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Darth Vader Sculpture on Washington National Cathedral
Michael Breeden writes "Star Wars has apparently taken another step in becoming part of our national history. The Washington National Cathedral, during its expansion, has placed a sculpture of Darth Vader's head into the carvings around one of the exterior arches. This space is normally reserved for grotesques (gargoyles), and ol' Darth seems to have fit the bill. "
A clear violation!
In this day and age, whoring Karma on Slashdot is easier than ever. With more moderators and a lower signal to noise ratio (If you don't know what that means, don't worry!) means that Karma can easily be gained by following a few simple rules when you are carefully crafting your Slashdot post.
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"Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee." --Bender
... Moe the bartender (simpsons) would make a MUCH scarier gargoyle!
Oh they are so dead. Please tell me someone got a copy.
Distributed Mirrors Project link
.....Yeah maybe this is going a bit far.
The Blade Itself
Why? Why?
/.ed already.
I've been to the National Cathedral... it's a beautiful place, even for pagans such as myself. Why would they carve a Darth Vader into the arches?
I'm sorry, but I just find this amazingly stupid. Maybe someone could enlighten me as to why this was done? The page seems to be
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
I find your lack of server bandwidth disturbing...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I am your holy father!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I've got Jar-Jar's head on a stake in my front lawn. Much more pleasing to the eye, imo.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
So the church isn't shy of putting up a bust of the second in command of another religion. I'm wondering whether (and when) they'll add people like Ayatollah Khomeini to the mix...
Isn't there something inherently wrong with Slashdotting a webserver of the Church?
"You are part of the anti-war movement, and traitor!"
Join me, and together we'll harness the power of the slashdot, and spread 'cannot find server' errors across the galaxy.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Ooops there are good guys now.
forgot.
What about a Romulan statue stabbing jesus with a phaser right above the alter?
Darth could be on the other side with the light saber with angels of long dead jedi coming down...
Sorry, I digress into blasephemy and damn its fun!
ACK
has failed me for the last time....'
Google cache
Posting anon to avoid Karma whoring.
Very weird.
Gargolyes are protectors, Darth Vader certainly is not. Why would someone sculpt such an artifact of evil?
Says you!
A national house of prayer for all people. So even athiests have a place to pray, right?
Seems like the Jedi faith is making significant headway in the USA, unlike some places.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Next up, some character from LOTR.
David
Darth: "Luke, I am your father..."
Luke: "Wait, do you mean my priest, or my dad?"
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Link
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
I'm pretty sure the Darth Vader Gargoyle has been there for ~20 years. I've looked for it a few times, but never found it. Now I'll know where it is!
With this addition to the national cathedral, perhaps "Jedi" may become a federally (US Gov.) recognized religion after all.
Didn't this happen like 2 years ago? Or did another church get a star wars boner?
Google cache here
adventure-today.com
The Darth gargoyle was carved and placed on the Cathedral in the 1980s--it was carved by master sculptor Palumbo (RIP) by a young lad who received honorable mention in a "Design-a-gargoyle" contest sponsored by World magazine (National Geographic for children).
The winner was a smiling gargoyle toting an umbrella.
***Foucault is watching you..***
Actually.. It was meant as a joke about a head of state having his head literally connected to a cathederal.
;)
Hey.. it's hard to get a legitimately funny post up as first post too!
Your servers have failed me for the LAST time...
Incidentally, this isn't new, is it? The cathedral was completed fairly recently, and this gargoyle was added as part of the contruction process. I could swear I heard about this when the original trilogy was still coming out.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Mirros:
8 /http://w ww.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/darth.shtml
r xapSYQmgC: www.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/darth.shtml+& hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Archive.org mirror:
http://web.archive.org/web/2002060718373
Google archive:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:1i
Not much faster, though. Wasn't this posted a long time ago?
"Impressive! Most impressive!"
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's bandwidth.
Thou shalt not slashdot thy neighbor's server.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
One of the few medieval churches in Norway, nidarosdomen, was restaurated many years ago, and some people have noticed that the figure of the archangel Michael bears an uncanny resemblance to someone...
And this year the artist admitted it: it IS in fact Dob Dylan.
(It's true! Pity I don't have a link)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
OK.... Not that Star Wars has made its way into a religious structure, why not Star Trek? I think if Darth Vader is going to be a Gargoyle on a catherdrale, I think the head of a Borg would be suitable as well. I think the Borg would scare me more than Darth vader on there. What do you all say? Anyway back to my AI class.... ugh lol Josh http://www.ussamazon.com
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Isn't this about 15 years out of date? The gargoyle was put up in the 80's. (There was a children's competition to design new gargoyles. Darth made it up there along with a raccoon and some other less threatening images.)
Isn't that the new G.W. Bush memorial...
Wait a minute... cathedral... bizarre... why does that sound so familiar
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
The national cathedral has many unique gargoyles, that's typical of the medieval style actually. Since many of them could never be seen except (in the pre-binocular/telescope age) the carvers, they could sculpt bosses they hated, cultural figures, politicians, etc. There was an issue of Smithsonian magazine that described some of them (the artists were left to their own will, mostly, on what they could put up there). There's undoubtedly a number more of these little "easter eggs" put in those doing the construction.
And it's a nice complement to the chunk of moon rock in the 'creation' stained glass window there also.
In principle, this is no worse than "the green man", a folk-religion symbol that is often insinuated into the carvings of old English churches. (e.g. Chiseldon, nr. Swindon, Wilts).
But in a Christian church, a bit silly.
In similar news, Jedi is Britains forth most popular religion. America just catching up perhaps?
As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
In the empire, there is no religion. Microsith
FYI, this is not exactly news. The Darth Vader gargoyle has been in place for many years. I first heard about when I moved to DC about seven years ago. The Cathedral was completed in 1990, so Darth has been glowering on tourists for over a decade.
In honor of Lord Vader's contributions to the Washington National Cathedral, he will be remembered as Saint Anakin, who performed the miracle of telepathetically choking sinners.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I recall reading about the Darth Vader inclusion back in the 1980s. ^^ It's not something new; he was actually included by a fairly famous sculptor during that time. You can see his bio and a picture of Vader here:
http://www.stoneguild.com/m_plunkett.htm
I hear from reliable sources that it is not in fact Darth Vader. Instead, it is William Shatner in a Darth Vader mask.
There has been a gargoyle of Vader on the cathedral for years, saw it back in '88. I found it cute and a good thing that they had it, showed that they were keeping with the times.
Star Wars is popular culture.
Star Trek is lame geek culture.
And it's up there because a kid designed it in a 'create a gargoyle' contest. And the news is like 20 years old.
The sculpture has been there for years. I first saw it on my first tour of the Cathedral back in 1996.
Does anyone know if this Star Wars fascination is as big in Europe, specifically the UK, as it is in the US? I really think it fulfills some kind of "missing race memory" or something here, the US missing out on the Dark and Middle Ages and all. Coup Sticks and Dreamcatchers are all very well and good, but they don't hold a cathedral candle to long swords and grail quests.
If we had our own, *real* King Arthur (or as real as King Arthur was, anyways...) would we be clamoring so much for George Lucas' pre-fab techno Arthuriana?
The "Jedi faith"...
(pardon while I recover from my laughing fit)
...could probably gain some credibility and new members if they cloned a couple kids. New membership would come, of course, mostly from the cloning, since I doubt "Jedi faith" members reproduce, and not due to "spiritual beliefs".
On the plus side, we'd also finally have real legislation against cloning, mighty fast!
Please help metamoderate.
[B] [/B]
DV isn't head of State, he's head of Government. DS is head of State. He finds your lack of political knowledge disturbing.
I did not know that. However, you must realize Star trek is more Popular. lets see.... Palms... cell phone... BAH.... uneducated people... or don't get out! Josh
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Right on! Ditto for freedom of speech and habeus corpus. Just ask anyone in the Bush administration.
--Fighting trolls with trolls since 1999.
Nope.. it's going to be Dr. Evil. He didn't spend six years in evil medical school to not be on the National Cathedral, thank you very much!
You want a sig? I can get you a sig... Hell, I can get you a sig by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish.
... I guess they'll put up a Bill Gates statue next.
Available here . Although it might be a bit old. Doesn't have an image of the actual gargoyle, just an image of Darth Vader's head and an idea on where it would go on the Cathedral.
Here's my mirror. Seems that archive.org and google cache don't resolve because the .css and javascript weren't cached, so they tried to open the original sites, which holds up the whole page. I just removed them, and left the article.
Mirror
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
I saw this over 7 years ago. It is really nothing new. If you want to see something really cool, look for the stained glass of the apollo landings.
AS i understand it, the main large gargoyles are decided by the designer and higher ups, and in some of the small out of the way not really seen places they kinda let the individual stone carvers have some fun.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Obi-Wan: That's no church. It's a space station.
Han Solo: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Darth Maul: At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge. -Darth Maul's whole script
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Given the popularity that Lord of the Rings has had over the years (starting with the books), perhaps they should add the head of Sauron.
Of course, why stop there? They could add Agent Smith. Or Dr. Evil.
Or if they're looking for full statues for out front, maybe the Terminatrix. Rrrowr.
or just an atheist?
I imagine if he did, there'd be some sort of huge lawsuit for copyright infringement or intellectual property theft or something along those lines. Pretty soon there'll be royalty fees and you're not allowed to look at it without paying admission... this is a bad idea. :)
Join Tor today!
When in doubt, use The Internet archive. It works wonders, and it archives images (unlike Google Cache).
Darth Vader at National Cathedral Mirror.
According to a visibly self-impressed George Lucas, "yeah, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, I'd still be filthy rich. But seriously, I figure all you need is an inside man at the church. According to my metaphysical effects team at ILM, a gargoyle at the National Cathedral should let me bypass all those philanthropic hoops John D. Rockefeller had to jump through."
(Parody? Perhaps....)
So a fictional character is on the cathedral. Big whoop. There's a bunch more inside that place - like the putz hanging on that lower case t they got, that Jesus dude...
Why not have a little fun with the christians - they're dumb enough to follow some putz who never existed, why not add some Sci-fi to the mix?!
At last, the Dark Side gets a little recognition on this puny planet!
Joke em' if they can't take a phuc.
...Does that mean that the Bazaar has Luke Skywalker?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
To Find Darth Vader you have to leave the building through the ramp entrance. This is located at the northwest corner of the nave, through the double wooden doors of Lincoln Bay. Go down the ramp, and step into the parking lot. Then, turn around and look back up at the tower closest to you. He is almost impossible to see without the assistance of binoculars.
Way way way up, almost at the top of the tower is a gablet, or small peaked roof, located between the two huge louvered arches. At the bottom of each slope of this gablet is a carved grotesque. Darth Vader is on the north, or right-hand, side. There is a carved skull situated on a gablet much closer to the ground which many people often mistake for Darth Vader. From this skull, Darth Vader is up and to the left.
Please, all of you, just STOP IT! I cannot take any more StarWars references like these! :)
Join Tor today!
Quick! We need more church members. Absorb another religion!
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
pic from the artist's site
whore/anon
Yoda: "The /. clouds everything, impossible to see the page it has become"
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
God's gonna be pissed...
I saw a piece (Charles Kuralt I think) on the building of the National Cathedral some time ago. One way they pay for the building is by allowing people to design gargoyles, for a fee. One woman had a bunch of gargoyles made that are caricatures of her grandchildren. Unsuprising that a Star Wars fan took advantage of this. The only strange thing is that it didn't happen years ago. Anyway, basing a gargoyle on a fantastic or imaginary creature has a long tradition.
This isn't exactly news. This was done at least ten years ago. Darth Vader is a standard depiciton of evil. There is also a grotesque of Adolf Hitler on one of the towers at the National Cathedral (I live about a mile away from it...)
Come on - this was a post from 1994, and the poster doesn't even say THEN that this was new.
"Centuries ago, on our cathedrals, grotesques were intended to symbolize the evil that existed outside the church. Today, Darth Vader is an excellent example of evil in our times."
Next thing you'll know they will carve the heads of Osama Bin Laden, Dr. Kevorkian or an abortionist. Being in control of the meaning of the word 'evil' is a dangerous power. In this case I'd prefer to stick with tradition.
Look on Amazon, he's been writing dog books and stuff.
So is George W. Bush.
I find your lack of faith disturbing...
This third place ol' darth sure seems to fit the bill allright, exposing the biggest oxymoron of the "separation of church and state".
Ol' darth and his cronies love preeching sin unto death
Satan was Jesus's father
What a piece of junk!
"You get what you pay for after all." --
I'm just going to sit in my parent's basement and sulk.
Heh. This article evokes some memories for me. As a previous poster mentioned, there are hordes of unique gargoyles on the National Cathedral (I had lots of time to check them out as a student on the Cathedral Close in the 90s).
By far my favorite is a gargoyle facing NCS, the Cathedral-affiliated girl's school. It's carved to resemble a constuction worker lewdly whistling at the nymphets passing by on their way to class...
Just as registration makes retrieving firearms in a state of "martial law" possible, killing you off by your religious views is now possible. What other possible reason could they want by collecting this data?
Which immediatly makes me wonder, what got first and second place? And what rounds out the rest of the top ten or however many they did?
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Maybe this will help Jedi get recognized as a real religion.
This is such old news, the thing has been there for a while now. Slashdot sucks.
Some crazy russian architect wanted to put a t-800 endoskeleton (about 100 feet tall) holding up a world, in a park in europe.
I submitted the story to slashdot, but got rejected.
I wish I could recall the website now (complete with CGI pics of the completed structure) but I don't.
IMO it was even cooler than this.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
For those that want to read the article but can't due to the slashdotting...
Darth Vader It's slow, but works,
Link brought to you by archive.org
Then here's the text only version...
About Darth Vader As Washington National Cathedral approached completion, the west towers rose towards the sky, striking toward heaven. During the building a startling idea was hatched: hold a competition for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.
Darth Vader Drawing (img.)
Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral...
Newspaper Clipping (img.)
Darth Vader Location (img.)
To Find Darth Vader you have to leave the building through the ramp entrance. This is located at the northwest corner of the nave, through the double wooden doors of Lincoln Bay. Go down the ramp, and step into the parking lot. Then, turn around and look back up at the tower closest to you. He is almost impossible to see without the assistance of binoculars.
Way way way up, almost at the top of the tower is a gablet, or small peaked roof, located between the two huge louvered arches. At the bottom of each slope of this gablet is a carved grotesque. Darth Vader is on the north, or right-hand, side. There is a carved skull situated on a gablet much closer to the ground which many people often mistake for Darth Vader. From this skull, Darth Vader is up and to the left.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
He has also reportedly been in quite a lawsuit with Lucifer over his soul, claiming that when he sold it he was promised that the Star Wars prequels would be awesome. Lucifer is countering that they were a slam dunk but Lucas f'd them up by reselling his soul to corporate America.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
What are the implications of putting Lucasarts intellectual property on a public cathedral?
If we allow the Star Wars saga to be written in stone, how will George Lucas collect royalties from people 10,000 years in the future who gaze at the carvings?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
it wasn't Jar-Jar.
There's a piece of American history we'd all like to forget.
Look at my karma - I'm bad, just like Michael Jackson!
This is old stale news. I believe their was a contest to come up artwork for one of the gargoyles back in the late 70's/ early 80's, and darth vader was the winner.
If you visit the cathedral, they have a printed self guided tour of the gargoyles with some history and locations of some of the more interesting ones.
Ahhhhh the /. Effect! Less than a half hour after the post and their server is no longer responding!
Does Taco warn the server admin before a post goes up here or does the admin find out when the server halts?
Gato
I have no idea _why_ they thought scary looking evil things would scare away, well, other scary looking evil things, but it apparently made sense to them.
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Shudda be Cthulhu
This
"Centuries ago, on our cathedrals, grotesques were intended to symbolize the evil that existed outside the church. Today, Darth Vader is an excellent example of evil in our times."
Well, where's Bill Gates carved? Probably over the window that has to be replaced every week.
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
So how many years does one serve in purgatory for slashdotting cathedral.org?
There is nothing wrong with a Church recognizing a head of state, even a head from an evil empire. A church can also endorse or suppress the U.S. government, within the limits of law.
The U.S. government can also give money, tanks, cheese, or anything else to churches. But it has to do so without preference to any single church.
This is one fallacy often used in discussions about government programs which might give money to private or church-operated schools. Most common is a "voucher" system, where parents get a voucher for a child's education, and they can give that voucher to whatever school they want the kid to attend (and the school then gets the specified amount of money for the service). If a parent chooses a Catholic, Jewish, or SubGenius school, that is no more relevant than if the money goes to a public or private school.
Another oddity recently showed up in news reports: a Catholic church leader urging tax increases for funding of "social programs". Well, a non-profit agency doing lobbying is not allowed. Also, if a church wants to have the State take money from people then that church should stop accepting donations and use only that money from the State which is considered to be so important that it must be taken from people by force rather than being donated. But the U.S. government can not show preference -- so all churches would get such funds. I haven't heard that church leader considering the effects of forcing people give money.
This post had me ROTF!
No, in Europe we are fascinated by Knight Rider.
Wah! I want to see how it looks in context on the stonework!!
I think, if you slashdot a cathedral, you go to hell.
Book your tickets to Redmond now, Hemos.
Does anybody remember the flak when Cathedral sculptor Frederick Hart sued about the Devil's Advocate using his sculpture Ex Nihilo?
In the movie the people in the sculpture get a little randy, and "the National Cathedral denounced the film as a grotesque distortion of sacred art."
I suppose if they have Darth in a choirboy outfit leading the procession, Lucasfilms might have a similar case.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
I've been a member here for a long time. My user id is < 12,000.
/.
/. to cache the articles it links to, but Burrito & Co. decided long ago that they're just a little to lazy for that. So, they made it a FAQ, and pretended that they gave the correct answer.
/. effect.
/. users" update, I'm interested in reading the article that was originally referenced.
/. In hindsight, would you have preferred a marginally out of date cache on our servers, or the smoking crater that your server has now been reduced to?"
/. concerned about prompt coverage? If I wanted to read the news when it happened, I would have seen it on the Register, Fark, CNN, or any one of a dozen other sites.
Back in the old days, slashdotting would happen. We'd all have a nice laugh, wait a couple of hours, and the victim's site would be back online.
Now...fuck...I can't remember the last time I was able to read a linked article that wasn't being carried by a major media player.
Google cache, you say? Fuck the Google cache. The Google cache does not cache images. That means it's useless for most of the stories posted on
The obvious solution is for
Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Has anyone ever actually asked a linked site's owner about this? None of the sites I administer has ever been linked (and none of them run on banner ads anyway), but as an administrator I'd be a heck of a lot happier with skewed statistics for 24 hours instead of a completely unavailable server.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect.
True in 1998, perhaps. Not any more. From what I've seen lately, *only* the largest sites are able to withstand the
So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
Boo hoo. Cache the site for 24 hours, to cover the initial onslaught, and then revert back to direct linking. I'm not interested in reading the site owners "hi
And, once again, take a little survey. "Hey, you've been linked by
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
I don't think that asking permission to cache beforehand is the answer, but since when is
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.
Super. You've had two years to do it since this FAQ was last updated. Have you made any progress?
No?
Hm.
I went to the Washington National Cathedral about 5 or 6 years ago and saw the Darth Vader head then. I'm surprised this just now got posted on here...
...we have the bizarre cathedral!
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
the last thing we need would be people submitting caricatures of Bin-laden and Bush
Catherdrals were never about being "holy ground", but about wealth and power. There's nothing more the wealthy love is to build big monstrous edifices to honor themselves and even occationally God. In the end they represent the art and pop culture of their era. The purists and fanatical of the religous would have you believe otherwise, but that's how it was and still is today. So if anything it's more than appropriate to have Vadar up on the wall, along with all the other carvings and statues based on people admired and despised by the artists that created it for those with the checkbook.
The power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the slashdot effect.
When those "scholars" got together and perverted God's word for economic growth and "soften it" to elminate anti-semitism, they in effect brought the state into religion! I might add, the State has done a very poor job of preserving the sacred word of God and very good job of preaching earn cash and give to the church cash regularly. The State has in effect "spiritually robbed" it's people, a sin so deadley that all the federal and state assets would not even begin to repay the damage.
What they are trying to do is nullify faith by preaching that you are under the law and continue to sin, which is the exact opposite of what the bible teaches.
14. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: 15. Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. 16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all
Princess Amidala stoned and petrified.
Since the Jedi 'faith' has English origins, I've taken it to be another branch of the Anglican Communion.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
So you haven't read about the gov't giving money to churches for purposes including building places of worship...and how much of that has gone to non-Catholic and Christian churches?
Impeach the shrub.
Anyways: gargoyles on cathedrals, besides serving the essential function of spouting wainwater off the roof, are meant to embody the culture's fears, like bogeymen. Darth is up there (on the North side, very high up) in part because he was kinda a bogeyman circa 1980. There are a couple other "gargoyles" of people wearing gasmasks, etc., reflecting more modern anxieties.
In a related story, one of the stonecarvers about the same time wanted to immortalize his just-deceased wife in a sculpture, nowhere prominent, just out of the way somewhere. The higher-ups vetoed the idea, stating a policy of not having private memorials in a public building (or something along those lines). So the stonecarver took her ashes and mixed them into some mortar, making her remains part of the building itself. Or so I heard, anyway....
But come back later in the week for your Darth-as-gargoyle fix. I wonder what architectural historians a few centuries from now will think of it.
The ratio of people to cake is too big.
First, allow me to point out that a "pinko" is a communist and in communism there is a definite separation of church and state, as there is no church. So Seperation of church and state cannot be a "pinko myth", whether liberal or not. Aside from that, most liberals are commies at heart, as anyone in the Bush Admin. can confirm.
"Centuries ago, on our cathedrals, grotesques were intended to symbolize the evil that existed outside the church. Today, Darth Vader is an excellent example of evil in our times."
This is incorrect. The gargoyles were designed to scare away evil spirits. Darth Vader was evil, and that is a concept that's completely different, and therefore not consistent with the traditional gargoyles.
Hmm... if they did it without his helmet, you could perhaps make a case that it is sufficiently grotesque!
bp
So, is now a good time to expect the Spanish Inquisition?
It is the entire clan:
For example - George Bush without the "W". Quote (from a 1999 interview): "I trully believe that an atheist cannot be a citizen of this great country".
So is his favourite pet Tony B. He got asked the question about his support for creationism in the house of commons and he could not answer.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I live around the corner from the National Cathedral, and let me tell you that Vader is not easy to spot. A few years ago I remember a kid walking around the cathedral grounds handing out photocopies of hand-drawn instructions telling you how to spot the Sith-lord. I tried to follow, but never could find him. I wasn't sure if the kid was was telling the truth, until I went into the Cathedral's gift shop and found a book of gargoyles with Darth Vader featured next to another icon familiar with the dark side: A lawyer carrying a briefcase. If you ever visit the Cathedral, bring your binoculars and plan to spend some time searching the highest towers. He's way up there.
Darth Gargoyle
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Putting aside the fact that Darth Vader isn't even real, the character is NOT that important of a historical figure. This is just sooooooo wrong. It's akin to putting up characters from The Wizard of Oz or Mickey Mouse there. I think our society needs a serious reality check since we seem to be collectively having a lot of trouble discerning between what is real and what is not. Which on the grander scheme leads to problems in figuring out what is important and what is not. Wake up people!
Un-news
Isn't there a distinct speration of church and state in the USA?
http://www.ohlssonvox.com
Darth has been there since the intial completion of construction... saw him back in 89-90 when I went on a school trip to DC.
Not to mention, if Darth isn't suitable Gargoyle material what is ? He even has a theme of redemption going for him. I can think of plenty of worse characters to have chose to partray in the architecture of the national cathedral.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
where the church and state separate YOU!
Early in the morning in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys started a fight.
Back to back, they faced each other,
Turned around, drew their swords, and shot each other.
A deaf policeman hear the noise,
And he arrested the two dead boys.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Salamanca's cathedral (Spain) also have an astronaut in the main door.
Yes i agree.. i saw this a few years ago when i visted in DC
John Hancock
Actually, it's the cathedral church of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington. Although the cathedral is somewhat ecumenical, the National Cathedral is no more associated with the Federal government than say, The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (a largish, non-parish Catholic basilica in DC.)
But all the other gargoyles, monsters and demons and things, THOSE are real?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
that we've finally wised-up and have clasified religion correctly - another form of entertainment that shouldn't be the single guiding force in life...
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Darth Vader is not just an icon of evil and historical American entertainment, but also represents the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Luke says "I've felt the good in you, Father," but Vader retorts, "It is too late for me, Son." Yet, in the end, he is redeemed. What better place to put a reminder that even in the darkest night, there is still hope, than on a cathedral?
:)
Don't believe there is hope? Visit the Cathedral; spend some time there. You may be redeemed, too.
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
You can't acutally see the Darth sculpture on the page linked to in the article anyway. It just shows a picture of Darth Vader from Star Wars and a diagram pointing to his location on the Cathedral face. Here is a picture of statue itself before it was put in place.
But a serious question: Why Darth Vader? Why the dark side? Or isn't the dark side just a metaphor for the unescapable power of capitalism?
My favorite on the Cathedral is the man with a video camera. Nothing is as scary as the modern American media.
"And underneath his beautiful black visage, is a crusty old white man!"
It should have been Lucas himself that was added. I can't think of a greater evil in the universe than the person responsible for Episode I and II. Bleh. Jackson Ash
No "cease and desist" letter from Lucas'(tm) cloned army of lawyers?
I am a christain (who goes to church on Sunday) and normaly I would never post anything on a subject like this, but I have noticed that atheists love these subjects for them to go on about how great they are for not falling for that whole religious crap.
So, I thought I would add this:
i like pinko it is the best game on price is right. that's where you take the ball and it falls down and bounces on all of these nails and eventually settles into a bin at the bottom where you win anything from $50 to $100000. pinko is the best game ever let's play some pinko. ehe
Congressional Republicans today introduced a bill at the request of President Bush which proposes a number of changes to the National Cathedral. Speaking at a White House Rose Garden ceremony, President Bush had this to say, "My fellow Americans. As many of you know, the gargoyles on the exterior of the National Cathedral are meant to represent the evil that exists in the world. (pause) To my left, you might see a resemblance to Adolf Hilter in that one up there. (pause) To my right is my old nemesis, Darth 'Death Star' Vadar - who single-handedly oversaw the building of the largest Weapon of Mass Destruction in the history of science fiction. But enough about history and fiction (pause). I'm here (pause) to talk about the here and now (pause for applause). Because no greater evil exists in the world (pause) than these fellows." (pause for applause) At this point, the President removed a large tarp from a small section of the cathedral wall, unveiling four new gargoyles with the heads of Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Kim Il Jung, and Jacques Chirac. "This 'Axis of Evil' should not be forgotten. (pause for applause) A national poll of young Americans was taken a few months ago (pause) to determine (pause) whose faces should adorn this mighty cathedral. (pause) The children picked The Green Goblin (pause), but we've over-ruled them (pause for applause). The esteemed Mr. Ashcroft believes that this was simply a terrorist plot to deflect Americans' attention from the real evils at hand. (pause)The children in question are now under 24 hour surveillance with a little help from our friend the PATRIOT Act. (pause) We will find the deviants who we know used fear and intimidation to skew the results (pause for applause). And we will restore democracy to our youngsters." (pause for applause)
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It was funnier when it was posted here:
8 25 207
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62244&cid=5
BEFORE you stole it.
christians had a sense of humor.
In that case I suppose Herr Ashcroft is next eh?
Yes it's old but it's still cool if you didn't know. For those of you who are just interested in seeing the darn thing there is a 'pre-installation' photo available here . For some other neat Cathedral grotesques look here
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
...put his head on Mount Rushmore!
/. symbol? (All the /.'ers rush to the Cathedral to view and "slashdot" the tourist lines...)
While we're at it, let's put George Bush's head on the Cathedral next to Hitler's...
As for cultural icons, how about Jodie Foster and John Hinckley?
Pamela Anderson's tits? (Could disquise them as simple pyramid projections...)
Britney Spears?
A
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I find their lack of faith disturbing.
If they want representations of mythical levels of evil on the cathedral, how about Hillary Rosen or Bill Gates crouching up there near the rafters?
A grotesque is a carved figure, often "evil" looking. These are what adorn many cathedrals and gothic structures. When most people say gargoyle, they really mean grotesque. A gargoyle may be carved in the grotesque style, but is different - it specifically sticks out from the roof gutter and is used to drain water away from the building. It's no coincidence that "gargoyle" and "gargle" sound alike. There's a great page with pictures here.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
i saw it when i was on a class trip years ago. this isn't anything new. what a stupid story to pick.
It's not that they're trying to pay homage to Star Wars as much as they're trying to position this modern cathedral in our time & place. With that in mind, a lot of the gargoyles & other decorations are modern in some way: another of the gargoyles is one of the flying monkeys from "Wizard of Oz", for example, and supposedly one of the gargoyles has Hitler's face (not American of course, but about as clear an example of modern evil as you're likely to find).
As interesting as modern history & pop culture is though, my favorite is the stellar rose window in the cathedral: the design itself is really cool (psychedelic even), but the centerpiece is a moon rock. No other cathedral in the world can claim a souvenier like that, I think it's safe to say :)
Broadly, the point isn't that Hitler was bad or that movies are cool or that NASA had ingenuity, but that all of these things and more are aspects of our 20th/21st century lives. Think of the cathedral as a kind of epic time capsule, meant as much as a post card to our descendants of 1000 or more years from now as it is a simple place of everyday worship. If people are still watching movies at that point, the face of Vader will be our way of saying "yeah -- we invented that" (well no, actually the Lumiere family did in Paris, but the McCarthyites would probably object to that :). Broadly, it's a way of saying "those other cathedrals are great, but this one is ours, and this is who we are/were."
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Bubblegum art for a bubblegum culture. This reminds me of the recent statue commissioned for the National Wallace Monument in Stirling. From what I recall, the town council and donors who paid for the sculpture had kittens when, at the unveiling, it became obvoious that the sculptor used Mel Gibson in 'Breveheart' as his model.
Has anybody ever been to the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA? http://www.churchbrew.com/
It is a pretty neat place. They have big vats up on the Alter that brew the beer. You can get to the giftshop by going through one of the confessionals. It has been in Pittsburgh for a few years now (Since 1996). So, I doubt they are going to get shut down or anything. I personally think the place is pretty cool.
This kind of monument, where cultural icons are set literally in stone (OK, concrete perhaps...I don't know what it was carved from) are a great argument for preservation of the cultural commons.
May the Force Be With everyone responsible for the Darth-Goyle!
I'm curious about the other winning designs.
From the file darth.pdf a couple of links from the linked page:
"Darth Vader was placed on the northwest tower with the other winning designs: a raccoon, a girl with pigtails and braces and a man with large teeth and an umbrella.
So let's kill all raccoons, stop girls with pigtails from wearing braces, or vice versa, and man with big teeth should never use an umbrella (or have the teeth pulled out)!
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
None of the above. The Washington Cathedral (it's real name, the "National" part is just sort of a nickname) has no connection to the US government. Although I escaped, I'm from the DC area, and have visited there plenty of times. There's a poster in another church I used to frequent that shows photos many of the gargoyles on the cathedral, and the Darth Vader head is on that poster. I've tried looking (even w/ binoculars) for the head on the building-- it's huge, if you've never been there-- but never could find it. Anyone got an overhead view that points to it?
If you're in the area I highly reccomended a guided tour of the Gargoyles including a slide show of the some of the more famous ones (including Darth) and a guided walk around the cathedral with a gargoyle expert who will point them out to you, check the shedule. If you think the fact that Darth is up there is cool, you'll be impressed by who else has been immortalized, not to mention the craftsmanship that goes into one of these!
If you can't make one of the special tours, the cathedral also does regular tours during most daylight hours and the guides (docents) are likely to be able to point you in the right direction.
I've taken the Gargoyle tour, a family member is one of the experts, and it really is interesting, even to the laymen just looking for something to do! Enjoy!
Played by a Brit in three films made in Britain (at least his parts were). JEJ is American but presumably the gargoyle doesn't talk?
Another oddity recently showed up in news reports: a Catholic church leader urging tax increases for funding of "social programs". Well, a non-profit agency doing lobbying is not allowed. Also, if a church wants to have the State take money from people then that church should stop accepting donations and use only that money from the State which is considered to be so important that it must be taken from people by force rather than being donated. But the U.S. government can not show preference -- so all churches would get such funds. I haven't heard that church leader considering the effects of forcing people give money.
You could have replaced that whole paragraph with "Std_brainless_slashdot_anti-tax_rant". I have no idea why you think a church shouldn't accept donations and ask that the government tax people to pay for things like welfare/social security/healthcare/etc. I certainly don't see why anyone should have restrictions placed on what they do based on what they ask the government to do.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Little "c" communism may or may not allow or even be connected with a church or churches. Some early Christian groups were communist in the sense of living communally. The very idea "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" is fairly compatible with principles of Christian charity, although human nature is always the fly in the ointment that neccesitates the force of the state to make everybody take only what they need and not slack off on what they contribute.
Big "C" Communism included a belief in the non-existance of God no matter what you call him (or her), but went even further, not only because religion is often used by those who control resources and means of production to keep the workers from getting too "uppity", but because under big "C" Communism the state (that is, the party) was the church and the religion. The idea that they were going to bring about paradise on earth once they had the entire world on board is how they justified the exploitation and/or slaughter of non-believers, insufficiently worshipful believers, or anyone else who was handy or inconvenient.
My personal philosophy is that any God that needs followers to handle the dirty work of killing the non-believers instead of doing it himself is obviously not powerful enough to really be God, and any God (including a non-God God such as the Marxist-Leninist state) that can't achieve a monopoly on followers just by being obviously superior to any alternatives instead of needing to have the faithful use force to convert the non-believers has too many flaws to really be God.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I couldn't find the details in Google, but somewhere in southern Spain, somebody was commissioned to restore a Medioeval tower. One of the tasks was putting stone coats-of-arms on the façades.
So, in one of the tall places, if you had some binoculars, you could now see the coat-of-arms of this person's favourite football team.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu