, 10:01 AM
dbp said...: "Prince Charles believes he was born for a purpose"

He was, but not to save the world; rather to provide it with comedy gold.; 7/31/10, 10:03 AM
rhhardin said...: Look for the castle yard sale

Pick up some ermine or a sceptre.; 7/31/10, 10:05 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: Whenever I see Prince Charles I can't help but think of this; 7/31/10, 10:05 AM
Rialby said...: When does he finally come out as a Muslim?; 7/31/10, 10:06 AM
Palladian said...: "But it isn't a living entity. Most of the universe is hydrogen atoms."

Depending on who you ask, 80% of the universe is 'dark matter', which may or may not be homeopathic, organic and free-trade certified.; 7/31/10, 10:06 AM
Palladian said...: Don't get your cosmology from an oatcake vendor.; 7/31/10, 10:08 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: It would be more honest and more practical to attempt to save the small part of the world called the United Kingdom. That's a country that needs leadership, not good intentions.; 7/31/10, 10:08 AM
Anonymous said...: I managed a website for an environmental department at a local college for a while.

The head of the department was a nice guy, but he was a sanctimonious loon, too.

He gave me an autographed copy of his book.

The argument was the usual one: he was a teary eyed saint saving the beauty of the natural world for his wonderful daughters.

I've always wanted to ask these people: Do you know somebody who would like to poison and destroy the world just to spite their own children?

And, the Monty Python video takes the trophy!; 7/31/10, 10:10 AM
Phil 314 said...: My duty is to save the world

Well you better get started then.; 7/31/10, 10:12 AM
Peano said...: The wages of in-breeding.; 7/31/10, 10:12 AM
Phil 314 said...: Chuck;
Just now briefly reviewed your official duties, didn't find "save the world" in the list. Please confirm with Mr. Cameron; 7/31/10, 10:17 AM
Anonymous said...: As I recall, he has said that he wants to be the Defender of Faith, not Defender of the Faith (Church of England).; 7/31/10, 10:19 AM
traditionalguy said...: If all of the world is a living entity, then what is a single man's role in planet's life? There goes unalienable rights and private property...just the solution for an idiot asshole king that still thinks those rights and property are his birthright and not yours.; 7/31/10, 10:19 AM
Phil 314 said...: And Chuck, while you're at it, please ask Mr. Cameron if he too could lay off the "saving the world" schtick. Many problems at home, no need to piss off so many outside of england.; 7/31/10, 10:20 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: I think what I find most obnoxious is the way that science is used to justify nature worship.

If you want science, then accept that we live on a very small rock that doesn't care about us. We don't matter to the vast number of hydrogen atoms that make up the universe. We have exactly the same right to live on this planet as anything else (ie for as long as we can), and we are no different in our desire to grow at the expense of other species. Almost all the species that have ever lived are extinct. Someday we will be, too.

That's pretty bleak. With just science, there's no purpose to anything. Science is about how, not why. There is no observable answer to what the purpose of the universe is, or what we should do.

If you want religion, then please have the guts to say that it's religion. And if we have to listen to it, please at least work out the details. At least Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et. al. have a worldview that accepts some complexity.

This New Age blather goes unchallenged while religions with a real connection to the past are denigrated. People like religion, and they seem to have a need for it. Let's at least acknowledge it when we see it.; 7/31/10, 10:21 AM
Anonymous said...: With any luck, the reason Chuckles was placed on earth will turn out to be the same reason Louis XVI was placed on earth.; 7/31/10, 10:24 AM
Palladian said...: "As I recall, he has said that he wants to be the Defender of Faith"

Considering that the Church of England has basically become a garden club run by gay vicars who disseminate squishy PC platitudes to people too cowardly to admit that they're atheists, the only faith seriously practiced in England is Islam. Prince Charles is just hedging his bets for the inevitable.; 7/31/10, 10:27 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: John Lynch,

"This New Age blather goes unchallenged while religions with a real connection to the past are denigrated."

So Newage got one mention in 22 comments? *Sigh*

Oh well.

Thanks for the link anyway, Ann.; 7/31/10, 10:29 AM
Anonymous said...: Save the world? He wouldn't be able to save the British sausage.; 7/31/10, 10:29 AM
Anonymous said...: Considering that the Church of England has basically become a garden club run by gay vicars who disseminate squishy PC platitudes to people too cowardly to admit that they're atheists, the only faith seriously practiced in England is Islam. Prince Charles is just hedging his bets for the inevitable.

A good description, but I understand that the ultimate outcome of the religion of "squishy PC platitudes" is that the pews are completely empty.; 7/31/10, 10:29 AM
Palladian said...: "A good description, but I understand that the ultimate outcome of the religion of "squishy PC platitudes" is that the pews are completely empty."

Well at least they still get a lot of traffic from people coming to see the beautiful architecture.; 7/31/10, 10:32 AM
Palladian said...: Actually there's another faith seriously practiced in England besides Islam: Bureaucratic Socialism. My money's on the angry guys with the scimitars.; 7/31/10, 10:33 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: "We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity."

...that's full of malevolent spirits constantly trying to kill us...

Why doesn't he complete the thought? It's not like people have lived in the type of world he's talking about recently; or that the thought he idolizes existed in isolation.

I can understand how Christianity might seem shallow to some people; but to dump it for something like the gaia theory does not seem like an upgrade. Especially when you're this inarticulate about it.; 7/31/10, 10:37 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Yeah, it's funny how ripping the guts out of every institution that made a country great will make the greatest empire in the world into a cultural backwater within 50 years.

Something we should emulate, huh?; 7/31/10, 10:38 AM
traditionalguy said...: And why again did that part of the earth's biosphere named Diana Spencer need to die off after breeding for the sake of the Throne of England that this creep's occult empowered family claims to own.; 7/31/10, 10:50 AM
Unknown said...: It can't be good to be prepared to do a job that's all ceremony, wait your whole adult life to get it, and then realize Mum is going to hand it over to your firstborn.

Ann is right about the second link, however. At least Chuck can't do any real harm.; 7/31/10, 10:50 AM
Anonymous said...: Slight off-topic.

A couple of nights ago, I was just drifting around the internet wasting time... and for some reason the subject I landed on was the firebombing of Hamburg by the RAF (and Americans) in WWII.

If you want to know why we're headed down this road, you have to go back to this madness. Over 40,000 people incinerated in two nights. We're all still reeling from the psychological beating.

As I read it, I realized an odd coincidence.

The Beatles professional career really blossomed in, of all places, Hamburg.

Maybe that wasn't such a coincidence.; 7/31/10, 10:55 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Not really. We have also realized that the divine right of kings is also dead. So give back the people's money and get a job Chuck.; 7/31/10, 11:02 AM
Fred4Pres said...: And Crack is right as usual. New Age mumbo jumbo is just dreck (about as morally substantive as San Francisco's summer of love). Charles seems to bounce back and forth with that New Age crap and trying to be open minded in dealing with murderous jihadists.

I would, however, prefer if he wanted to dabble in eastern religions that he pick up Buddhism or Hinduism.; 7/31/10, 11:06 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: c3 said...

Chuck;
Just now briefly reviewed your official duties, didn't find "save the world" in the list.

He could be saving the world in his spare time.; 7/31/10, 11:10 AM
traditionalguy said...: ShoutingThomas...If you want a good study of man's ability to justify wholesale killing of others, read Max Hastings book "Retribution-The battle for Japan 1944-1945".; 7/31/10, 11:16 AM
rhhardin said...: The Bad Vicar Mitchell and Webb.; 7/31/10, 11:16 AM
john said...: Elizabeth's sole remaining goal as Queen of England is to outlive her children.

Noble, and one all people of good will should wholeheartedly support.; 7/31/10, 11:25 AM
john said...: He could be saving the world in his spare time.

That's all the time he has, you know.; 7/31/10, 11:27 AM
Mick said...: All liberal programs that have the unintended result of reduced liberty start with good intentions.; 7/31/10, 11:43 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Palladian,

A friend of my who travels there frequently claims that there's a huge (but under-reported) revival going on in the Anglican Church in Britain these days, and that your (very apt) description applies to maybe half of the people in the CoE now.

Whether this movement will have a larger salutary effect (as did Wesley's "Methodists") is a completely different question, and at present still remains to be seen.; 7/31/10, 11:47 AM
Synova said...: In SMStirling's Dies the Fire series he portrays Charles as an environmental nut-job such that William has to depose him.

Seems he was paying attention.; 7/31/10, 11:50 AM
Paddy O said...: "...the firebombing of Hamburg..."

Interesting side note to this--and connected to contemporary religion--is that one of the, if not the, top theologian of the last fifty years -- Jurgen Moltmann -- was stationed at an anti-aircraft battery in Hamburg during this bombing ("Operation Gomorrah"). He was a 17 year old at the time conscripted out of high school with his friends.

A bomb hit his battery, killing his best friend, who was standing next to him, instantly. He was completely unhurt. He was later sent to the front, captured in Belgium, the sent to a POW camp in Scotland. It was in that camp he first really read the Bible, became a Christian, and starting studying theology.

This is especially interesting because one of his key themes is the importance of nature and our response to it is part of our response to others and to God--the Creator of Creation.

It's a very deep Christian theology that finds the themes of environmentalism within the context of deep theology and tradition.; 7/31/10, 12:00 PM
Big Mike said...: Is there anyone who can explain to him that he's not very bright?; 7/31/10, 12:05 PM
jamboree said...: That's because most people have to work for a living, Chuck.

You let people come and stay on your estate for years at a time, communing with nature, with nothing to do, and they'll get that feeling right back.

Tool. The UK's Al Gore.; 7/31/10, 12:05 PM
Methadras said...: Fucking NewAge retardation and their exploratory idiocy by calling out the universe as some kind of infinite living entity. The universe is stupid and made even more so by inbred morons like Prince Charles.; 7/31/10, 12:37 PM
Alex said...: The universe is a collection of stars, black holes, quasars, dark matter, dust and a few planets. There is no mystical energy to it. It just is.; 7/31/10, 12:43 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: "The two most common things in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity."
(attributed to lots of folks...)

Nice to see such a fine confirmation.

WV: "deouni" where CofE gets its new-hires.; 7/31/10, 1:58 PM
Ralph L said...: Hey Mick, Charles is a Natural Born Prince!

(I first typed Porn Prince EEW!); 7/31/10, 2:30 PM
Anonymous said...: It's a very deep Christian theology that finds the themes of environmentalism within the context of deep theology and tradition.

Hum. Almost half of the 2 hours of one of the ordinances in a Mormon temple is about plants and animals and man's stewardship with the charge to "take good care of them."

From Mormon church leaders:

Brigham Young: "Are you not dissatisfied, and is there not bitterness in your feelings, the moment you find a canyon put in the possession of an individual, and power given unto him to control the timber, wood, rock, grass, and, in short, all its facilities?"

Ezra Taft Benson: "The outward expressions of irreverence for God, for life, and for our fellowmen take the form of things like littering, heedless strip-mining, heedless pollution of water and air."

Gordon B. Hinckley: "This earth is [Christ's] creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him."

David O. McKay: "A true Latter-day Saint is kind to animals, is kind to every living thing, for God has created all...In all teaching, the element of love for all of the creatures of the earth can be emphasized...."

George Q. Cannon: "These birds and animals and fish cannot speak, but they can suffer, and our God who created them knows their sufferings, and will hold him who causes them to suffer unnecessarily to answer for it. It is a sin against their Creator.'

(continuing) "Children who are trained to respect the rights of the lower animals will be more inclined to respect human rights and become good citizens."

George Q. Cannon: "The practice of hunting and killing game merely for sport should be frowned upon and not encouraged among us." "It is not the design of the Lord that men should prey upon animal creation and destroy them, beyond that which is necessary to sustain their lives."

Joseph F. Smith: "I never could see why a man should be imbued with a bloodthirsty desire to kill, and destroy animal life…. I do not believe any man should kill animals or birds unless he needs them for food, and then he should not kill innocent little birds that are not intended for food for man. I think it is wicked for men to thirst in their souls to kill almost everything which possesses animal life."; 7/31/10, 3:02 PM
traditionalguy said...: Environment worship is just another power and money religion. Where that belief is propagated, then there is huge money to be made by government Arborists, and their bosses, and their bribe takers all arrogantly pretending to regulate the evil of tree removal in a city that is literally covered in trees by the good people who formerly owned their own property. Please do not support that pathetic scam that claims to love trees. Revolt boldly before your chains are hammered onto you.; 7/31/10, 3:54 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Prince Charles isn't the only one with a special purpose; 7/31/10, 5:51 PM
ricpic said...: Speaking of gay vicars - the best thing Monty Python ever did was The Filthy Vicar sketch. Not sure but it's probably on You Tube.; 7/31/10, 8:47 PM
Anonymous said...: We already have a savior: Christ Jesus. We don't need Camilla's tampon, Charles.; 7/31/10, 11:14 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/31/10, 11:16 PM
Synova said...: There is a vast difference between stewardship of creation and a gaia fantasy.

The one, for example, sees humans as a positive influence and part of nature instead of a cancer.; 7/31/10, 11:35 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Synova,

"There is a vast difference between stewardship of creation and a gaia fantasy.

The one, for example, sees humans as a positive influence and part of nature instead of a cancer."

As an atheist, I am at a loss as to why we have to see any of this as anything but what it is. I don't see people as a positive influence - they can be mean and cruel and selfish and disgusting - but I don't see them as a cancer either. People are just people, life is just life.

Why we can't try to make the best of it, I don't know.; 7/31/10, 11:45 PM