Blog Against Theocracy
Folks, This weekend, some folks on the Interwebs will be conducting a Blog Against Theocracy event. It doesn't appear to have an official sponsor, but First Freedom First, a group that stands for church-state separation (good for both sides of that divide, I think we may all agree) seems to be strongly behind it. Read more, and blog against theocracy (if you have a blog and are so inclined): http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/3/20/162647/609 Apparently, the way it works is that you write your blog entry in support of the separation of church and state, then send in the URL via a form on blogagainsttheocracy.com. I think this is mainly intended for citizens of the USA, because blog entries are expected to support the US Constitution's separation of church and state, but it's a big constitution: it can inspire you no matter where you live. By the way, it's _not_ about bashing religion: as one of the folks pulling it together writes: The theme [of the blogswarm], like always, is the Separation of Church and State — we are for it. But the variations on the theme are many...This is not a bashing of religion - peeps can believe what they choose, however they choose — but it is a reminder that the Government should keep out of religion, and Religion should keep out of the government. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
On 21 Mar 2008, at 03:24, Jim Sharkey wrote: Ronn! Blankenship wrote: One thing not unique to that show is that most viewers will not appreciate it when things happen which may be subplots or may be integral to the main plot but because it's an open-ended series Nope. It has an end. ABC and the Lost crew agreed to end the series around episode 100, give or take. Which probably has something to do with the way the plot has been moving forward at a greatly accelerated pace this season. End in sight Maru. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Most people have more than the average number of legs. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On 20 Mar 2008 at 23:36, Dave Land wrote: Folks, This weekend, some folks on the Interwebs will be conducting a Blog Against Theocracy event. It doesn't appear to have an official sponsor, but First Freedom First, a group that stands for church-state separation (good for both sides of that divide, I think we may all agree) seems to be strongly behind it. No. All an explicit Church-State divide does is mean that politicians cannot explicitly be called on their overtly religious policies, because there is this divide in place so they couldn't *possibly* be religious. When people are elected by a religious electorate, on religious policies, a divide is make-believe and only serves to prevent rational and mature discussion of policy. In a reprisentative democracy, you will have people elected who are religious by religious people - if you don't like this, you should be looking for another political system. Oh, and it gets in the way of this is what some people believe religious education in schools. AndrewC ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
William T Goodall wrote: Jim Sharkey wrote: ABC and the Lost crew agreed to end the series around episode 100 Which probably has something to do with the way the plot has been moving forward at a greatly accelerated pace this season. Absolutely. Getting an official end date for the series was the best thing that could have happened to it. It avoids the X-Files scenario of just running out of things to do and lets everyone involved plan for the future a lot better. Jim Fans 1, Suckage 0 Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Genes show Latin America's past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7308102.stm Genes show Latin America's past Results from a genetic study of Latin America suggest most Latin Americans are descended from European men and Native American or African women. Scientists say the study, said to be the largest of its kind, backs up historical theories about the Spanish Conquistadors of the 16th Century. The research involved genetic analysis of over 300 individuals from across seven countries from Mexico to Chile. Details of the study are published in the online journal PLoS Genetics. The genetic research was conducted by universities across Latin America, the US and Europe. 'Genetic continuity' Close genetic analysis of blood samples from across the region show, the researchers claim, that the majority of Latin Americans can trace their origins some 13 generations back to the time of the Conquistadors. What is more, they say, the genes suggest most are a product of a match between a European male settler and a Native American or African woman. This supports the historical argument that European colonisers killed off many of the native men and had sex with native women or with African slaves. Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares of University College London, who led the study, says that it goes some way to rescuing the past of Latin America and what he calls the living presence of Native Americans throughout the region. He says despite many past attempts to erase Native Americans from the history of the Latin America, the new research shows there is substantial genetic continuity between the pre- and post-Columbian populations. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7308102.stm Published: 2008/03/21 04:38:04 GMT © BBC MMVIII -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ And yes, OSX is marvelous. Its merest bootlace, Windows is not worthy to kiss. - David Brin ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Postman
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF202-Post_Apocalyptic.jpg http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: The Postman
Pat Mathews wrote: http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF202-Post_Apocalyptic.jpg Hehehe. It's a shame that strip is going away, as I understand it. Jim Kevin Costner Always Rings Twice Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 05:52 PM Thursday 3/20/2008, Julia Thompson wrote: On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 05:12 PM Thursday 3/20/2008, Julia Thompson wrote: On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Dave Land wrote: It is true that 90% of Brin-L Posts are crap, too. Dave Self-Reverential Maru And my post here is one of the crap ones. :) Julia Figurative crap is like literal crap: if you try to hold it in and don't let it out on a regular basis, you will have bigger problems than if you let it out regularly . . . Which is why I'm on multiple mailing lists in which crap is tolerated, so I can spread it around and it doesn't get piled too high or deep. Julia So you are not working toward your Ph.D.? . . . ronn! :) Nope. :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 05:51 PM Thursday 3/20/2008, Julia Thompson wrote: Wait until seasons 1-4 are all out on DVD, then rent them and watch 4 to 8 episodes a week. Then you don't have to remember piddly details for months, just for a few weeks. :) Or chuck it and watch Law and Order instead . . . *Very* good plan, IMO! :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Or chuck it and watch Law and Order instead . . . *Very* good plan, IMO! :) Not sure I agree. I've seen so many LO episodes over the past 10+ years that the twist is almost always obvious and it kind of ruins the show for me. And the mini-sermon wrap up at the end of the show has gotten grating. Might be familiarity breeding contempt, but still... Jim ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Postman
Sent via BlackBerry by ATT -Original Message- From: Pat Mathews [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:07:48 To:Brin List brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: The Postman http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF202-Post_Apocalyptic.jpg http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Diet
On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 3:29 PM, jon louis mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: you must be a healthy guy, in spite not eating fruit. i try to follow epicurus, pleasure is man's good, in moderation. i do have a sweet tooth, and eat some kind of meat almost every day, but i don't over eat, and i exercise, so i am more fit than most americans half my age. I, on the other hand, am physically pfft. :-) (Obligatory second line.) -- Mauro Diotallevi Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All an explicit Church-State divide does is mean that politicians cannot explicitly be called on their overtly religious policies, because there is this divide in place so they couldn't *possibly* be religious. I don't see how that can be. It means that churches can't interfere in elections. It means that government cannot do anything that would make a particular religion official or in any way coerce people to choose a particular religion. Those are big deals to me, especially when there are some very wealthy churches around and some very aggressively religious elected officials. I do see a problem with religion that intentionally leads people away from critical thinking (about voting or anything else), but if government is a solution to that problem, it is through education. Religion goes too far when it urges people to refrain from thinking critically about matters that are not matters of faith. I tend to interpret that as an unwillingness to live with doubt, a sure sign of trouble. It seems to me that maintaining separation of church and state demands that we educate people to discern such matters so that they don't vote for people who are unable or unwilling to see a clear difference between matters of faith and matters of fact and science. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 7:22 AM, Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All an explicit Church-State divide does is mean that politicians cannot explicitly be called on their overtly religious policies, because there is this divide in place so they couldn't *possibly* be religious. When people are elected by a religious electorate, on religious policies, a divide is make-believe and only serves to prevent rational and mature discussion of policy. In a reprisentative democracy, you will have people elected who are religious by religious people - if you don't like this, you should be looking for another political system. Oh, and it gets in the way of this is what some people believe religious education in schools. The Founding Fathers(tm) seem to have put a lot of thought into protecting the minority against the tyrrany of the majority, at least according to Page Smith in his landmark book, _The Constitution: A Documentary and Narrative History_. Separation of church and state is an important way in which the United States protects believers in minority religions from the tyrrany of being told they must believe exactly as the majority tells them. That does not mean that religious people must leave their faith at the door when serving in a public office. It just means that they must respect the fact that others have a right to believe as their conscience dictates, and that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. But in the end, those disagreements aren't really as large as we like to pretend they are. In the end, as a good friend of mine once wrote, we all want more or less the same things. We want to be happy. We want to be free from persecution. We want to be economically stable. We want access to the good things in life, however we personally define those things. Both in religion and in politics, people from all parts of the spectrum want basically these same things. We just differ in opinions as to the best way to achieve these things. When people complain that the candidates for a particular office are basically the same, I usually reply that they wouldn't want it any other way. Very rarely do the differences in approach reach the importance that they have in this election cycle. At its best, an explicit Church-State divide ensures that we can hear every opinion as to which path we should take to reach for the things we all want. Separation of Church and State also empowers and supports what I believe is the most important and most neglected value in today's society: empathy. I currently work at an inner-city K-8 school with a student population poor enough that just over 90% of our students qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch program. One thing separates the students who succeed and those who don't. That thing is the ability to step outside of themselves and see things from another person's point of view. The students who practice empathy are almost always the students who get good grades and stay out of trouble. When a student learns empathy, other traits such as respect for peers and respect for authority come as natural results. Empathic students don't get into fights with each other because they have fewer disagreements with their peers, and they have fewer disagreements because they actively try to see things from their peers' point of view. Empathic students don't smart off to teachers because they try to see things from the teachers' point of view. Empathic students always look for other points of view, other ways to see things. That means that empathic students are clever and creative students, good problem solvers, because creativity and the ability to solve complex problems is basically the ability to look at the same things that everyone else has looked at and to see something new and different. I started this e-mail by mentioning that the framers of the US constitution found it important to protect the minority from the tyrrany of the majority. That is basically enforced empathy. If empathy isn't the ultimate survival skill in the modern world, it certainly is at least a contender. If we had more empathy in this country, in this world, then it would be not only a much more pleasant place to live, but also a much safer place. But then again, maybe I'm just a naive optimist. -- Mauro Diotallevi Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
At 11:49 AM Friday 3/21/2008, Mauro Diotallevi wrote: When people complain that the candidates for a particular office are basically the same, I usually reply that they wouldn't want it any other way. Although it would be refreshing to find candidates for the legislative branch at any level of government whose first priority when they get into session is something other than voting to increase their own salaries . . . . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On 21 Mar 2008, at 15:53, Nick Arnett wrote: On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All an explicit Church-State divide does is mean that politicians cannot explicitly be called on their overtly religious policies, because there is this divide in place so they couldn't *possibly* be religious. It seems to me that maintaining separation of church and state demands that we educate people to discern such matters so that they don't vote for people who are unable or unwilling to see a clear difference between matters of faith and matters of fact and science. The only effective way of separating church and state is to forbid those infected with religion from voting or holding political office. Utopian Maru. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. - Richard Dawkins ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Genes show Latin America's past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7308102.stm Genes show Latin America's past Results from a genetic study of Latin America suggest most Latin Americans are descended from European men and Native American or African women. Scientists say the study, said to be the largest of its kind, backs up historical theories about the Spanish Conquistadors of the 16th Century. This is old news here in Brazil. But the conclusion is pure nonsense: This supports the historical argument that European colonisers killed off many of the native men and had sex with native women or with African slaves. The _religion_ [William will love this] of the natives preached that each woman should try to get babies from the fiercest warrior. Europeans-with-guns perfectly matched this characteristic, so they knocked all native girls. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On 21 Mar 2008 at 18:23, William T Goodall wrote: The only effective way of separating church and state is to forbid those infected with religion from voting or holding political office. So basically you're for severely restricting the franchise. Funny, when it was expanded it was done in the name of liberty and equality among people, if you contact it... AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On 21 Mar 2008 at 8:53, Nick Arnett wrote: On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All an explicit Church-State divide does is mean that politicians cannot explicitly be called on their overtly religious policies, because there is this divide in place so they couldn't *possibly* be religious. I don't see how that can be. It means that churches can't interfere in elections. Religious communities tend to vote for certain candidates, in any country, though. It means that government cannot do anything that would make a particular religion official or in any way coerce people to choose a particular religion. Those to me are entirely separate issues from an explicit church- state divide. It's nonsense when someone who is religious, elected by an overwhelmingly religious community, has his actions (in line with his religion) taken to be entirely secular in their basis. Strong laws for tolerance and equality do more than any dividing line between the state and any given non-violent belief structure. Those are big deals to me, especially when there are some very wealthy churches around and some very aggressively religious elected officials. Get back to me when the CoS has been tossed out of messing with politics, huh? They abuse the principle, nastily. I live in the UK. As far as I can see, it's easier to discuss religious influences in politics and to point out where certain opinions are coming from, making them less paletable on tolerance grounds, than it would be in America precisely because we don't have this line blocking debate on the topic. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Blog Against Theocracy
On 21 Mar 2008, at 21:59, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 21 Mar 2008 at 18:23, William T Goodall wrote: The only effective way of separating church and state is to forbid those infected with religion from voting or holding political office. So basically you're for severely restricting the franchise. Funny, when it was expanded it was done in the name of liberty and equality among people, if you contact it... The USA already restricts the franchise by (in many states) removing the right to vote from people with criminal convictions and from those deemed mentally ill or incapable. Extending this restriction to those incapable of telling infantile superstition from reality seems perfectly sensible. Invisible pink unicorns Maru. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. - Richard Dawkins ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Lost'
Jim Sharkey said the following on 3/21/2008 11:22 AM: Not sure I agree. I've seen so many LO episodes over the past 10+ years that the twist is almost always obvious and it kind of ruins the show for me. And the mini-sermon wrap up at the end of the show has gotten grating. Might be familiarity breeding contempt, but still... I'm liking the new episodes. Cutter has injected some new balls to the wall energy. -- Celebrate The Circle http://www.celebratethecircle.org/ Carolina Spirit Quest http://www.carolinaspiritquest.org/ GPG Fingerprint: 409B A409 A38D 92BF 15D9 6EEE 9A82 F2AC 69AC 07B9 CACert.org Assurer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fwd: Interesting Day
Good Friday! Happy Purim, Eid, etc... Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2008 By DAVID VAN BIEMA WITH SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI On Friday more than a billion Christians around the world will mark the gravest observance on their Calendar, Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross. (To be followed in two days by Easter Sunday, to mark his Resurrection). But unlike some holy days, say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food, on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday. In what is statistically, at least, a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following will all occur on the 21st: Good Friday Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther Narouz, the Persian New Year, which is observed with Islamic elaboration in Iran and all the stan countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha'is. Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, which is celebrated by some but not all Sunni Muslims and, though officially beginning on Thursday, is often marked on Friday. Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, to be followed on Saturday by Holi, a kind of Mardi Gras. Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha's first group of followers, marked primarily in Thailand. Half the world's population is going to be celebrating something, says Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. My goodness, says Delton Krueger, owner of www.interfaithcalendar.org, who follows 14 major religions and six others. He counts 20 holidays altogether (including some religious double-dips, like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) between the 20th (which is also quite crowded) and the 21st. He marvels: There is no other time in 2008 when there is this kind of concentration. And in fact for quite a bit longer than that. Ed Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, co-authors of the books Calendrical Calculations and Calendrical Tabulations, determined how often in the period between 1600 and 2400 A.D. Good Friday, Purim, Narouz and the Eid would occur in the same week. The answer is nine times in 800 years. Then they tackled the odds that they would converge on a two-day period. And the total is ... only once: tomorrow. And that's not even counting Magha Puja and Small Holi. Unless you are mathematically inclined, however, you may not see the logic in all this. If it's the 21st of March, you may ask, shouldn't all the religions of the world celebrate the same holiday on that date each year? No. There are a sprinkling of major holidays (Western Christmas is one) that fall each year on the same day of the Gregorian calendar, a fairly standard non-religious system and the one Americans are most familiar with. But almost none of tomorrow's holidays actually follows that calendar. All Muslim holy days, for instance, are calculated on a lunar system. Keyed to the phases of the moon, Islam's 12 months are each 29 and a half days long, for a total of 354 days a year, or 11 days fewer than on ours. That means the holidays rotate backward around the Gregorian calendar, occurring 11 days earlier each year. That is why you can have an easy Ramadan in the spring, when going without water all day is relatively easy, or a hard one in the summer. And why the Prophet's birthday will be on March 9 next year. Then there is the Jewish calendar, which determines the placement of Purim. It is lunisolar, which means that holidays wander with the moon until they reach the end of what might be thought of as a month-long tether, which has the effect of maintaining them in the same season every year. Good Friday, meanwhile, like many of the other most important Christian holidays, is a set number of days before Easter. The only problem is that the date of Easter is probably the most complicated celebratory calculation this side of Hinduism, which has a number of competing religious calendars. The standard rule is the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox. But in fact, the actual divination of the date is so involved that it has its own offical name: computus. And so challenging that Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of history's greatest mathematicians, devoted the time to create an algorithm for it. It goes on for many lines. And, of course, it doesn't work for Eastern Orthodox Easter (about one month later than the Western Christian one this year, on April 27). So, should we celebrate all these celebrations? Yes, says William Paden, the author of Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion and a professor at the University of Vermont ? at least to the extent that we revere the drive to carve out sacred time in the middle of the day-by-day profane. Each of these religions is creating its own world, with its own time and space and memory system, he says. They recognize
RE: Interesting Day
And Thursday was one of the 8 pagan holidays, the Spring Equinoxhttp://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:39:00 -0500 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: Interesting Day Good Friday! Happy Purim, Eid, etc... Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2008 By DAVID VAN BIEMA WITH SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI On Friday more than a billion Christians around the world will mark the gravest observance on their Calendar, Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross. (To be followed in two days by Easter Sunday, to mark his Resurrection). But unlike some holy days, say, Christmas, which some non-Christians in the U.S. observe informally by going to a movie and ordering Chinese food, on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday. In what is statistically, at least, a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following will all occur on the 21st: Good Friday Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther Narouz, the Persia n New Year, which is observed with Islamic elaboration in Iran and all the stan countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha'is. Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, which is celebrated by some but not all Sunni Muslims and, though officially beginning on Thursday, is often marked on Friday. Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, to be followed on Saturday by Holi, a kind of Mardi Gras. Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha's first group of followers, marked primarily in Thailand. Half the world's population is going to be celebrating something, says Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. My goodness, says Delton Krueger, owner of www.interfaithcalendar.org, who follows 14 major religions and six others. He counts 20 holidays altogether (including some religious double-dips, like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) between the 20th (which is also quite crowded) and t he 21st. He marvels: There is no other time in 2008 when there is this kind of concentration. And in fact for quite a bit longer than that. Ed Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, co-authors of the books Calendrical Calculations and Calendrical Tabulations, determined how often in the period between 1600 and 2400 A.D. Good Friday, Purim, Narouz and the Eid would occur in the same week. The answer is nine times in 800 years. Then they tackled the odds that they would converge on a two-day period. And the total is ... only once: tomorrow. And that's not even counting Magha Puja and Small Holi. Unless you are mathematically inclined, however, you may not see the logic in all this. If it's the 21st of March, you may ask, shouldn't all the religions of the world celebrate the same holiday on that date each year? No. There are a sprinkling of major holidays (Western Christmas is one) that fall each year on the same day of the Gregorian calendar, a f airly standard non-religious system and the one Americans are most familiar with. But almost none of tomorrow's holidays actually follows that calendar. All Muslim holy days, for instance, are calculated on a lunar system. Keyed to the phases of the moon, Islam's 12 months are each 29 and a half days long, for a total of 354 days a year, or 11 days fewer than on ours. That means the holidays rotate backward around the Gregorian calendar, occurring 11 days earlier each year. That is why you can have an easy Ramadan in the spring, when going without water all day is relatively easy, or a hard one in the summer. And why the Prophet's birthday will be on March 9 next year. Then there is the Jewish calendar, which determines the placement of Purim. It is lunisolar, which means that holidays wander with the moon until they reach the end of what might be thought of as a month-long tether, which has the effect of maintaining them in the same seaso n every year. Good Friday, meanwhile, like many of the other most important Christian holidays, is a set number of days before Easter. The only problem is that the date of Easter is probably the most complicated celebratory calculation this side of Hinduism, which has a number of competing religious calendars. The standard rule is the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox. But in fact, the actual divination of the date is so involved that it has its own offical name: computus. And so challenging that Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of history's greatest mathematicians, devoted the time to create an algorithm for it. It goes on for many lines. And, of course, it doesn't work for Eastern Orthodox Easter (about one month later than the Western Christian one this year, on April 27). So, should we celebrate all these celebrations? Yes, says William Paden, the author of Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study
