Southern Baptists, 170 years ago, were unbiblical

Why is it whenever some small cult seeks to actually change the world to suit their point of view, and a fundamentalist objects, the initial response is "if the church can ignore the Bible on slavery, then they should ok my favorite sin"?

Well, guess what folks- what the Bible says on slavery is NOT what you think it is. What the Bible says about slavery, is to treat it like adoption. Now while I'm sure some plantation owners in the Southern US did indeed treat slaves like their own children (in fact, we got Blessed Fr. Tolton, the first African-American priest, that way- from a Catholic slave owning family who DID treat the children of their slaves as their own children, including encouraging Fr. Tolton in his vocation), the fundamentalist Southern Baptists were more likely to quote the Bible out of context to support their racism and the inhuman practices of chattel slavery.

So that is why we should not just blanket "ignore the Bible"- because ignoring the Bible leads to an entirely different place than you think it does.

Why you are always wrong

The Church calls it Original Sin, this more secular article calls it evolution where our brains for 2 million years developed to be hunter gatherers, but now we have civilization and have yet to actually evolve to fit into civilization. Either way- you're more wrong than you think- and so am I. So are we all.

So this is how Democracy Ends, Part II

A Dying Man Writes America's Obituary. My friend with Marfan Syndrome, as death seems to be getting ever closer, has a blog that is continually sounding ever more mystical. In this one, he analyzes the relative merits and problems of a Democratic Republic in the light of our two main Presidential Candidates, Barak Obama and Mitt Romney- and comes to the conclusion that EITHER getting into the Presidency at this point in history means the end of Constitutional Conservativism in the United States, and likely the end of our Republic itself.

Rick Santorum on Religious Liberty

The Candidate I can no longer vote for, because he dropped out of the race before the Republican Primary in Oregon, speaks out on the perils of being a religious man in the public sphere.

Why Killing Children is Popular

I came across this seven year old interview left out of a Frontline show promoting abortion. I find it very interesting because it includes peer pressures on college students in the 19-24 age group drawn from Boston Area colleges, and it shows the *STARK* cognitive dissonance between the peer pressure to have sex, and the peer pressure against babies. The same article also has a broken link, but I found it At least one researcher that suggests properly subsidized teen pregnancy would be a better idea than abortion.

Where charity should rightly end, and sorrow begin

Let me get this straight A bunch of family planning eugenicists don't like what the church teaches about human sexuality, and utterly disagree with the Pope, while holding Obama up to be a Saint on Earth who hath brought free contraception to all through the insurance companies. They don't understand the concept of the government forcing people to materially cooperate in sin is wrong, so they buy into the idea that the fake accounting trick that the Obama Administration is putting forth will fool both Man and God. Oh yeah, and the problem isn't with Obama, it's with the Pope.

I've got news for you Democrats out there who prefer Obama to Pope Benedict XVI- Martin Luther solved your problem for you 500 years ago. Seeing as how you no longer believe in Apostolic Authority, there are 30,000 other Christian religions to choose from that deny it. Why don't you go find one of them to join instead of attempting to force 1.1 billion faithful Catholics to remake the Church in YOUR image?

Chuck Lorre Productions Vanity Card 198c

On an offense that almost became a defense, if it wasn't for the Censors at CBS- Chuck Lorre fell into the modern myth of "all Catholic Priests are pedophiles" when writing this script originally; the censors attacked him on it, themselves falling into the myth that "All Catholics are in denial about all priests being pedophiles", when actually proving the reality that "All Americans who are worried about pedophiles are giving generic non-denominational pastors a free pass to do whatever the hell they like, merely because they don't have a magisterium that makes rules and policies about such things". In reality, of course, the Church has been trying to regulate the sex lives of it's priests since the 1100s actively and since the early Church (it's mentioned in Paul's letters in the Bible!) passively; with varying degrees of success and failure on this topic. But the grand majority of Roman Catholic Priests not only believe in and practice the vow of celibacy faithfully; they do so at a great personal mental cost. I for one applaud them for it. Even of the three priests I've known in my personal life who have supposedly failed on this- one I doubt greatly he did what he's been accused of (despite Chuck Lorre's faith in the American Justice System, conviction does not equal truth), the second spent two years trying to figure out what to do before taking any action, and the third, while he did cause a scandal, did so in a way that was so quiet many of the people in the town didn't even know it had happened.

Channeling Chesterton: On Miracles

Miracle. The dictionary defines it as "an event that appears unexplainable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God." The Key Word there is appears- for all of the laws of nature are in and of themselves supernatural in origin and an act of God. Just because we've grown as a species to the point where we understand some of them, does not make them any less of a miracle.

I'm officially voting third party for the main election

Rick Santorum has left the Presidential race, likely due to daughter Bella's continued fragility. As a special needs parent myself who has made career and financial decisions due to my son's disabilities, I fully understand and support his decision, just as I would have supported him for the Republican Primary. I do not know if I'm still early enough to switch my registration back to Constitution Party- in a fit of pique I might throw my primary vote to Ron Paul as the least evil left in the Republican camp (and yes, me saying that a Randroid like Ron Paul is the least evil left, means that the Republicans are truly scraping the bottom of the barrel in my book).

Fundamentalists are their own worst enemy

Message to London Islamic Protesters- YOU are the biggest insult to Islam that exists in this world today. Irrational fundamentalists who would use violence outside of legitimate human authorities are the single biggest insult to Islam and Christianity that has ever existed. Scripture taken out of context is NOT an authority on anything at all- it can't be, because an authority requires judgement and a book is not capable of rational thought. Not the Koran, not the Bible. EVER.

Your very existence, insults the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Allah and God. Stop it, learn to read, and become productive members of society.