Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue

Posted on | May 14, 2014 | 51 Comments

“Despair is a sin.” – J.E.Pournelle

This should actually have gone up yesterday, but I spent most of the day waiting for my truck to be worked on and am not much interested in trying to make posts from my cellphone, bolshy great phablet that it is. It’s actually better for having waited a day, since now I can point you to Da Tech Guy’s excellent post on the Eucharistic Adoration held Monday night at MIT’s chapel, and the consequent mass at St. Paul’s in Cambridge, which were a protest to the Black Mass scheduled to be held at Harvard. You should go read it now, enjoy the many interviews Pete did with (among others) former mayor of Boston and ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn, and check out the even more numerous pictures. Throw money at Da Tip Jar while you’re there.

Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion, but I find it significant in this time of “anything goes” religious and anti-religious practice that the people of Boston and Cambridge stood up in great numbers and said “This far and no farther.” The Black Mass was not only protested by local folks but by thousands of students and faculty at Harvard itself, and whatever failures of nerve Harvard President Drew Faust may have shown in the past, I think it took a bit of courage to attend the Adoration and the Mass. Andrew Breitbart is often quoted as saying “Politics is downstream from culture,” and is it too much to hope for that the Silent Majority has finally grown sick of hipsters mocking their religion and pretending to play at Satanism to shock the bourgeoisie? As Pete points out, the outcry was enough for the club originally sponsoring the Black Mass to withdraw its sanction and with it, the use of Harvard space. Some sources say that the event was eventually held off-campus at a Chinese restaurant; others say the property owner refused to rent the space. One thing is clear: there was no Black Mass held at the college that once was known for training Congregationalist preachers.

Category: Catholics, Culture, Da Tech Guy

Comments

51 Responses to “Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue”

ariyadesai01
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:03 am

RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue http://t.co/GUZrQxiwo0 #TCOT
Cactus Ed
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:44 am

Can a sane and morally decent person go to college?
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:20 am

Yes, but the choice must be made with extreme discrimination. If you are going to Engineering School, then most places are OK as your exposure to academic idiots, masquerading as Professors, will be minimized. If you wish to major in the Liberal Arts, there are few good choices, and all are expensive. If you wish to major in nonsense like Sociology, then you are screwed as there is no place a decent person can go.
Épater la bourgeoisie (but in a good way): Harvard does the right thing… | Batshit Crazy News
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:51 am

[…] Wombat and Da Tech Guy note that Cambridge responded to an annoying bunch of students playing at Satanism. […]
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:06 am

http://batshitcrazynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/arnoldhuston.jpg

It is nice to see Scratch lose every now and again.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:07 am

Your money is much better spent on an engineering degree vs. one in sociology.
Dana
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:12 am

As His Wombatness pointed out:

One thing is clear: there was no Black Mass held at the college that once was known for training Congregationalist preachers.

In 1636, when Harvard was founded, they probably thought that every Mass was a Black Mass.
DaTechGuy on DaRadio
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:33 am

The real irony is it took the actions of the Catholic faithful to keep the Black Mass off of the Harvard Campus. I think that would shock the founders of the university more that the Satan worship itself.
Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue : The Other McCain | Dead Citizen's Rights Society
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:37 am

[…] Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue […]
Paul H. Lemmen
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:43 am

That is one has the smarts to be an engineer …
Cactus Ed
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:55 am

There is no coward like a university administrator.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 14th, 2014 @ 10:35 am

I remember reading about the 1704 Deerfield Raid and Massacre and how the family members of the captives feared them falling into the hands of the Quebec Jesuits more than the Indians.

But given how Georgetown is now a days, I must concede they had a point.
Bozikek
May 14th, 2014 @ 10:44 am

Speaking as an engineer myself I think the biggest mistake most of us make is the ignoring of sociology and other related fields.

Now of course the vast majority of the study today is liberal nonsense, but by yielding this field without a fight conservatives are disarming themselves from the academic debate of what our society will be. I think anyone who frequents this site will know the importance of social issues at large and by ignoring social sciences we are disarming ourselves in the conflict.
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:27 pm

You will learn more of sociology by being a serious student of human nature than you will from sociologists. The so called “social science” departments are pretty much worthless. Sociologists can give you no clue why the Soviet Union fell. Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with human nature knows exactly why it did.
Rob Crawford
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:27 pm

All sorts of engineers. There are the easier majors like civil (“add more concrete”) and mechanical (“f=ma and you can’t push a rope”), the difficult ones like electrical, and the freaking insane ones like chemical, materials, and nuclear.
Patrick Carroll
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:28 pm

Ever since “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, the hard sciences and engineering have generally been safe for the sane.
Rob Crawford
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:29 pm

Setting aside the religious issues, there’s a social one — a “Black Mass” is a fiction created to insult Catholics and other Christians. The school was probably being informed that other groups would take this as license to return the favor to other faiths…
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:31 pm

Each Engineering major is difficult in its own way. I’m a civil, but I’ve had courses in Electronics (not the circuits and devices stuff usually required), Nuclear Engineering,, Computer Science, and Materials Science. This along with upper division work in Physics (Quantum Mechanics and Solid State Physics) and math through partial Diff E and Complex Variables. No one major is harder than another in Engineering, although the difficulties come in different areas.
I’ve never said “add more concrete” unless the forms were not full. 🙂
Rob Crawford
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:38 pm

Sadly, that’s under assault. There’s the constant demand for “more women in math, engineering, and the sciences” which has some clowns demanding fewer men in those fields to “balance” them.

Then there have been some ridiculous outbursts in the software world — fits thrown over terms like “male and female” for plugs, over jokes around the word “dongle”, and, again, endless whining that it’s too male a field. (Software isnt a hard science, but it is engineering.)

Too many people more concerned with the genitalia and skin tone of the people doing the work than whether the job is done well.
Rob Crawford
May 14th, 2014 @ 12:39 pm

It’s intended as a joke.

Can we agree to call the industrial engineers “imaginary engineers”?
John 8:37 - John 8:44
May 14th, 2014 @ 1:01 pm

Cowardice is also a sin, there being no greater cowardice than that exhibited by those afraid of readily observable truths.
John 8:37 - John 8:44
May 14th, 2014 @ 1:03 pm

The forces of evil, personified today by the vanguard of liberalism, are just as real as the forces of gravity and electricity.
Alec Baldwin Isn’t Mentally Unstable… Again | Regular Right Guy
May 14th, 2014 @ 1:50 pm

[…] Today’s Ray Of Hope: Harvard Gets A Clue […]
FenelonSpoke
May 14th, 2014 @ 1:57 pm

No; I disagree. While the Puritans wouldn’t have liked Roman Catholicism they firmly believed in a devil and would have been appalled that a Black Mass was taking place at Harvard. And good for the Roman Catholics of the Boston area. However, there were Non Catholic Christians who were also praying during that time (I’m one of them) that the Black Mass would not go forward at Harvard. We’re also praying for Doug-aka Lucien Greaves-and for the other militant Atheist Satanists who wanted to engage in this. You see , when this sort of thing happens it all Christians ought to be united against it.
Wombat_socho
May 14th, 2014 @ 2:25 pm

Dr. Pournelle used to call the social sciences “voodoo science” due to the lack of hard numbers.
JeffS
May 14th, 2014 @ 2:43 pm

Speaking as a civil engineer — yes,
JeffS
May 14th, 2014 @ 2:44 pm

Did you never hear of the “Simple Engineering Degree”?

😀
JeffS
May 14th, 2014 @ 2:46 pm

Try asking for a pair of dykes , sometime.
ajpwriter
May 14th, 2014 @ 3:10 pm

“Harvard President Drew Faust”

His name is Faust? Really?

I earnestly hope a series of Mephisto jokes have made their way round the internet.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
May 14th, 2014 @ 3:26 pm

I thought that described architects. Except most of them can’t even do algebra.
Dana
May 14th, 2014 @ 3:35 pm

And I make and sell concrete for a living, and I want you to say, “Add more concrete!”
Wombat_socho
May 14th, 2014 @ 6:39 pm

Her. Dr. Faust is a her. Yeah, I know, only in America…
Steve Skubinna
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

I did.

Oh sorry, that doesn’t answer your question, does it? Never mind.
Steve Skubinna
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:11 pm

What disappoints me is the “Satanists” knuckled under without anybody blowing anything up or hacking off anybody’s head. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.
Steve Skubinna
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:12 pm

Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Steve Skubinna
May 14th, 2014 @ 7:15 pm

One of our firearms instructors got himself a nifty EEO complaint when, in explaining how to fieldstrip and clean and M14, he showed the cleaning rods and said you had to screw the male end into the female end.

And no, I am not making this up.
cmdr358
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

Yes.
Will they come home that way ? No garuntees.
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:13 pm

We called that Industrial Engineering. 🙂
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:14 pm

And Industrial Engineers say “paint it blue.”
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:14 pm

How thin are your mixes? 😛
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:16 pm

Interestingly Jerry thought a scientific sociology was possible. He said that in one of “There Will Be War” anthologies, IIRC. I think “The Bell Curve” showed that it may well be impossible. But, however, we also saw what happens when you actually try to do science in the field of sociology.
Quartermaster
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:17 pm

You’re prolly decent, but are you sane?
cmdr358
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:46 pm

Nary a child kidnapped nor goat slaughtered either.

That’s the thing about today’s antichristian leftist fanatics, their a bunch of pu$$ies.
K-Bob
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:55 pm

Or a nipple for repairing your pipes.
K-Bob
May 14th, 2014 @ 8:57 pm

All we need to make the numbers firm up is more consensus. That ought’a do it.
Dennis M.
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:05 pm

Yeah, it was kinda creepy when I noticed that…
Dennis M.
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:10 pm

Catholics in Boston have been pushed hard by the secular culture (i.e. repeated attempts to usurp the St. Patrick’s Day Parade by homosexuals, Catholic Charities being forced out of adoption placement, etc.), but they haven’t hit the breaking point yet.
richard mcenroe
May 14th, 2014 @ 9:15 pm

why didn’t the Black Mass happen on campus? Too soon, that’s all.
Adjoran
May 15th, 2014 @ 2:08 am

Call me cynical if you will, but I’d bet the calls that made the difference came from alumni who write checks. Enough of them complain (or a few big enough ones), things change mighty fast.
Bob Belvedere
May 15th, 2014 @ 7:11 pm

Papist!