I picked up a copy of W. Somerset Maugham's book The Razor's Edge from the library this weekend. I really enjoyed it but this quote stood out as particularly wicked and clever:

D'you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said that he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That's the end of the story according to the good simple Matthew. But it wasn't. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross thou shalt save the human race, for greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed till his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.

The author/narrator follows it up later with this explanation of why self-sacrifice is such a powerful temptation:

I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality. The object doesn't matter; it may be worth while or it may be worthless. When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son.

I have to wonder if Ayn Rand ever summed up this idea as cleverly since it was one of her shibboleths.

I'm listening to the podcast of Bill Moyer's Journal from 5/11 when I hear these lines from recent Regent University grad Carly Gammill:

Part of the goal of many of us who are going out from this institution from here on to make it clear and accurate what it really means to be a Christian leader to change the world, which is not to indoctrinate anyone but to share the truth and to offer the truth and to rely on the truth in the way that we handle our lives as an example to others. (emphasis is mine)

I remember when it was just called "the good news" instead of truth. She also uttered this naive understanding of the law:

I intend to help further the administration of justice and to do justice. And I believe in absolute truth, and I believe in absolutes. Not grey, you know, not relative truth but absolute truth. And that's what God's word is. (emphasis is mine)

With all that truth I wonder how one can have any faith. Truth leaves no room for doubt. Faith does not exist without doubt. As the Christian philosopher Paul Tillich put it "Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." I'm beginning to wonder if places like Regent and Liberty might be forking a new religion from the Protestant tree.

Their religion doesn't seem to require faith as much as fealty to a central leader like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. Perhaps they're growing into an American version of Catholicism?

Pilot Japan sells a 0.25mm gel pen. When I asked why it isn't sold in the US the gist of the response was this:

Due to our marketing agreement with our parent company, and in some cases patent restrictions, we are unable to either sell or stock this item.

I was encouraged to travel abroad if I wanted this pen. The closest I've found in the American market is Pentel's Sunburst which comes in at 0.30mm. The majority of gel pens in America are an obese 0.70mm, some with inferior gel inks that spread even wider depending on the paper. Practically like writing with a marker at that point.

If information about these pens can travel the world, why not the pen? If this is a patent or marketing limitation why is nobody else providing a 0.25mm gel pen in America? I'm galled that patent/marketing limitations create a desert where there could be a market.