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SEMI-RETIRED
This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia.
Committed identity: a616363661447bd25f0dfda8e323e1b974b4f2a792c9f6091bc411ecc206a54631f088d8137a47c3641bb8094f4b7102812b88da49ce706e5b8a60ac965ea634 is a
SHA-512
commitment to this user's real-life identity.
Origins (& Scripts!)
Latn-5 A | This user has full understanding of the
Latin script. |
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User Self
Majority ≠ right
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This user recognizes that even if 300,000,000 people make the same mistake, it's still
a mistake.
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This user is pretty sure that he is an
outlier compared to everybody else. |
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This user rejects
feminist dogma in all its forms.
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WikiProjects
This
user is a member of the
Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians.
The motto of the AIW is conservata veritate, which translates to "with the preserved truth".
This motto reflects the inclusionist desire to change Wikipedia only when no knowledge would be lost as a result.
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Language and Grammar
they he or she | This user considers the
singular they to be substandard English usage. |
Subj
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This user prefers that the
subjunctive mood be used. Were this user you, he would use it.
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ANAL 4 | This user advocates good grammar usage. |
abc | Ths usre haz verry goode spelng. |
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Salutation
I'm Chrysostom. Or at least that's my handle. I'm a twenty-something
American citizen. One thing's certain: I'm no
Ernest Hemingway. I've often mused: what's the difference between extreme intelligence and genius or excellence? Creativity.
Isaac Newton was creative.
Einstein was creative. I may be a genious [sic: as a creationist, I'm surely not a
genus!] but I lack the spark of creativity: the best I can ever do is to stand on the shoulders of giants :-)
I study
philosophy,
theology,
religion, and
Greek and
Roman
classical
history, and many other things, from languages to advanced mathematics (I love field theories, gauge theories, topology, knot theory, and even game theory and combinatorics). I am trained as an
electronics engineer, but
credentials don't matter. I never finished high school, and I'm proud of it (and I'm an
elitist at the same time: go figure. I may have earned scores of 1600 and 34 on the
SAT and
ACT respectively, and have pursued higher education: I may have not.
I'm discerning a vocation to the
religious life or
priesthood (as long as
arrogance doesn't disqualify me,
because I am right, after all). So much for the "
only idiots are religious", "
religion is the opiate of the masses" drivel.
I feel attracted to the
Jesuits and
Dominicans, of which I've yet to decide: once I was certain I was headed for the Society of Jesus, but I've begun to suspect it's too liberal for me to work smoothly in, as the upper and lower mandible instead of two lower mandibles (
Meditations 2:1). The more I discern, the more I identify with the
mendicant orders, as I have little desire for worldly possessions that can not be used to
autodidactic ends. I may even be called to the
pastoral priesthood (viz.
Priestly Fraternity of St Peter) on some level, albeit not (yet) equivalent to my calling to the scholarly religious life.
I am a strong believer in Neutral Point of View. Whatever my personal feelings on a subject, I do not let it interfere with my professional detachment towards edits made to Wikipedia (unless I fall prey to
megalomaniacal point of view: in any case, I at least think I'm neutral). However, all bets are off on my user and talk pages, where neutral writing will be terminated with extreme prejudice.
Some Interests
My interests include
philosophy (specifically
metaphysics and
ethics, overarchingly, the
philosophy of religion, the
philosophy of mind and
of science) and
theology - especially
Scholastic or
Thomist theology, or "theological philosophy", or "
philosophic theology", where the
borders between the disciplines become
blurred and indistinct. Thus leads to the next subject: a deep and abiding interest and love for
religion, which I believe to be the
highest and most noble ideal and practise of which Man has ever looked towards and attempted to attain to, for the most part, with some few exceptions: specifically, the
Abrahamic religions. I don't have much interest in (which, for me, "not much interest" is best read as "much more interest than the average person") the
Eastern religions,
Dharmic or
Taoic, although I have a relatively deep knowledge of both, specifically
Taoism,
Buddhism,
Hinduism (whether Buddhism, or certain schools of Buddhism, were or are sub-sects of Hinduism - or
Vedic
heresy, as it originally arose almost 3 millennia ago - is neither here nor there) and
Jainism. I also have a moderate knowledge of
Zoroastrianism (which I first heard about in a very indirect way by reading
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by
Nietzsche as a young teenager - and asking myself, "Who is this '
Zarathustra?'"), which does not neatly categorise in to either the
Western or
Eastern tradition.
I am a "
traditionalist"
Catholic, but not in the
schismatic and
reactionary sense that's become attached to the phrase - my views are so
liberal as to be called apostasy even in so-called "
liberal Islam" (a
contradiction in terms). I'm
FSSP traditionalist, not
SSPX traditionalist.
I'm a strong
social conservative with a
radical centrist or quasi-socialist (that is,
social market) view of
economics, well described by the label of
Christian Democrat if not
Christian Socialist, as that ideology was originally conceived - not necessarily how it's evolved in modern Europe - with some elements of
traditionalist conservatism. (It's all of the rest of you that are becoming so liberal as to make me appear a reactionary in comparison!)
Languages
I have also an interest and an aptitude for
languages. I also have a proficiency in the Greek language, which has been bolstered by my continuing efforts to read, and sometimes even translate, the
Holy Bible from its original Greek, in the form of the great
Septuagint and the writings of the
New Testament in the original Greek according to the
Textus Receptus,
Westcott and Hort,
Nestle and Aland, and the
United Bible Societies (so, I suppose you could call me an amateur textual critic, but imagine the criticism I would face, holding
Matthean priority and the
actual possibility of
prophecy,
miracle, and the
deity of Christ -
heresy!) and also because it is the
liturgical language of my grandmother's
church,
Eastern Orthodoxy (specifically the
Greek Orthodox Church), until I became sick of all of the anti-intellectual sentiment present there, much like in Islam (and maybe imbibed or obtained by osmosis since the
seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church has been held in thrall of various Islamic powers for 600 years, since the
Sack of Constantinople -
Istanbul, under the Mahometans - in 1453) - and yet further because it is the language in which
Plato and
Aristotle, the forefathers of all the institutions of both Rome and the modern West - including the "prime mover" behind
Saint Thomas Aquinas's thought, to which I am greatly indebted - thought and wrote.
For this same reason - that of historical research in to the Scriptures - I have an low-intermediate (likely 1.5) proficiency in
Biblical Hebrew, so that I might read the
Masoretic text of the
Old Testament, even though the Masoretic text dates to a later period, and preserves a less ancient recension of a different textual tradition than the LXX, which often agrees with the
Dead Sea Scrolls over against the MT. I can read the
script of Aramaic (and
Syriac), but insofar as understanding goes, it's limited to cognates in Hebrew and Arabic and similarities in grammar: I am unable to read the Aramaic sections of the Bible, such as much of
The Book of Daniel the Prophet or
targumim or the ancient Syriac translation, the
Peshitta, with any proficiency.
For many reasons, one similar, I embarked on the study of
Latin: both because it is the liturgical language of my own church, the
Roman Catholic, and out of a great love and respect for the civilisation and institutions of
Ancient Rome and its people (albeit viewed through rose-colored spectacles, as there was probably just as much
sexual promiscuity,
immorality, and
corruption in all levels of society then as there is today) and all of the developments it either developed directly or helped to incubate, including the beautiful Christian religion that bloomed within its borders even under oppressive persecution (not the best chapter of Rome's history). I'm still not sure whether I love Catholicism because it is Roman, or whether I love Rome because it gave its namesake to Catholicism, or a co-mingling - literally, a con-fusion, in the original sense of the term - of both.
To my regret, I placed little importance on non-English languages for much of my early life for myriad reasons, and even became actively hostile to them at one point to better "fit in" to American culture. Due to this, my
linguistic abilities have undergone
attrition, and I can not speak nor write them nearly as well as I might have been able to: also, I could be over-reacting by comparing my abilities in other languages to those I have with English, in which case they must by necessity seem to me to be inferior, even if they are not in fact.
I have an intermediate to advanced knowledge of
Arabic as well, it being the
liturgical language of
Islam.
Rote memorisation for the recitation of the
Koran in
ritualised prayers, and later in its
Classical form to be able to read and understand the Koran: it is a belief of Islam that the only "true" Koran is in Arabic, and all
translations of the Koran are actually "
interpretations" or
tafsir (this is why so many translations are named something like "
The Message of the Qur'an" or "
The Koran Interpreted"). I achieved my goal and read, and understood, the Koran - insofar as it can be understood, about 15% of it being nonsensical no matter the skill of the interpreter.
I am also a
trained
computer scientist and
electronic engineer, with a specific focus on
information security. I am a
Fellow of (ISC)^2. I am proficient in
Assembly language (MASM32),
C,
C++ and
Visual Basic, although I don't know enough
Javascript,
HTML/
XML or
CSS combined to cobble together a workable webpage. As this indicates, I have an interest in
low-level
programming, which is where all of the
interesting stuff (and more) is: I have barely any interest in higher-level programming or the languages used to perform most of it, such as
Java.
Statement of Faith: We believe "the cloud" is already outdated and outmoded, a
marketing term which is an ill-fated attempt to resurrect the
mainframe-
terminal paradigm instead of the modern
server-
client model, although we believe this mainframe paradigm under a different name may be the way of the future for the technologically illiterate - moving towards ever
thicker servers and
thinner clients - but we, as the technologically inclined
privacy and
security
advocates and
fanatics, users of
TOR,
full-disk encryption and
process and systems virtualization, members of the
EFF, will never accept it, demanding that our data be our own, stored in a medium that we have physical access to. We also believe that
MMORPG
games are
socially deleterious to the point of
bordering on evil, insidiously replacing reality with virtuality.
Amen.
Awards
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Clear Truth Award
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This is a trophy for your
valuable contributions here at the Wikipedia.
I hope you like it and be inspired to contribute more. So that people like me can be enlightened. Keep up the good work. :)
Brendon is
here 19:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
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Astrum horrei - The Original Gratuitous Barnstar of RM Consensus
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Everybody pat their own back. Nicely conducted everyone - I take back my grumpiness at Jeffro. [Awarded multiply on the Twenty-ninth of March in the Year of our Lord two thousand and twelve, for unanimous consensus finally reached after 4 contentious RMs]
In ictu oculi (
talk) 14:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
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The Teamwork Barnstar
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For your diligent attempts to collaborate on
Genesis creation narrative. Your willingness to work in good faith with other editors is really appreciated! —
Jess·
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♥ 02:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
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The Christianity Barnstar
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Thanks for all your contributions to
WikiProject:Christianity related articles! Keep up the good work! With regards,
Anupam
Talk 02:40, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
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The Original Barnstar
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This barnstar is awarded to everyone who did not - whatever their opinion - contribute to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for not being a part of the discussion. Awarded by JohnChrysostom, since everyone else has one.
JohnChrysostom (
talk) 17:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
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Chubbennaitor's Hidden Barnstar
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This user has found
Chubb
enna
itor's Secret Page and proudly exhibits this award. See if you can find the hay-coloured pin in a haystack link?Ver. 2.5
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The Surreal Barnstar
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Dear JohnChrysostom, thank you for your kind comments about me recently. I appreciate your efforts in demonstrating to the community the positive things that I've added to Wikipedia and my intention to make this encyclopedia a better place. It means more to me than words can describe. Your friend,
Anupam
Talk 17:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
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