Forgive Us Our Trespasses

People who follow BC know that Susan and I have spent the last month
at my mother-in-law's home in Natick, Massachusetts a relatively
affluent suburb of Boston. This location, while not as ideal as
Cambridge or Boston itself has its charms. Most importantly, This
house in Natick is relatively close to the Riverside and Woodland
Green Line T stops. Thus, if I couldn't get a ride into town, I could
have someone drop me off at one of these stations so X-Celerator and I
could ride into the city.

I doubt any of my mother-in-law's neighbors read Blind Confidential as
none are blind and, frankly, BC isn't all that popular. Just in case,
though, I would like to express my thanks to the people in this
neighborhood for providing so many Wi Fi networks without encryption
turned on. For the past month, I have freeloaded on some of the
neighborhood networks every day. I didn't do anything even remotely
destructive and only "stole" a bit of bandwidth so I feel no guilt for
my trespass.

One of my favorite Christian phrases comes from the Lord's Prayer,
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those against us…" In this
simile, the word "as" can have two different meanings. One can expand
the "as" to mean "at the same time" which, if read with precision
would mean that we who recite the prayer would ask the Lord to wait
until we forgave everyone who had trespassed against us before
providing us with absolution.

The second possible definition for the "as" would expand it to mean,
"in the same way." Following this logic, those who recite the Lord's
Prayer ask God to remove our sins in the same manner we have forgiven
those who have harmed us.

This famous simile, with the "as" defined in either of its possible
meanings and, when removed from the religious framework in which it
stands, becomes a truly radical statement. Can George W. Bush, who,
as a fundamentalist Christian (meaning he accepts the entire Bible as
it was written) possibly recite this phrase or the entire Lord's
Prayer without hypocrisy?

Consider that the US "forgave" the September 11 terrorists by bombing
and later invading Afghanistan and, later, Iraq who had nothing to do
with the tragic events in 2001. Hence, President Bush, when reciting
the Lord's Prayer, has either requested that God forgive our
trespasses when we finally get around to forgiving the terrorists or
has asked God to forgive us "in the same way we forgave said
perpetrators" and, by inference, has asked for our country to receive
a series of bombings far more severe than those on 911 that would kill
more than 1 million innocent civilians as we have done in Afghanistan
and Iraq.

Perhaps my Christian theology is incomplete and the New Testament
contains exceptions to the forgiveness clause in the Lord's Prayer. I
have read about a half dozen different translations of the new
testament ranging from KJB to the Ebonics version published a few
years ago and didn't see such an easy way out of forgiveness but,
alas, it may appear in a translation I've yet to read. Or, perhaps,
the exception comes in the event of one telling God that they have
forgiven the terrorists but will bomb the innocent civilians who live
near them just to make sure that we don't have to forgive them again.
While such a rationalization may work in some twisted interpretation
of the simile I quote above, I can't really see a guy like Jesus, with
all of the references to forgiveness in his words, accepting such an
argument.

A while back, I wrote an article for BC that asked the question,
"Where Do the Old Gods Go When People Stop Believing in Them?" The
more I study the new testament of the Bible, the more I feel that
Jesus can join the ranks of forgotten gods as, while his name is
tossed around like confetti at a bowl game, his message seems to fade
further into obscurity every year.

I think this is very sad.

Afterward

In yesterday's post, I included the phrase, "much more of a problem
than Capcha." I agree with Darrell's comment that, today, the
inaccessible visual verification items that seem to pop up in new
places is far more a problem than the 3D web as the 3D virtual
environments remain fairly few and easy to avoid. In the future,
though, if a trend toward 3D web sites continues, people who need to
access the Internet through non-visual interfaces will not need to
care if they can get past the Turing tests as, even if they do, the
site they have just entered may be 100% inaccessible due to lack of
foresight on the part of those who design, develop and sell access
technology.

I'd like to thank Joe and the Anonymous poster who provided links to a
pair of articles about accessibility and the 3D web. I read both and
recommend that BC readers do so as well.

We're starting our drive south on Sunday. Anyone who lives near I95
in any state south of Connecticut who might like to get together for a
lunch or coffee or something should send me a private email.

-- End