About Funky Dung
Who is Funky Dung?
29-year-old grad student in Intelligent Systems (A.I.) at the University of Pittsburgh. I consider myself to be politically moderate and independent and somewhere between a traditional and neo-traditional Catholic.
I was raised Lutheran, spent a number of years as an agnostic, and joined the Catholic Church at the 2000 Easter Vigil.
Why Funky Dung?
I haven't been asked this question nearly as many times as you or I might expect. Funky Dung is a reference to an obscure Pink Floyd song. On the album Atom Heart Mother, there is a track called Atom Heart Mother Suite. It's broken up into movements, like a symphony, and one of the movements is called Funky Dung. I picked that nickname a long time ago (while I was still in high school I think), shortly after getting an internet connection for the first time. To me it means "cool/neat/groovy/spiffy stuff/crap/shiznit", as in "That's some cool stuff, dude!"
Whence Ales Rarus?
I used to enjoy making people guess what this means, but I've decided to relent and make it known to all. Ales Rarus is a Latin play on words. "Avis rarus" means "a rare bird" and carries similar meaning to "an odd fellow". "Ales" is another Latin word for bird that carries connotations of omens, signs of the times, and/or augery. If you want to get technical, both "avis" and "ales" are feminine (requiring "rara", but they can be made masculine in poetry (which tends to breaks lots of rules). I decided I'd rather have a masculine name in Latin. ;) Yeah, I'm a nerd. So what? :-P
Wherefore blog?
It is my intention to "teach in order to lead others to faith" by being always "on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word, either to unbelievers . . . or to the faithful" through the "use of the communications media". I also act knowing that I "have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors [my] opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and [I] have a right to make [my] opinion known to the other Christian faithful, with due regard to the integrity of faith and morals and reverence toward [my and their] pastors, and with consideration for the common good and the dignity of persons." (adapted from CCC 904-907)
Statement of Faith
I have been baptized and confirmed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I, therefore, renounce Satan; I renounce all his works; I renounce all his allurements.
I hold and profess all that is contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Niceno- Constantinopolitan Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.
Having been buried with Christ unto death and raised up with him unto a new life, I promise to live no longer for myself or for that world which is the enemy of God but for him who died for me and rose again, serving God, my heavenly Father, faithfully and unto death in the holy Catholic Church.
I am obedient to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. That is, I promote and defend authentic Catholic Teaching and Faith in union with Christ and His Church and in union with the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter.
Thanks be unto Thee, O my God, for all Thy infinite goodness, and, especially, for the love Thou hast shown unto me at my Confirmation. I Give Thee thanks that Thou didst then send down Thy Holy Spirit unto my soul with all His gifts and graces.
May He take full possession of me for ever.
May His divine unction cause my face to shine.
May His heavenly wisdom reign in my heart.
May His understanding enlighten my darkness.
May His counsel guide me.
May His knowledge instruct me.
May His piety make me fervent.
May His divine fear keep me from all evil.
Drive from my soul, O Lord, all that may defile it.
Give me grace to be Thy faithful soldier, that having fought the good fight of faith, I may be brought to the crown of everlasting life, through the merits of Thy dearly beloved Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Behind the Curtain: an Interview With Funky Dung (Thursday, March 03, 2005)
I try to avoid most memes that make their way 'round the blogosphere (We really do need a better name, don't
we?), but some are worth participating in. Take for instance the "interview game" that's the talk o'
the 'sphere. I think it's a great way to get to know the people in neighborhood. Who are the people in your
neighborhood? In your neighborhod? In your neigh-bor-hoo-ood...*smack* Sorry, Sesame Street flashback.
Anyhow, I saw Jeff "Curt Jester"
Miller's answers and figured since he's a regular reader of mine he'd be a good interviewer. Without
further ado, here are my answers to his questions.
1. Being that your pseudonym Funky Dung was chosen from a Pink Floyd track on Atom Heart Mother, what is you
favorite Pink Floyd song and why?
Wow. That's a tuffy. It's hard to pick out a single favorite. Pink Floyd isn't really a band known for
singles. They mostly did album rock and my appreciation of them is mostly of a gestalt nature. If I had to
pick one, though, it'd be "Comfortably Numb". I get chills up my spine every time I hear it and if
it's been long enough since the last time, I get midty-eyed. I really don't know why. That's a rather
unsatisfying answer for an interview, so here are the lyrics to a Rush song. It's not their best piece of music,
but the lyrics describe me pretty well.
New World Man
He's a rebel and a runner
He's a signal turning green
He's a restless young romantic
Wants to run the big machine
He's got a problem with his poisons
But you know he'll find a cure
He's cleaning up his systems
To keep his nature pure
Learning to match the beat of the old world man
Learning to catch the heat of the third world man
He's got to make his own mistakes
And learn to mend the mess he makes
He's old enough to know what's right
But young enough not to choose it
He's noble enough to win the world
But weak enough to lose it ---
He's a new world man...
He's a radio receiver
Tuned to factories and farms
He's a writer and arranger
And a young boy bearing arms
He's got a problem with his power
With weapons on patrol
He's got to walk a fine line
And keep his self-control
Trying to save the day for the old world man
Trying to pave the way for the third world man
He's not concerned with yesterday
He knows constant change is here today
He's noble enough to know what's right
But weak enough not to choose it
He's wise enough to win the world
But fool enough to lose it ---
He's a new world man...
2. What do you consider your most important turning point from agnosticism to the Catholic Church.
At some point in '99, I started attending RCIA at the Pittsburgh Oratory. I mostly went to ask a lot of
obnoxious Protestant questions. Or at least that's what I told myself. I think deep down I wanted desperately
to have faith again. At that point I think I'd decided that if any variety of Christianity had the Truth, the
Catholic Church did. Protestantism's wholesale rejection of 1500 years of tradition didn't sit well with me,
even as a former Lutheran.
During class one week, Sister Bernadette Young (who runs the program) passed out thin booklet called "
Handbook for Today's Catholic". One paragraph
in that book spoke to me and I nearly cried as I read it.
"A person who is seeking deeper insight into reality may sometimes have doubts, even about God himself.
Such doubts do not necessarily indicate lack of faith. They may be just the opposite - a sign of growing faith.
Faith is alive and dynamic. It seeks, through grace, to penetrate into the very mystery of God. If a
particular doctrine of faith no longer 'makes sense' to a person, the person should go right on seeking. To
know what a doctrine says is one thing. To gain insight into its meaning through the gift of understanding is
something else. When in doubt, 'Seek and you will find.' The person who seeks y reading, discussing,
thinking, or praying eventually sees the light. The person who talks to God even when God is 'not there' is
alive with faith."
At the end of class I told Sr. Bernadette that I wanted to enter the Church at the next Easter vigil.
3. If you were a tree what kind of, oh sorry about that .. what is the PODest thing you have ever
done?
I set up
WikiIndex, a clearinghouse for reviews
of theological books, good, bad, and ugly. It has a long way to go, but it'll be cool when it's finished. :)
4. What is your favorite quote from Venerable John Henry Newman?
"Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."
5. If you could ban one hymn from existence, what would it be?
That's a tough one. As a member of
the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of
Marty Haugen and David Haas, there are obviously a lot of songs that grate on my nerves. If I had to pick
one, though, I'd probably pick
"Sing
of the Lord's Goodness" by Ernie Sands.
If you look at one side of the argument, you see people who are willing to let different people make different decisions in different circumstances. On the other side, you see people who want the decision to be excised from the process so they can set up a once-and-for-all standard by which every situation is judged.
A false dichotomy. Even Singer has a standard, 2 years after birth and “sufficient quality of life” if memory serves. And BTW, to have a law with permitted exceptions is a very different thing from having a standard by which all situations are judged AND different from having no law at all.
Other than extreme philosophical utilitarians (mostly clueless academics), virtually no one believes there shouldn’t be a once-for-all standard. They just believe it should be their standard.
Religion is where the abortion fight ceases to be a philosophical argument and becomes a kind of holy (culture) war.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Religion need (perhaps ought)not enter into the question. The prolife axiom is this: “All human organisms have a right to care and protection.” The obvious corollary (if you accept the axiom) is that there is no rational basis to discriminate against some members of that class of organisms. There are many religious folks who do not agree with me, and there are at least a few irreligious folks who do.
the only way to solve our conflict satisfactorily will be to put aside our religious differences and address the problem as a pragmatic one: We need to know what constitutes a valuable human being so that, in difficult situations, we know what can be destroyed or discarded, and what should be preserved.
Seeing the only solution to the problem as a pragmatic one is something that a pragmatist might say. But wouldn’t you agree that there is no way to “know” what can be destroyed or discarded? In a rigorous reduction, all we have are mere “aesthetic judgements” about when human organisms ought be accorded the right of care and protection. We could argue about whose “judgements” are more or less elegant, more or less consistent (with other “judgements”), more or less beneficial to society, &c. But there is no way to argue which “aesthetic judgements” we “know”, for to do so we would have to presuppose which “aesthetic judgement” is “correct” in the first place. All else would be question begging. I “know” I’m right. You “know” you’re right. All we really know is that either one or both of us is “wrong”.
This of course in no way rules out that any party might, if doing so favors its particular aesthetics, compromise for some political gain. But this wouldn’t seem to require “putting aside religious differences”, and hardly seems to rise to the level of the “solution” you propose.
Cheers!
Contradiction works, but I really meant conflict between different segments of society.
I think the root of the politics of the abortion debate is the legal redefinition of when human personhood begins and the clarification of the guidelines for what is a non-elective abortion.
I write about my own idea for how we could agree on the legal redef’n of when personhood begins at my own blog.
i think you’re missing the point. his point was: either a baby at 26 weeks is a person or it isn’t. the conflict is that, essentially, the personhood of that child depends on whether it is “wanted” or not.
It’s only a contradiction or inconsistency when you turn “society” into a big monolithic lump. But when different individuals have genuinely different views, none of them are necessarily inconsistent just because they disagree. There can certainly be a conflict between them, though.
And, as I said above, I think the real conflict is about whether people have a right to hold differing opinions about the moment that personhood commences (if there is such a thing), than about when personhood actually commences (again, if there is such a thing). If you look at one side of the argument, you see people who are willing to let different people make different decisions in different circumstances. On the other side, you see people who want the decision to be excised from the process so they can set up a once-and-for-all standard by which every situation is judged.
But everyone agrees that, at some (not yet universally acceptably defined) time or by some process, simple, expendable flesh becomes a person worthy of rights, and that after that point or at the end of that process, destroying, killing, or otherwise harming that person against his or her wishes is wrong.
At the root of the push for a once-and-for-all standard is, I think, a deep (and often unexpressed fear) that allowing situational decisions will make it possible that someone, at some time in the future, will then find a defensible moral reason to end our own lives. (Sometimes this is expressed as a slippery slope argument.) Hence, it is necessary that the value and meaning of living human flesh be defined broadly and firmly as a defense against such eventuality. Turning to religious authority to ground that definition seems attractive, but it is problematic because we do not all share the same religion, and some of us have no religion at all.
Religion is where the abortion fight ceases to be a philosophical argument and becomes a kind of holy (culture) war. (By the way, just because it is a “philosophical argument” does not mean it is only an abstract game. The philosophical argument happens because there is a real problem that needs to be solved.) But in my opinion, the only way to solve our conflict satisfactorily will be to put aside our religious differences and address the problem as a pragmatic one: We need to know what constitutes a valuable human being so that, in difficult situations, we know what can be destroyed or discarded, and what should be preserved.
maybe he meant contradiction rather than conflict. i see a contradiction, or maybe just an inconsistency, when a society treats one 26 week old baby like a person and another as not having any rights. this contradiction in terms is something that needs to be resolved. either our society considers a 26 year old baby to be a person or not. it should not be up to whether the baby is “wanted” or not, but whether or not a 26 year old baby is a person.
No, I am not missing the point. The point is that one person thinks one thing and another person thinks another thing, which is not necessarily a conflict, but only a difference of opinion. The real fight is whether such a thing can be a matter of opinion at all, not over the definition of personhood.
To back up Steve, I became actively pro-life only when I decided that the pro-life plank was a non-sectarian one. Prior to my junior year in HS, the abortion debate was always presented to me as a religious issue. While queasy with the procedure, I nonetheless saw it as a 1st Amendment issue. Once I saw it as a matter of biology and preexisting laws and principles of homicide, I changed my mind.
What is so hard about recognizing that to some people the baby being born is a celebratory occasion, and to other people it is not? How is that a “conflict” that needs to be resolved?