Dear Fred,
Thanks for your email.
I think myth is "truer" than history (a belief that in no way diminishes my regard for history).
Unlike history (which can be closely approximated, at least in superficial ways) myth is meant for creative contemplation.
I assume your question -- "Does The Slaughter of Innocents apply?" -- refers to the slaughter at Sandy Hook.
While reading the Wikipedia link you sent, I clicked on "Herod" and learned the following: "Regarding the Massacre of the Innocents, although Herod was certainly guilty of many brutal acts, including the killing of his wife and two of his sons, no other known source from the period makes any reference to such a massacre.[22] Since Bethlehem was a small village, the number of male children under the age of two might not exceed 20." (Did you know Saint Constantine the Great killed several members of his own family, including his son, Crispus, and the Empress Fausta? "The Empress Fausta, (was) killed at the behest of (Constantine's) mother, Saint Helena. Fausta was left to die in an over-heated bath.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I ")
It is "suggestive" that the Sandy Hook slaughter took place "at Christmas time" and that the number of slaughtered "innocents" was the "same" number Herod probably killed (if we take The Nativity Story at face value which I "mythically" recommend).
Sacrifice -- in the original sense of "making holy" (sacrus facere) -- is sometimes necessary to achieve goals blocked by horn-locked ideologues.
Mythically, I think there is a good chance this sacrifice will begin to thaw America's frozen posture of firearm-idolatry and that Obama is now determined to pass legislation that will begin the long, bumpy process of civilizing America.
Foremost among our many barbarian sub-cultures are those self-terrorized "Christians" whose bad religion drives them to grip a gun with one hand while the other bangs blood-sotted bibles.
Or, as easily happens when hornets get stirred, Obama may die trying.
I am preparing an email with the subject line, "Sandy Hook: Slaughter Of Innocents" and will send it no later than tomorrow. http://
Any idea what's going on in "the orthosphere?" (Hannity and Limbaugh spent Carnage Day defending citizens' rights to Army Surplus nuclear weapons.)
Pax
Alan
PS Are you familiar with the great moral milestone achieved by Ashoka the Great? St. Mike's Father J. Edgar Bruns brought him to my attention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka_the_Great I foresee many surprises on Judgment Day, a disproportionate number of them befalling the (putatively) Righteous. We humans are rarely more mistaken than when we think ourselves unimpeachably right. Punctilious, church-going Pharisees thrive in every generation. Currently, The Impeccably Righteous are having a heyday.
PS Are you familiar with the great moral milestone achieved by Ashoka the Great? St. Mike's Father J. Edgar Bruns brought him to my attention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka_the_Great I foresee many surprises on Judgment Day, a disproportionate number of them befalling the (putatively) Righteous. We humans are rarely more mistaken than when we think ourselves unimpeachably right. Punctilious, church-going Pharisees thrive in every generation. Currently, The Impeccably Righteous are having a heyday.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal
PPS During these Holy Days, I recommend "The Nativity Story," a 2006 movie starring "Whale Rider's" Keisha Castle-Hughes. It is well worth seeing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762121/ Speaking of Christmas films, I am also a big fan of Jim Carrey's 2009 rendition of "A Christmas Carol." Whatever suppositions Carrey's name may conjure, forget them. This movie is "something else." Its relatively low IMDb rating was unduly diminished by the number of parents who took young children only to discover "the ghosts" were too intense. This is a remarkable film, both in its fidelity to Dickens' plot and in the richness of its occasional "invention." If a theater near you is showing "Carol" in 3-D, I heartily recommend it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067106/ My review of "A Christmas Carol" is embedded at “Dickins, Scrooge and American Conservatism” - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/dickins-scrooge-and-american.html
On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:
does this apply -- when Herod slaughtered the Innocents
--
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