For the next time I see somebody denying Christmas

Why Jesus was born in December

Addams Family Values

No, not the movie. The 1960s TV show:



THIS is marriage. Real marriage. Not that cheap American version, destroyed by divorce, damaged by psychiatrists, ruined by imaginary individualism. No, Gomez and Morticia really have a love that is to be defended, against the world, against all who would attack it. THAT is what we lost due to the sexual revolution. We lost marriage.

Francis wasn't first

But if you find Evangelii Gaudium challenging, perhaps you need to hear from St. John Paul The Great, autotuned:

Gee, this seems familiar

Kevin O'Brien explains the odd choice of emphasizing homosexuality over adultery, theft, and fornication when considering 1 Corinthians 6:9-20. Adultery Pride Day, anybody?

On the Strange Side

Christopher's Doctor Who Lego Fanfic: Not the best photography- nor the best stop gap as the frame rate is one every four seconds- but be kind, he is special needs. At the very least, at over five minutes, it's the longest story line he's come up with yet.

The subversive theology, philosophy, and politics of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

I loved this song growing up- it spoke to my undiagnosed (at the time) Asperger's:



But today, it has inspired a mortal sin in me, that I also see in the neurodiversity and LGBT movements in the United States- Pride.

Readers of this blog are well familiar with my complaints about the LGBT movement. And yes, this post was inspired by yet another Crisis article on the topic. But, I do not believe the sin of the New Homophiles is homosexuality (in fact, by their voluntarily celibacy, it significantly is NOT!). Instead, I'd like to talk to you about a subset of the neurodiversity movement- the evolutionary autistics.

Evolutionary autistics see the gifts of autism- affinity for complex systems, ability to work on a computer without talking to another human being for hours on end, brilliant technical and philosophical insights- as "the next stage in human evolution". A good example is the fictional character of Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory:



I submit that like Sheldon Cooper's inability to drive, and my much-loved-by-leftists inability to recognize a human face (loved by leftists because they imagine my inability to tell a caucasian friend from an asian friend from an african friend is a plus, when in reality, it's a horrid social disability that makes it impossible to ever remember anybody's name) is indeed a disability, not an ability- and the false pride we take in it is just that, false pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

I am not just a nitwit, I am a misfit. I should be more humble about that, and I'm not.

Coming back around, that's what bugs me about the political LGBT movement. Gay Pride parades, the insistence on changing all of marriage law to fit them, even the "New Catholic Homophiles" with their insistence that we need to be "accepting" of a severe disability instead of helping people with that disability see the truth, bothers me because I'm guilty of the exact same sin, the sin of pride. It isn't about homosexuality at all- or even the struggle with same sex attraction. As the Grand Knight back in 2011 said in his speech giving me Knight of the Year, we all have our struggles, our fears to overcome. This is not different for anybody in the world- and we are not special because we have a disability. "Special needs" means we have to deal with the world differently- it does not mean that we are exceptional people.

What Pope Francis was talking about, American style: #Staffergate

I've long said that the only real difference between a libertarian and a crony capitalist is a bank account large enough to buy politicians. With the combination of Staffergate and Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation, I'm beginning to think that we live under rule of corruption, not rule of law. It's hard to tell the difference between the two- since the very people writing the law are the ones taking the bribes.

This is why the magical overflowing glass of Argentinian's version of the trickle down theory never overflowed and kept growing larger. This is why a rising tide floats some boats and sinks others. This is what is wrong with von Mises' theories about government in general- a free market means that government is for sale to the highest bidder.

This is also why Bill Diss' math classroom was invaded by Planned Parenthood, he was harrassed, and finally last night, was fired. Money wins again- how can a public school math teacher compete with the millions of dollars behind Planned Parenthood?

The system is no longer democracy. Democracy is one man, one vote. Welcome to the corruptocracy, where it is one dollar, one vote.

Too much Theory, Not Enough Action

An interesting article at The Catholic Thing on the ordinary charity of those too poor for monetary gifts suggests perhaps that Pope Francis is neither capitalist nor Marxist- as a good Catholic should be neither- but is instead talking about physical on the ground reality of economics, rather than lofty theories (well, aside from the theory of Trickle Down, which as anybody knows who actually works with people who don't own medium to large businesses, doesn't work). Presence, is what the poor require, not presents.

I must admit that I myself have fallen into this trap this Christmas season- but all the presents have been purchased, I'm on a train that can't be stopped. Still, three out of the thirty or so presents I have purchased *are* presence- events that we will get to enjoy with family and friends during the 12 days of Christmas, as opposed to physical items.

However, as I work 50 hour weeks to pay for all of this (well, not just pay for it all, but also because the needs of the current project are such that I need to work 50 hour weeks- I get a shutdown between noon on Christmas Eve and New Year's day, but January 2nd will be back to the grind), I have to wonder, if I am doing too much and not spending enough time with the people who really do need me.

That's an interesting twist on Evangelii Gaudium, and not one I was expecting.

And so it begins

The first court case of February-December Romance results in Italy reducing the age of consent to 11.

An example of unfettered capitalism, New York Style

Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium paragraphs 50-109 has much to say on the dangers of capitalism. Libertarians in the Church have fired back, claiming that there are no markets that are not regulated, at least in the first world. A few admit to the idea that due to corruption, unfettered de facto markets do exist in the third world- especially hell holes like Argentina, where the Pope is from and where the economy collapsed under the weight of predatory capitalism in 2001.

But is corruption limited to the third world? One state in our union has more than 50% of its income derived from predatory capitalism directly- derived from controlling investments in companies that exploit markets all over the world. And so for your consideration, may I present unfettered capitalism, New York Style where the government is most assuredly for sale to the highest bidder. Is it any wonder that this is also a culture of waste, where gay marriage, prostitution, pornography, and abortion are widely practiced (as long, of course, as the true victims and perpetrators of these crimes pay for the priviledge of committing them)?

Morality isn't a cafeteria, all crimes are related.

A very satisfying discussion on Reason vs Religion

Reading Pope Benedict's reply to an atheist, combined with a new theory about the Holographic Universe being misreported in the press caused this comment on slashdot- which turned into a major discussion on the reality of mathematics as applied to science.

A Brother Knight Learns the Art of Compromise

Maybe it was Pope Francis's recent apostolic exhortation. Maybe he's just tired of fighting.

But Paul Ryan's new budget solves the sequester standoff without cutting programs for the poor (except people in jail collecting unemployment checks) and without new taxes.

Perpetual Poverty

It costs a lot of money to be poor in America today. It's incredibly easy for rich east coasters to claim poverty doesn't exist- or worse yet, that the only thing we need to do is tolerate the bad habits of the poor like divorces and homosexuality- without recognizing that the main reason people ARE poor in America is because the free market is full of fraudulent activity designed specifically to take advantage of the poor.

The war on cisgendered people continues

You can bet that if Hunter had been kissing boys that wouldn't be considered sexual harassment- but because he and his girlfriend are six years old and we can't possibly let heterosexuality begin, Hunter is being persecuted for opposite sex attraction.

Pope Benedict XVI to Richard Dawkins

Careful when you poke a sleeping Pope Emeritus- the German university professor will attack. But here's a curious thought embedded halfaway down in this letter- are many of our scientific breakthroughs merely science fiction and not science fact? Richard Dawkins' _The Selfish Gene_ is considered science fiction by the Pope, and certainly the entire field of quantum mechanics is currently more science fiction than science fact, based as it is on only secondary evidence about particles too small to be scanned by any instrument we have. And yet, many of these guesses seem right- until, of course, they are proven wrong, as they often are.

Why Cover Oregon is a failure

And no, it isn't just the latest state scapegoat, Oracle.I don't know about Obamacare in the rest of the nation, but the poor here in Oregon work 50-80 hour workweeks just to keep fed, sheltered, and clothed. They don't have hours and hours to waste online with a half-assed website that in the end, lets you download a 19 page PDF to print out, fill out, send in, get the wrong one back, get their identity stolen by the prison inmate doing data entry, get the right one back, pick a plan, get told it's the wrong plan, get a guess on what my subsidy will be, pay the wrong amount, have to write 6 checks to pay the right amount, only to get fined in the end because they lost the paperwork.

Hint to socialists out there- the way to bring the communist revolution to America is make it convenient. Otherwise, nobody's going to have the time to bother.

Mimicry vs Plaigarization

I used to say that everything worthwhile in the civilization of mankind, came from Catholicism- and I blamed other cultures for plagiarizing good. Until I watched this:

Proving once again that I'm not a capitalist

The lengths some people go to in fear of the living wage

Another great article on the Slippery Slope Phenomenon

or, as this one puts it, going down the ladder of depravity, by which figures of speech are used to destroy sin and call evil good.

A great example is this little rant of depravity which chows the misogyny inherant in the pro-choice movement.

Is Religion the cause of war?

Does religion cause war? We've heard this charge from the atheists so many times, it's become a lie wanting to be true. But a massive study on the art of war from 2004 reveals that out of 1,763 wars, only 123 were caused by religion. Take Islam out of the picture, removing Jihad, and you're down to 57 wars (including the Crusades, the 30 years war, and all the wars of the reformation) caused by non-Islamic religion. In other words, like so much else- Atheism is objectively false.

Some thoughts on Evangelii Gaudium

Evangelii Gaudium has been releasedWell, this should cause all who put money and material wealth ahead of people to explode regardless of the side of the political spectrum they are on.

But those aren't the only people who are attacked by this, the first publication of Pope Francis.  Equally attacked are moral relativists, who take advantage of the specific problems of poverty to lead people away from the truth, while reducing the faith to the private and personal.

The United States isn't even mentioned in the first 63 sections, a real blow to those who seem to thing the United States is the center of the universe.

The unborn aren't mentioned until section 213!

And that's just my first read through.  I'm going to download this PDF to my phone.

Do You want to know the mind of Pope Francis the I?

Pope Francis has been a hard man to pin down theologically; his tendency to speak in less-than-concrete pastoral terms, combined with a willingness to admit to his own mistakes and sins make it extremely hard to get a reading of this man. But one English Novel linked to the new Pope stands out. Before he was pope, before he was Archbishop, he once taught literature in secondary school, and one English science fiction novel was on his list even back then: The Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson. He's quoted from it recently, as of course had the two Popes before him. I guarantee it is worth a read, once you get past the idea of lighter-than-air jet aircraft (called volors in the language of the novel) and the fact that like George Orwell's 1984, Benson's dystopia took place in our past (supposedly back in 2000), yet the rest is remarkably prescient on where the trends of materialism and psychology were headed. I don't see an actual Lord of the World international celebrity emerging- yet- but what is happening to the Church in Europe and the Americas is very close indeed to what happened in the novel, even if the timeline is off (perhaps the gentle motion of the volors gave traveling men more opportunity for reflection?).

Still, a very interesting read- and since it is on Gutenberg, free for download to the e-book reader of your choice.

What happens when forgiveness for sin, is interpreted as judgement for sin?

An interesting post today asking a generic question, led me to another question.

And the sad thing is, in today's America, far too often forgiveness and inclusion is interpreted as judgement an exclusion. When the concept of sin is removed from the world, even forgiveness becomes offensive.

Dead isn't dead

In the so-crazy-this-can't-be-made-up file, 10 people who came back from the dead, people are resurrecting all over the world. If I was a fundamentalist, I'd call it a sign of the end times. As it is though, I think I'd rather call it insufficiently advanced medical science and bigotry against the unwanted.

Archbishop Chaput reveals the web of lies of modern America

It's all related. Greed, especially impersonal greed, the type we normally associate with conservative businesspeople, creates material poverty. Material poverty, creates moral poverty, especially of the sexual variety that is so embedded in the New Left. Moral poverty creates drug use. And drug use, destroys the world.

If we want to change that, a new evangelization is necessary. And homosexuality is not the biggest threat to the family- the lack of decent work is.

The biggest obstacle to a new evangelization, to a new world, is our own willingness to cling to partisan politics at the expense of the Faith.

If I ever hear a bigot call a baby "a blob of cells" again

I'll be posting this link which explains why the Pain-Capable Act proposals aren't set early enough.

And now we begin to see the Latin American Heart

Pope Francis is beginning to use the Council of Eight- and he starts by sending Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa to lecture the United States on "The State of the Church". Where I don't find his speech as disheartening as some conservatives do (and they should, as the focus shifts away from sexual sin to economic sin, something that conservatives and East Coast elite Liberals are even worse at than the sad state of marriage in the United States) I do see in it a note of exactly what I don't like about Latin American culture- specifically, the attitude that sin and the work of the devil aren't important, that material poverty is the overriding mission of the Church. It should be the other way around; if we win more hearts to Christ, and fewer to mammon, generosity and charity will win out over material poverty. The problem is we're not doing that, if anything, the economic man has been beaten, robbed, and left for dead- and the Catholic Church is very, very late to that party, the best we poor Samaritans can do is bind his wounds the best we can and get him to the inn for healing. We can't do that if the focus remains on the war of the free market- the continual harm done to human relationships in the name of business.

People are more important than money

Human progress is people. Everything that makes life better, from democracy to the economy to the internet to penicillin was either discovered and built by people. More people means more progress. The inventor of the cure for cancer might be someone's fourth child that they decided not to have.

That is the truth being denied by the so-called "progressive left" in this country. But also by the generic Christian Libertarian Right who puts debt reduction ahead of the right to life. Both are making the primary error in making money and short term pleasure (homosexuals and contracepting heterosexuals, that's aimed at you) ahead of people. And the result is a President who ends up having to apologize for putting a scheme to force new customers to crony capitalists into place that actually forced people to sign up with his crony capitalists.

It is all connected- the culture of waste.

The 11 nations of North America

The best article I've read yet on the complexity of the urban/rural divide and how three century removed from the old country settlers affect attitudes about violence and force in the United States today. The subject is gun control, but you can pick just about any hot button issue and break it down among the 11 North American (Canadian, American, Mexican, the political lines don't follow the cultural lines anymore) cultural nations in this article.

New Study in Canada- gay parenting affects high school graduation rates

The Canadian 2006 census asked the question whether one's parents were heterosexual or homosexual, married or single. And education attained.

The results of the 20% of respondents who answered that question, millions of people, were astounding: high school dropout rates were linked to homosexual parents.

Mad about how the White House handled the Government Shutdown?

Meet Valerie Jarrett, architect of the shutdown who made sure the barricades and cones were distributed to federal properties around the country months before the shutdown occurred.

After seeing this

The words Liturgical Abuse have a whole new meaning, and I will NEVER complain about anything that goes on in the United States in Mass ever again.





Do the words "Novena Solene" translate to something other than the English "Solemn Novena" when interpreted in Brazilian Portuguese?

The wrong question

A simple proposal to reduce abortion from a eugenicist made me realize that the real problem with abortion and contraception in the United States isn't as much the answer as the Question.

The question should NOT be "How do we reduce the surplus population?". It should be "What has gone wrong with our economy that human beings are no longer valuable?" The first has a medical solution, if a horrific one. The second, requires an economic solution, which is harder. As a country, we'd rather kill the poor than help them, because it is easier to kill a man today than feed him tomorrow.

Traffic Cop

A 20 year traffic cop with a Record like this? Promote him to trainer and have him make videos to sell to other Law Enforcement Organizations!

What is really going on economically

This brilliant post is a bit libertarian- their entire solution is always "end the fed" but leave centralization of business in charge of the economy. Still, it shows the bigger scam of crony capitalism that is going on, why the government shutdown happened, and one way we could fix it before it all shuts down again in January.

The Economics of Humanae Vitae

From two rather well respected liberal business magazines, 14 years apart.

Reinventing history

Kevin O'Brien gets himself into trouble with a young lesbian who had no sense of history.

Post Shutdown Voting Rules

Post shutdown voting rules:
1. Priority voting to independents who have no party affiliation
2. Secondary voting to "third parties" that are not D or R
3. Never, ever, under any circumstances or for any reason, vote for an incumbent.

The ends do not justify the means

Isn't strong enough. The means corrupt the ends. Do it wrong and it will become wrong.

The theology of the Simpsons

Horribly anti-Catholic, but this old episode of the Simpsons just eplained Pope Francisco Catholicism to me: It begins with looking inside yourself, contains forgiveness, and ends with bread and wine.

And that is enough.

My main theological complaint with the US Constitution

Is that it is based on "We the People" instead of "God the Father", and then immediately gives that power away to the federal government that is free to force any immorality it wants to upon the people.

The sad fact I keep losing

Just saw this on facebook again and I need to save the link. Nobody seems to know this.

The danger of feminism to humanity

The danger of feminism to human dignity of women has become painfully obvious with the recent Miley Cyrus Twerking Incident.

Matthew Shepherd, Gay Icon and- Drug dealer?

Was Matthew Shephered killed by other homosexuals, albeit fellow drug dealers whose "homosexuality" was more a product of cocaine use than nature?

Trucks hitting bridges and it is the fault of GPS?

I know this is an advertisment but apparently trucks have been hitting bridges in New York because they actually were stupid enough to design roads to only be for cars. And this is the fault of GPS?

Why we need the value of myth- and why one size doesn't fit all

The Greeks had the myth of the demon-man Procrustes, who our children don't learn about any more. On the road between Athens and Eleusis, he had an inn. When travelers would stop in, he claimed to have a magic bed that was a perfect fit for everybody- one size fits all. But in reality, the bed was really a rack- and if the traveler was too short, he was stretched to fit; and if the traveler was too tall, either head or feet or both would be cut off.

Perhaps the reason this myth is no longer taught, is because it is a bit too close to reality for the modern liberal education. If your faith is too short- unable to handle the great worship of one-size-fits-none liberty- it is stretched to the breaking point. If your faith is too certain- belief in actual good and evil, right and wrong- pieces are cut off until your right and wrong match that of the liberal dictators.

Sometimes, myths are not lies. Sometimes they are truths too uncomfortable to teach in any other way. But in this day and age- they need to be called not truth.

And now I understand why we need two Popes

Emeritus Papa Benidictus XVI has broken his silence in a big way. Mimicing Pope Francis' engagement with Eugenio Scalfari, publisher of La Repubblica, on Tuesday another letter to a famous Italian athiest appeared in La Repubblica, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI directly answers the charge that he covered up sex abuse, and continues a several year old dialogue with the mathematician Piergiorgio Odifreddi.

It is nice to see the Popes taking on New Atheism in Italy head on- may our Bishops have the courage to do similar elsewhere in the world.

Argentine Jesuit + American Bloggers = Total Confusion

Crisis Magazine today has this wonderful roundup of links from conservatives, liberals, Jesuits, Traditionalists, and Spirit of Vatican II types about the interview with the Pope in America. About the only thing I can say about it, is apparently everybody gets to read their own biases into Pope Francis's words.

Mixed Messages?

I still say Pope Francis needs to hire a team of translators. Seems that if he leaves that job to the press Reporter Bias is invincible. But if I read a translator that I actually trust to be impartial I quickly find the Pope himself contradicting the interview that the Jesuits just released.

Or is it truly a contradiction? In the interview, he asked the Bishops to be more pastoral with gay people and less concerned with the subject of abortion. In the second article I linked to, he's talking to a different audience- to medical professionals whose very vocation is rightly the Gospel of Life.

Maybe the contradiction doesn't exist in Italian or Spanish. Perhaps it only exists in American English- tainted by the divisiveness of the culture war.
-----
Update:
They changed the name of the 2nd article on me.

Imagine a world- without John Lennon

He's a secular saint, that other people claim to want to emulate. But in reality, he was a deeply disturbed individual whose drug-induced psychodelic haze destroyed the morality of an entire generation in an attempt to cover up his own failings.

Mere Christianity works

Mere Spirituality, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired.

Secularism teaches evil- because the philosophy can't conceive of being wrong

The slippery slope really does exist but it isn't what people think it is. What if we judged people not on how rich or poor they were, but rather on the philosophy they keep? What if we were able to choose teachers for our children, our co-workers, or who we count as friends, based on the soundness of their philosophy? Better yet, what if we chose our politicians based on the soundness of their philosophy?

Not Adolf Hitler.

More like a cross between Joe McCarthy and James Dean- Orthodox without a cause.

More evidence of Directed Evolution

Gears and levers in insects

Secularism in general bothers me

Because it is first and foremost a lie

Sex abuse causes atheism, atheism causes bad science

The revelation that Richard Dawkins was sexually abused as a child suddenly brings his entire philosophy into sharp focus. Harmed by authority, he's out to destroy the concept of authority, starting with that biggest authority of all, God.

But the problem is, authority is a necessary part of the scientific method. Without a trust in authority, certain forms of evidence can't exist. This damages the ability to look at any topic objectively- it creates an invincible bias that destroys truth.

The crazy stuff I couldn't even begin to make up

The psychology of Richard Dawkins explained in its entirety: He's suffering from post abuse stress and is trying to deny it.

Somehow, that explains his entire philosophy of life to me.

If you are attempting fidelity, that's enough on your plate

Mark Shea uses the topic of gay Catholics to teach something every Catholic needs to learn, most of all myself: The difference between Teaching the Ideal, and Living Human.

The Propaganda of Defeat

How the roaring mouse gets noticed.

And more defiance of nature

Sign the cause today- tell Home Depot and Lowe's to stop selling plants treated with bee-toxic pesticides.

Colony Collapse Disorder has been linked to these pesticides, and we've seen recent mass dieoffs in parking lots in Oregon. Bill S. recently reminded us

You know that the human race has the ability to counteract and manipulate nature for our own purposes and that there is nothing wrong with that, right?

This proves that there is indeed quite a bit wrong with that concept, and has been for a very long time now. If we don't start living WITH nature instead of AGAINST nature, soon we won't be living at all. Bee pollination is at the root of our agricultural system. There WILL be a massive famine if the bees go extinct.

ALL attempts to go against nature always have unintended consequences. Some are easier to see than others. But all are bad.

non-procreative sex is always selfish

There is a purpose to procreative sex- and done right, it can take up to 35 years.

There is NO purpose to recreational sex.

Despite the similarities, the reward outweighs the risk with the first. And is nothing other than mutual prostitution with the second.

Considering that same sex attraction alone

Can lead to “depression, substance abuse, social withdrawal, decreased self-esteem and suicidal thoughts.” I believe that This is merely closing the barn door after the horse got out .

It came to me in a dream

A way back to where I was 10 years ago.

The problem with gay marriage is not the gay, it is the marriage.

Marriage, as concieved by every civilization so far, is inherrantly discriminatory.  Even in the most simple, polyamourous form, it says "I will restrict my sexuality to this one group of people and no other".  Human beings seem to need this level of security.

But it is awfully bigotted of government to enforce that discrimination.

Therefore civil marriage is incompatible with the Constitution, at least as currently envisioned.  CIVIL MARRIAGE DISCRIMINATES.  There is no way to write a marriage law that does not discriminate, because the whole intent of marriage is to discriminate.

Just think of the money we could save on divorce courts, if there was no government recognized marriage!

Feminists have become suckers

The only reason any man embraces abortion, is to control women politically.

Could weight gain be more than just the sin of gluttony?

David Berreby – The obesity era:


Diet and exercise is the problem, says the American mantra of why obesity is epidemic, but then how do you explain an obesity epidemic in lab rats, whose diet and exercise is strictly controlled?

And the Rehabilitation begins

And yes, it starts in Oregon with "rehabilitation" of businesses that are not politically correct.

Sounds like addiction to me

When a person is told to stop a behavior and fails this spectaularily, it's addiction. Predatory sexual behavior of this type is an addiction, I know that from experience. Most of us grow out of this addiction by age 21....

The Exclusion Proves the Rule

To go to a Doctor when you are ill, proves that you need no doctor when you are well. The News is nothing but exceptions.

How to make abortion "safe"

USAID Rep Shuts Down Workshop on Abortion Complications:

Just refuse to track the deaths and censor anybody who talks about it.

Software Development must be heating up

Within 5 hours of finding out current contract is ending, I've been submitted for 4 positions and had a 20 minute interview with a recruiter.

Sluts Untie- er- Unite!

The American Spectator : SlutWalk Insanity:


My problem isn't so much with consensual sex, as with undocumented consent.

Suicide’s Tormented Souls | Crisis Magazine

Suicide’s Tormented Souls | Crisis Magazine:

In Belgium, euthanasia is voluntary and can be practiced even on the non-terminally ill. It begs the question- when is temporary unhappiness worth a final solution?

Free Bumper Sticker

If more Catholics were less hypocritical and spoke up for this truth, there's be far less violence in the world.

I need a reset button after sex

Heard at work today: horniness is so overpowering for normal people that they need a reset button after sex, and birth control/plan B provides that reset button.

I had never thought of it in those terms before, but that's likely because even when I was a good deal less moral about my sexuality, I was trying to trap women into a relationship by having a child with them. Not the best behavior, but behavior none the less. Once I discovered the Church was more right than wrong about this, I went about it the old fashioned way and got married first and then seriously went to work on having children. Failed at it, but I've always been serious about it.

In other words, horniness for me, has always been about procreation, even as a teenager.

I think it would be much better to teach pre-teens that these feelings are *specifically* about wanting not just another person that you are attracted to, but a child. There'd be a lot fewer mistakes if that was common knowledge instead of hidden away behind some secret religious tome someplace.

I am less bothered by individual sin

Than by the collective demand that we need to eliminate the concept of sin.

Progressive Medical Ethics, explained

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? -- Giubilini and Minerva -- Journal of Medical Ethics:

Euthanasia, it's not just for old people anymore.

Homosexuality is neither innate nor inborn

No genetic origin for homosexuality, and no stability either. Gay is not a death sentence.

The long history of Catholicism in Massachusettes

Is full of violence and destruction

I don't often agree with libertarians

but hasn't facebook already prooved the business model of building public infrastructure with advertising?

The High Pope of Secularism

Fr. Hesburgh would probably disagree with this title, but it fits his legacy and theology of heterodoxy and inclusion in sin.

I don't agree with Michael Voris Very Often

But Pat Robertson's pro-birth, ragamuffin mentality is the real problem hidden below abortion. And yes, a 10th/11 children child responded, with real economics. A massive insult to poor parents and their children.

The special thing about Catholicism for me

I've written this before, but never quite so well. So I'm reposting this from a comment I made on Public Catholic. The comment is so general, the topic so important, it deserves a posting of its own.
The special thing about Catholic morality for me, the one sentence that brought me back out of atheism and Buddhism, the one thing that makes Catholicism absolutely unique among all the world's religions, can be found explicitly in the first two sections of the English translation of the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate.

Hints of it can be found before, it's the reason St Irenaeus used the greek word Katholikos to describe his flock ~1900 years ago, it may even be explicitly written out elsewhere in more ancient languages, but the whole idea of following Truth even when it leads us to paradoxes, even when it leads us to messy solutions, is *extremely* important, and exists in no other system of thought that human beings have come up with. Even science excludes some forms of empirical data, but Catholicism does not.

This is so important that I will now quote the first two sections of Nostra Aetate, written by a committee in Vatican II,
PROCLAIMED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON OCTOBER 28, 1965, and I assume, copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1965 (since they've become rather insistent upon that point as of late) (emphasis added, line breaks added).

DECLARATION ON THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS
NOSTRA AETATE
PROCLAIMED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON OCTOBER 28, 1965

1. In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.

One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth.(1) One also is their final goal, God. His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men,(2) until that time when the elect will be united in the Holy City, the city ablaze with the glory of God, where the nations will walk in His light.(3)

Men expect from the various religions answers to the unsolved riddles of the human condition, which today, even as in former times, deeply stir the hearts of men: What is man? What is the meaning, the aim of our life? What is moral good, what is sin? Whence suffering and what purpose does it serve? Which is the road to true happiness? What are death, judgment and retribution after death? What, finally, is that ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our existence: whence do we come, and where are we going?

2. From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

Nother crazy theory

Homosexuality is real, but is not based in "innate nature" but rather in a lack of suitable sexual partners created by a lack of fertile females.

My real view on marriage, as shaped by the Gay Marriage Debate

Marriage over the past 40 years in the secular state has become a shadow of what Sacramental Marriage is. I now advocate for the destruction of civil marriage entirely. The state has NO compellable interest in telling us who can marry whom, who can get divorced, what terms are in a household agreement contract, what employers do with benefits, or who is living in a house I own.

Likewise, custody and dependency for children needs to be done away with, it's far to much of a hassle, and parents who think they need the law to keep track of their kids are bad parents.

Likewise, since women do not want men in their children's lives anyway, father's rights should be abolished.

Then and only then will we have a society that is truly equal under the law.

The real intolerance of modern liberalism

Those who disagree are not human claims Justice Kennedy.

Leah Libresco is not alone

This former lesbian is 20 years older. I have to wonder if this is where Leah is headed.

The Church and Copyright Law

I sure hope the Vatican isn't trying to capitalize on the writings of the last three Popes. But within a year of the election of each, Libreria Editrice Vaticana puts out a strongly worded "Decree" claiming copyright on all the writings of the man elected Pope. And it has been strong in enforcing online copyright thereof.

This strikes me as being directly against the value of evangelization. The Church exists as the protector of truth. The Church has a right to make sure use of her teachings is in conformity with those teachings to be sure. But to charge for the printing of the Pope's words? That seems to me to be a potential case of simony. And in this day and age where copyright is becoming more of a hinderance than a help in getting ideas out, I think we need a new tool.

That's why I've added a Creative Commons license to this blog.

You are not your sexuality

I think I've fallen into a trap. This post is an attempt to get out of the trap.

I've given away too much thought share. Only physical gender is provable, because only physical gender exists. This heterosexual/homosexual stuff is just fantasy, from a culture that long ago divorced marriage from procreation and instead, at the insistence of the greeting card companies who made lots of money off of it, made it about romantic eros.

Romance is fine when kept in its place. It's a great way to bind parents together for life. Women seem to crave it. But it is not the end-all-be-all of love, let alone human existence. It is possible to survive with no romance at all. It's possible to live without any physical human contact at all.

Physical gender is required for pro-creation. But this romance stuff? All hooey.

First Canada, now England

And you wonder why I say gay marriage is more about the Church than it is about homosexuals.

There ain't no such thing as a happy divorce

The True Face of “Happy Divorce” is Quite Ugly | Crisis Magazine:


Yep, we've got several single parent families in my wife's daycare- I can guarantee you that the only people who *might* be happy with a divorce are the parents.  The kids never are.

Can the Catechism be *right* about homosexuality?

I find it interesting to compare Today's reading from the Catechism with this piece by a homosexual author.

Sometimes compassion and empathy are at odds. Irrational empathy MUST yield to rational compassion in those instances. And this is one of them. Having same sex attraction is not wrong. Those who have same sex attraction should be included in every stage in society.

But those of us who *actually* have compassion for the homosexual, know that the person perversion hurts the most- is the perverted person who will never know the joy of sex done right, never know the 9 months of worry over a spouse and the future, never know what it is like to hold and care for an infant with the same genetic structure and "new baby smell" that you once had as an infant.

And that goes for women who take poison to be artificially sterile as well as homosexuals as well as men who want sex without fatherhood. It's all harmful, not just to greater society- but to the people who engage in these behaviors themselves. And that is why, a deeper understanding of human sexuality is necessary for true compassion. One that is in keeping with the biological reality of gender, instead of trying to ignore it.

You are going to Hell

For those who think I'm a conservative, check this guy out.

1190: Time | xkcd

1190: Time | xkcd:

Time has come to an end.  Was a heck of a story line,  No spoilers here, though spoilers at the link above.  If you have not yet seen this massive, 3999 frame slow motion silent movie, you owe it to yourself to http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/">watch the rerun at your own pace.
 I must admit the real explaination- and what genre the story line is- fooled even me.

8 arguments I really never want to hear again

40 YEARS AFTER ROE V. WADE, PRO-ABORTION ARGUMENTS ARE STILL ILLOGICAL | The Bob Dutko Blog:
These 8 arguments have been debunked so many times, in so many different forums, over the last 40 years that I don't really understand why *anybody* bothers to bring them up anymore.

Sometimes when you are too extreme

The middle looks to be Your enemy instead of your friend.

I knew I couldn't be the only one

Who doubts the theological reality of consent. That's what this massive (it will take you hours to read it) article boils down to. Those who claim that the only sexual ethic is "consenting adults" are really lying to us- they don't believe in sexual ethics at all.

My new favorite diet drink

Don't know if this product is available elsewhere or not.

Simply Organic Peppermint Flavored Oil is available at Freddy's and at Kroger. It's really a mix of Peppermint Oil and Sunflower Oil, so it's pretty high calorie, but for flavoring, it doesn't take much at all. Two drops to 24 oz of water and ice, makes for a great drink that you'll spend more calories drinking than get from the drink.

In addition to that, it's great for helping with asthma.

Just Discrimination vs Unjust Discrimination

The older I get, the more I realize how even when I was a college kid, adults were trying to hide Church Teaching from me. I was very young when Humanae Vitae came out and was practically censored by the Baby Boomers, but I was 22 my chapter of the Newman Center was downright pushing homosexuality- we were participating in vigils for _The Body of Christ has AIDS_ and we were inviting prominent gays to talk, even as a strong group of fundamentalists was taking control of the city government and doing such odious things as banning public school teachers from talking about homosexuality at all, encouraging the DA not to prosecute assault and battery cases related to homosexuality, and of course busing all the homeless people to Medford before winter set in and we had to witness people camping in the snow (Winter in Klamath Falls lasts pretty much from November to June, there ain't no such thing as spring there).

What a blessing this letter would have been back then, and how much happier I would have been in 2004 knowing that my Church predicted, quite accurately, that the homosexuals would turn our charity into homophobia.

Heck, if I had read this document, it might have kept me Catholic at a time in my life I was struggling. But I didn't, because of course, the worship of the Holy Orgasm meant that according to those who had lived through the sexual revolution, the Church was always wrong on sex.

Sophism- it's not just for teenagers anymore

Because I know the conversation at Public Catholic is drifting outside of Rebecca Hamilton's comfort zone, and because Bill S. does comment here from time to time, I'm going to pick up our conversation where we left off with a couple of comments from Bill that I expect to disappear soon:

I disagree. Any or all of Catholicism can be false. Yet, people will benefit from following its rules, regardless of whether its teachings are true or not. Otherwise, Catholicism would not be where it is today.

Like with science, the test of the rules are IF THEY WORK. Do they provide an accurate picture of human behavior that can be used for prediction? At one point in my journey, when I was drifting away from the Church, I would have said no, they don't provide an accurate enough picture, even merely for allowing people to benefit from those teachings.

Several experiences, particularly with the virtue of Chastity and violations thereof, have convinced me otherwise, so completely that I'm willing to say that no, Catholicism can't be false. The final clue though, for me, was in Nostra Aetate, at the end of the fifth paragraph in section 2, when it is giving a discussion on how the Church views morality, and I suddenly realized that this is where science started, and that theology really is the King of all Science.

There are myths that have no historical truth to them but work nonetheless because people believe them and/or learn from them.

Truth is bigger than history. In more high theology terms- dogma is truth, doctrine is what we can discover about dogma through the light of human reason and the historical perspective, and MYTH IS DISCIPLINE.

A long time ago I read a novel written by an anti-Catholic, a story about an archeologist who claimed to disprove the Resurrection because he had found the body of Jesus. The hoax was exquisite- it even included using ashes found in a campfire in a different dig on the same era to create an ink that would carbon date correctly.

That novel forced me to ask myself the question- does the Resurrection really matter to my Catholicism? Like my earlier tussle with the concept of Hell, in which I came up with the confounding phrase I've often used since then on fundamentalists and atheists alike "If my Lord Jesus Christ decides that I should go to Hell for His Glory, then I shall gladly go", I decided no, the historical event of the Resurrection, while I'm pretty sure it did happen due to eyewitness evidence maintained even under torture and certain death, really doesn't mean that much to my faith. It could be a myth created by the Essenes to promote their version of Jewish Gnosticism, and it would still contain all of the lessons that I need to learn from it about self-sacrifice and perseverance. As a Knight of Columbus, I took an oath to carry the cross- but if that cross is just a metaphor, does it really change what I need to do in charity? No, it doesn't.

Katholikos means universal. If there is any hope for a universal morality at all, it must be rational as well as believeable. NONE of the competitors that I've studied so far, and there have been many, hold a candle to Catholicism as far as rationality is concerned, as far as universality is concerned. Atheism comes close, but as we're learning in the third world, isn't universal enough. Other forms of Christianity are equally faith based, but aren't rational enough, and with 32,000 competing theologies, aren't universal enough. Buddhism is the next closest- but just like Christ summed up the ten commandments into two, I can sum up the eightfold path into "expect bad things to happen, and you'll always be right".

Only Catholicism embraces the radical theology that eventually became the scientific method, to become truly universal, and so with Pope Paul VI I must proclaim

Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

Why no self-respecting liberal should ever by an iOS device

BBC News - Apple faces new China worker abuse claims:

'via Blog this'

Introducing the McBudget

What white East Coast Liberals who think they deserve massive multi-million dollar salaries to be CEOs of major corporations, think about everybody else:

The problem with teaching children secularism

We've got myth and morality mixed up. Myth is a method to teach morality; morality itself is rooted in concrete human experience. But for some reason, the myth of secularism is that the myth is the cause of the morality, and thus, to eliminate the myth and force the child to grow up, you must force him to invent his own morality.

This, predictably, ends with disaster in the majority of cases.

Three Observations About the Left and Civility

Three Observations About the Left and Civility:

This guy is so far right, he can't see the middle for the left.  But he most certainly does have a point about the anti-tolerance of the left's version of tolerance.

Pre-natal euthanasia

An interesting concept just came up, one I disagree with, but interesting none the less.

Late term abortions, are usually really euthanasia.

That is, the majority of time they're on non-viable fetuses, or at least, fetuses that are seen to have a less than ideal life. They are done, primarily, on the physically unfit.

Now of course, that line gets somewhat blury, for none of us can accurately see the future. Euthanasia should always be opposed for precisely that reason- because even a diagnosis can be wrong. And that's why late term abortions for something "medically wrong" with the fetus should also be opposed- because it's a final solution for a not very finite problem.

Still, it never occurred to me to look at these types of abortions-because-of-prenatal-diagnosis as Euthanasia before- and it does make for an interesting side discussion. Can even Kermit Gosnell's and Douglas Karpan's infanticide be considered a form of Euthanasia? I think so. Certainly in their minds it was- they were killing those infants accidentally born alive, they even treated lower class women badly, because they didn't see such people as having a viable future.

What is Truth?

I find it really interesting when people put down Catholicism as mere opinion, then put forth some suspect science as "reality" with the only proof being that it is "new". Reminds me of Stanford Nutting:

If a religion fits your lifestyle

Then you need to run away. There is no point in worshiping a God that demands nothing of you and does not challenge you to change. Heck, there's no point in denying God exists if that life demands nothing of you and does not challenge you to change.

The entire point of belief is to change.

The deadly illness of homophobia

I've poked fun at the concept of homophobia before. I'm pretty sure it is a made up illness for the most part.

Except for one extremely deadly variety: Homophobic Panic. That's when due to obsessing over homosexuals, a young man, already full of testosterone and as another blogger recently put it, that devil on the shoulder whispering that violence is the solution to what to have for lunch, gets paranoid about somebody who isn't even likely gay, being a gay rapist.

This of course leads to a gay bashing incident- and if the "gay" being bashed is armed like George Zimmerman was, it can be a deadly, deadly error.

Since the world is going to Disqus

And in hopes of better maintaining comments and responding to them on this site, sometime in the next 24 hours all comments will be imported to Disqus and Disqus will become the main commenting engine for this page.

Sharing with Stanford: My Dinner with Stanford - YouTube

Sharing with Stanford: My Dinner with Stanford - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Grunky.com gets extremely GRUNKY, in another sense of the term.  I think Theology of MY Body will be a series I'll skip, as well as Grandma's Atheist Cooking.

The real truth behind the death of Trayvon Martin

WYD and the Trayvon Tragedy | Daily News | NCRegister.com: "But this has little to do with race — and everything to do with the breakdown of the family."

Violent behavior and paranoia reigned high in what we know ofthe decision making process of both Trayon Martin and George Zimmerman.

Is it possible that the destruction of the family- big in the mind of both, as Trayon's parents were divorced and Zimmerman had recently dealt with a breakin at the home of a single mother- is the cause of this?

And another lesson I need to learn

@CatechismAPI - 2302-2305:


One of the odder curses of Asperger's is irrational, uncontrollable anger.  Wrath in a very real sense of the word.  Mortally sinful wrath.

ONLY the peace of an ordered world can save us from wrath.  I can supress it, but in the end, it will overcome me.

I think that is why injustices such as female-only contraception and abortion are so bothersome to me- they are signs of a disordered world.


There was once research into a male version of the birth control pill.  All research was stopped when one test subject experienced shrinkage of the testicles.

The female version of the pill went on though and made it into the marketplace despite the side effects of high blood pressure, low pheromone output, heart disease, liver dysfunction, and death.

There is some reason behind my wrath, but that doesn't make my wrath rational.

Something I need to learn

Jesus said "I am the Truth.", and it is your duty and mine to speak the truth. Then it is up to the person who hears it whether to accept it or reject it.--Mother Theresa of Calcutta

Many people didn't accept her truth- that helping somebody die well doesn't mean euthanasia and it doesn't mean big expensive heroic measures keeping the body alive like a robot either.

This atheist gives us a hint of how horrific dying in the hospital has really become, and this article shows us how doctors die. And it isn't by highly expensive drugs, and it is rarely by suicide. It is with the help of massive doses of morphine, however.

The one good thing about the Euthanasia law in Oregon is that the Catholics, Lutherans, and Seventh Day Adventists have stepped up with excellent levels of hospice care. I once read an article on nutrition for geriatric patients- there comes a time in life where all of our common wisdom about nutrition is entirely reversed- where "what is nutritious and low calorie for volume" is replaced with "what tastes good and is high calorie for volume". Sometimes, comfort is more important than health.

But that isn't what this article was supposed to be about. What this article was really supposed to be about was that I need to learn to let go of other people- it is NOT my fault if they reject the truth.

An idea for a side project

Unix and Android systems (iOS and Android smart phones and tablets) use UTF-8 unicode encoding.

Microsoft products, such as SQL Server, use UTF-16.

This can cause a bug where the wrong characters are entered into the database. But they can be taken care of with the Replace function:

Set @AppVersion=REPLACE(@AppVersion,'®','®')

Next time I have some down time, I should write a program that creates a table and function, for alternate character sets, to replace properly.

And I thought murders in Church were modern

Lives of the Saints: January: 19. St. Canutus, King, Martyr:

Died while praying- struck by a javelin thrown through a window during a rebellion.

What Liberals really want from their government

A U.S. Constitution for Our Dystopian Present | Crisis Magazine:

This rewrite reminds me of The Conservative Bible

How to raise happy and sane children

The Hookup Culture and Searching for Love in all the Wrong Places:

Spend some time with them!

Why I insist contraception is hatred of the poor

‘Psychopathic’ global corporatism pushing the Culture of Death: interview with Christopher Ferrara | LifeSiteNews.com: "And so, effectively contraception has become a civic virtue. People are frowned upon if they do not limit family size because this would limit the freedom of the family to go out in the marketplace and participate in economic transactions, especially the freedom of the woman, who has to liberate herself from the shackles of childbirth."

Is Child abuse wrong?

"If you think child abuse is wrong, then say so."

A frank discussion on how in broken families, insulting the opposite sex parent is child abuse.

Lessons From The Zimmerman Case | Catholic Journal

Lessons From The Zimmerman Case | Catholic Journal:

Easily the most balanced analysis yet.

Men are always wrong

I'm teaching my son- he'll always be affected by the double standards of liberals.

Pope's Personal theologian

I'm always looking for ways to combine social justice and pro-life.

This piece makes the point in a way I haven't seen before- linking abortion and usury, especially borrowing against the next generation's future, as a failure of generosity.

I've often been criticized for my critique of the baby boomer generation, which brought us both the sexual revolution and the trade of debt instruments, but this is the first thing I've seen from the Church that would agree with that assessment.

Rape victim claims she wants to bring child to term

Amnesty International vs 11 year old Rape Victim-  AI wants Chile to overturn their very restrictive no-abortion-in-any-circumstances law.   But the victim herself doesn't want an abortion!  So much for pro-choice.

BBC News - Amnesty urges Chile rape victim abortion rethink:

The beginning of the American Secular Pro-Life Movement

Started with the same doctor who created NARAL

The Year after Roe Vs Wade, Dr. Nathanson, before he converted, as an atheist, on a level of science, wrote this paper. This was the beginning of his conversion. He would not film this for another 10 years:

He would not convert to Catholicism for 20 more years, though he did before his death. It would be two years before he wrote his book _Aborting America_ which was the end of his conversion to pro-life.

His work was utterly attacked of course, especially his ultrasound and eye scope films of abortions, both _The Silent Scream_ and _Eclipse of Reason_:


Dr. Nathanson's work has been censored often. Pro-choicers can't be bothered to look at it, calling it absolute emotional drivel.

Which is why, by the scientific method, it is all the more important to look at it from a scientific perspective.

Why Doesn’t the Catholic Church Just Get with the Times?

Why Doesn’t the Catholic Church Just Get with the Times?:

'via Blog this'

On Euthanasia, the Catechism

What the church really teaches about Euthanasia. I will edit this post later.

Kevin O'Brien takes on Walmart (again)

This time from Mayberry:



This goes right along with his previous offering, The Grapes of Wrath:



I'm not sure about the connection to Obamacare, unless that's an offhand reference to the way WalMart depends on socialized medicine and food instead of actually, gasp, providing their employees with a large enough wage to live on.

Hatred of nature- hatred of gender

This is why I say that gender confusion is born out of hatred rather than love. Hatred of one's own body. I can't call that healthy, not by any stretch of the imagination.

And now a message for heterosexuals

Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society points out the main reason the sexual revolution failed- because it got rid of the tyranny of parents only to replace the function with the tyranny of bureaucrats.

CDC to male homosexuals- your lifestyle is unhealthy

Notice the web address in this link is not a Catholic organization. It's the Center For Disease Control. I'm sure to some, this conclusion is homopobia- but to those who know that data is not the plural of anecdote, the evidence is overwhelming.

Males having sex with males is more dangerous than smoking.

I am not my own- a replacement myth for rape culture.

Sarah over the Moon is writing a very interesting series on rape myths in Evangelical Christianity from the point of view of a feminist that mirrors my own work slowly redefining rape in light of Theology of the Body and a radical theory of individual responsibility.

Thanks to Sarah's theories, I have better language for my redefinition- really a replacement Rape Myth.

So here goes. Under the idea that beneficial sexism can go both ways, rape is the use of another person for sexual lust divorced from procreation or commitment to the other individual.

In fact, merely feeling lust for another human being that you do not or cannot procreate with, is a sign that you might become a rapist if you are not careful.

In addition to this, procreation in this case means not just having the baby- but in fact staying together to raise that child to full adulthood.

This means that up to 35 years after the incident- a divorce (legal or common separation) can turn all the sex you've had with that person into rape.

It means contracepting couples are practicing a form of mutual rape.

It means that the victim can never be directly blamed for the rape- it is YOUR job to control YOUR lust.

And yes, it means I have no room in this for non-romantic, non-procreative sex.

And Sarah's response to this was to call me a troll- so therefore clearly she isn't as into diversity as she claims.

-----

Edit: After many months of arguing this, I've had a satori on this subject:

Contraception indicates a lack of consent on the part of one or both partners, because it denies the procreative aspect of sex. Since denial of consent is implied in the use of birth control, that turns sex into rape.

This links it all back together, and closes the circular reasoning that is indicative of all moral reasoning.

Do only the Islamics and Homosexuals care enough to fight?

An interesting interview from Peter Kreft where he claims that Christians have become sheep- too tolerant, so without principles that the future MUST belong to either the Islamics or the Homosexuals. Nobody else is willing to fight to the death for their identity.

Abortion in Texas: “Cheap, legal, and ubiquitous”

Abortion Proponents Hate “Safe, Legal, and Rare” » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog: "“Cheap, legal, and ubiquitous”"

Warning: if you think liberals are good

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/07/02/i-hope-your-daughters-raped/">Do not click this link
:

It takes a war to create a revolution

The Crusades are often derided in modern European multicultural sensitivities.  It is forgotten that they were wars of retaliation, that Islam invaded historically Christian and Jewish lands *before* the Crusades.  But did the original Islamic invasion preserve a remnant of Hellenistic thought that became our modern scientific era, only because the Crusades took it back before the anti-science Ottoman Empire had a chance to destroy it?

If your education is infected by "liberalism", you might want to read this debunking first to see where the author of the article is coming from.
The Real Significance of the Crusades | Crisis Magazine:

Is There Anything to Celebrate on the Fourth? | Return to Order | Current Campaigns

Is There Anything to Celebrate on the Fourth? | Return to Order | Current Campaigns:

I miss that Oregon.  America can go hang, and while Tom McCall is who started the conversation on euthanasia I miss his "Come to Oregon to visit but don't stay" attitude.  Especially now that Californicators and other out-of-staters are 55% of the voting public because they have a vacation home here and spend enough time here to qualify as residents.

The death of liberty....the fourth is turning into a wake.

The Radical Meaning of “Gay Marriage” | Crisis Magazine

The Radical Meaning of “Gay Marriage” | Crisis Magazine:

Interesting thought- is gay marriage just the latest salvo in the hatred of family?  Because the autonomous family gets in the way of progress?

I want to know where this video was shot

In case I ever want to be a White Criminal! But I guess to be truly successful and lazy, I'd need a sex change.

The Wine Dark Sea

The Wine Dark Sea: Troll Shaming vs Evangelization

That's my problem right there.  I need to pray for more patience.  I thought I was doing pretty good, but I'm really worn down as of late.  I am almost convinced that the only way out for rural 'gonies is going to have to be seccession.  Let the liberals have Portland and Eugene, we need red state Oregon back- and make the official language Chinook again.

How do we see people? Four views

From Love, By Love, claims Fr. Michael Schmitz. The problem of suffering from Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Atheism.

Supreme Court Invents Faux Family

The Supreme Court’s Misuse of Children to Justify Same-Sex Marriage | Crisis Magazine:


Interesting detail I missed in Justice Kennedy's argument:

- Since gays are allowed to adopt children or become custodial parents of children (because liberals want to deny the testimony of people like http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/robert-oscar-lopez/">Robert Lopez
who has collected a very large body of admitedly annecdotal evidence suggesting that perhaps being raised by two people of the same gender who have no sexual morality might not be the best environment for a child)
- http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10034/">We must legalize gay marriage
for the adopted children to be able to pretend their family isn't broken (the family that the state broke to begin with by allowing gay adoption and homosexuals to become the custodial parent)
- So that we can pretend that the children will be all right, despite us having *directly* http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065/">deprived them of the opposite sex parent.


And this is what passes for logic in the people who run our country, circular as it is.  We've destroyed the lives of children for the pleasure of adults, and we must keep the adults happy so that we don't further damage the children.

Why the HHS Mandate is truly unconstitutional

http://www.thomasmore.org/sites/default/files/files/Opinion%20and%20Order%20Granting%20PI-%20Beckwith%20062513.pdf">The United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division
declares the HHS Mandate unconstituional.   The analysis as written by the judge in this document is quite remarkable indeed.

Why abortion will never be safe, let alone rare

The fight to keep abortion legal has left the realm of rational behavior and so abortion will never be either safe or rare as long as it is still legal.

Gay marriage fight now becomes a religious liberty fight | WashingtonExaminer.com

Gay marriage fight now becomes a religious liberty fight | WashingtonExaminer.com:
The only opening left, I guess, is for us to give the liberals what they are really asking for:

No Christian should ever do business with a non-Christian.  I wonder how quickly the atheists can open those segregated hospitals?

My 10 year old son's very first foray into filmmaking

Be kind and encouraging! He may well one day be a famous Lego artist! And yes, I did use this as a lesson in why you should use a supported camera when doing Lego animation.

Grunky.com is online!

And Stanford Nutting starts out with teaching "homodoxy" and the "Nice creed"! In which he proves that modern post Vatican II Catholicism can be as silly as Richard Dawkins!

Catholic Social Teaching Meets WalMart

The grapes of wrath! I think it's time for me to go to Costco tomorrow......

I didn't think I'd ever see this

A Catholic liberal admits that Obama was NOT the lesser of two evils in the last election

YouCat raises the question

An interesting discussion today on Flocknote's _Read the Catechism in a Year_ which has swtiched to the YouCat due to copyright issues. The problem? A question about atheism where the YouCat and the Catechism seem to be in conflict.

I don't have the question numbers in this form of the Youcat, but the relevant passage in the CCC is 2140.

Fad Atheists are certainly sinning:

But that's not the group the YouCat is talking about.

YouCat is talking about rational atheism, which can be a path to the faith, and cradle atheism, which is a form of positive faith formed in the 2nd and 3rd generation of an atheist family.

I'm not sure rational atheism doesn't fall under CCC2140. In fact, I'd say the more study is done, the more the rational atheist will be drawn to the faith- and the more of a sin this becomes. But that is a reason for conversion.

And cradle atheism, I can't imagine them not getting into purgatory- for the same reason I reject the theological theory of limbo.

And I thought I was dealing with a lot of data

License-plate readers let police collect millions of records on drivers | The Center for Investigative Reporting:
Hope they're using either bigtable or a good relational model on the database- I can easily see this breaking the 2TB limit regularly.

The type of Christians that Atheists like

Stanford Nutting, who Stands for Nothing, tells us how we need to write the commandments in Jello.

And here's the same artist on The Journey Home, being the type of Christian that Atheists Hate.

Marriage » Against Equality

Marriage » Against Equality:

The Greater Than movement....

Too many children doesn't cause poverty

These guys do. Almost all of the poverty in the world can be traced to the greed of the 100 richest families.

There are plenty of resources. It is only the greed of others that keeps people poor.

Why same sex marriage advocates become atheist

or maybe should. What is the name for the modern genre of an interview invented by cutting apart words somebody actually said and using them to answer questions the interviewer made up? That is, other than the evening news.

Another gay bigot betrays his friends.

Cardinal attends AGLO, refuses communion to Rainbow Sash leader - 5647 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News - Windy City Times:

I've long said that a sign of being too extreme, is when you think the middle of the political road is the opposite side.

LIVE FREE AND DIE

LIVE FREE AND DIE:
Sam Rocha echos my issues with the second Fortnight For Freedom

Duke University Graduate who Failed to Learn Her Faith

Duke University Graduate and Rich First Worlder to poor women of the world To eliminate poverty, eliminate the poor

I used to think Richard Dawkins was at least a good Evolutionary Biologist

Then I saw this. Ok, so maybe his "Humans are good at memes" idea is sound; but did he really have to subject us to his LSD dream about it?

The Baby Boomers and their Descendants, delayed gratification

One of the strangest symptoms, or at least most puzzling to me, is the post sexual revolution problem with delayed gratification. If you're not familiar with the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, do yourself a favor and click over to Wikipedia to read about it. The earlier Trinidad candy experiment may hold a clue, but it was a very small statistically insignificant sample size. The clue: Children whose fathers have left the home, did poorly. The more recent Rocester Experiment suggests that children who have been lied to, who have been let down by adults, have a harder time with delayed gratification.

One thing I noticed growing up in the 1970s, was the odd tendency of sexually promiscuous adults to be less than honest with children. This does lead me to wonder if the sexual revolution has had a negative economic side effect on Americans and Europeans with respect to delayed gratification, which is of course a predictor of economic and personal success.

A plethora of links

To the type of homosexuals that certain commenters here claim shouldn't exist.

Is homophobia just Addams Family Syndrome?

In the old comic strip and 1950s TV Show, and to a lesser extent the reimagined nostalgia movies, the running joke in The Addams Family is "we are normal, it is the rest of the world that is insane".  This confidence permeated every motive of Gomez and Morticia, and was the parenting style they used with the entire extended family.

All multiculturalism suffers from the same arrogance. Ethnic groups refuse to assimilate based on a version of the syndrome.

It occurs to me that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this syndrome would have been a part of the formative years of the researchers who invented homophobia.  This insult and slur has been extemely effective in confusing young Americans.  But it is stll an extreme minority denying basic biology who wants their lifestyle to be considered normal.  And they are willing to destroy everybody else to accomplish it.

What a special needs child can accomplish with a little help

This past spring I was able to get my child to enter into a science fair with normal kids. His was the only entry from the special needs program. I have finally created a google photo album of his project.

In Human Terms

A while back Leah Libresco mentioned that one new artificial way to increase empathy and understanding was to install Dictionary of Numbers in Chrome. This post is solely to find out what the Dictionary of numbers does with 56 million people. ----- After publishing, I now know that we have killed approximately [≈ population of Italy (nation)] in fetuses through abortion since 1973.

A very important set of videos for ALL Catholics to listen to

Without strong women like Dawn Eden we can't heal. We simply can't. She depended on the Saints, and I have little doubt that her story will become a story of sainthood someday.

Existentialism caused the sexual revolution?

An interesting decription about the logical, esthetic, and moral problems that result from modern gnosticism.

Eve Tushnet, celibate gay catholic- describes the problem

The real problem with the Church's teaching on homosexuality has nothing to do with the Church's teaching on homsexuality and everything to do with how we think we are percieved by others (funny, yes, I'm rather proud of the fact that I come FOURTH in my wife's priority list). And that's why gay marriage is NOT a solution- even for the homosexual community- and maybe it would allow us a chance to focus on the spiritual rot in the American Culture itself that affects a lot more than just gay people and destroys a lot more than just traditional families with sexual and fiscal attacks.

Miracles do still happen

Even of the supernatural variety. As we receive news that Blessed Pope John Paul II has had a 2nd miracle attributed to his intercession confirmed by the medical community, it seems appropriate to me to Review the story of his first miracle from the woman who recieved it.

Fire On the Earth Presents the Marriage Series

So you THINK you know that the Church's sacramental marriage is based in religion alone?

What is Marriage?-Sociological Benefits Recent studies have surprisingly shown what most people know by instinct- that children raised by their biological parents is the ideal- and that only happens with one man and one woman.

The State and Marriage- what is the secular interest in Marriage? Why should the state care at all?

Revisionist logic- debunking the irrational thinking of the movement to redefine marriage

And finally, after all the secular arugment, we get to the religious reason- spiritual battle.

But I find it interesting that the LAST is last. Spirituality follows REASON, Reason comes first.

Why would a Methuselahite apply to join the army?

Deployment to war doesn't figure in majority of military suicides - latimes.com:


Apparently, outside of Chestertonian jokes and in the real American army, it is rather the opposite.  Apparently death-by-combat-with-the-enemy is as popular as death by cop, but when a disappointing post far from the front comes through instead, suicide is common.

To be deep in history is to be Catholic. To be Deeper in History is to be Pagan.

And only those who are deep in history know what a noble suicide is and how incredibly superficial the symptoms of gay marriage and abortion really are.

The Suicide Note is fascinating- a man who seemingly had everything to live for, creates a human sacrifice at a Catholic Cathedral in a country that is quickly becoming very secular, over the protests of the common man.

His note points to his "recent writings", which include an interesting discussion stating that gay marriage doesn't matter because in 15 years, Islamics will be in the majority in France and quickly, under Shariah Law, enact the death penalty for homosexuality.

Return Of The Jedi Still Isn't Profitable

Hollywood Accounting: Darth Vader Not Getting Paid, Because Return Of The Jedi Still Isn't Profitable | Techdirt:

And you wondered how the rich got to be rich.  I'd consider this fraud, but this gives honest con jobs a bad name.

Almost done

Hard to believe somebody with Asperger's could do what I've done, but I've done it. Two more duties left- the breakfast/membership drive at St. Clare's on June 30th, and the *beginning* of the July meeting, and then I'm done. John Clare Council 15485 is finishing the first year with Star Council award, Columbian Award, and an active Food for Families program. And positive in the bank. I've birthed this baby, now to watch it grow!

What confusing data surrounding abortion tells me

Bad Catholic has a discussion up about women who were denied abortions and the problems with a recent study of them.

My problem with all such studies, on both sides, is that the people being studied are self-selecting, and thus, there's a huge amount of politics and confirmation bias going on.

What would change my mind on several issues

Self-sacrifice and a lack of selfishness would change my mind on a huge number of political issues.

Martyrdom squads would quickly change my mind on unjust wars.

Abstinence (romantic 13th century style, think Dante and Beatrice, or I guess more appropriately, David and Jonathan from the Bible) marchers in gay pride parades would change my mind on gay marriage.

Bringing back the Students Today Are Not Ready For Sex abstinence sex-ed program would be a huge improvement over all the other programs I've seen, including other abstinence programs. Also, we need "virginity promise" rings for guys to be given by mothers.

Campaigning to bring back the Philadelphia Nun's Loophole would change my mind on the Tea Party protesters. Giving up getting high and not trying to be superman and stop commuter trains would change my mind on the Occupy Protesters.

Taking a cab home would certainly change my opinion of people who get drunk away from home. For that matter, people over the age of 80 really need to consider public transportation rather than continuing to drive as well.

Getting the picture? Denial of self is good for not just the individual, but good for society.

many who fight for the Faith are not among the faithful

June 17, 1462: The Battle of the Blood Drinkers | Crisis Magazine: "many who fight for the Faith are not among the faithful"

A lesson from history

An anti-feminist speaks up

A Woman is Made to Be A Woman : Catholic Stand:

'via Blog this'

Celebrating Fathers: Our Earthly Fathers – Guest Post from Dr. Paul Gondreau | Image Books: Publishing Books of Catholic Interest

Celebrating Fathers: Our Earthly Fathers – Guest Post from Dr. Paul Gondreau | Image Books: Publishing Books of Catholic Interest:

A post about a father who has it far worse than I do.

Christopher was 18 months before his language delay became apparent enough to do something about.  He was 26 months when we got the MRI that diagnosed Cerebral Palsy.  He was 7 years when we had the MRI that confirmed that the reason we couldn't potty train was due to the spina bifida rather than the CP (yes, we actually blamed not being able to potty train on the language delay).

And I wouldn't miss a minute.

Pope reveals a secret- sin and guilt and forgiveness are superficial

The real depth is that selfish living leads to death. Oh, maybe not physical death, though many sins are physically and bodily dangerous. But spiritual death and the loss of all the relationships we hold dear.

A tribute to the lost art of fatherhood

What fatherhood used to be:

Is civil marriage unconstitutional?

This libertarian seems to think so and after I sift the rhetoric from the reality, I have a tendency to agree.

The one thing that I agree with the gay agenda on is that by the principle of subsidiarity, the government has no place in the home. Not just the bedroom, but the home. And by no place, I mean no place at all- giving tax breaks to some households over other households due to a contract that bears no relation to traditional, sacramental marriage whatsoever is discrimination. The concept of consent is equally ridiculous; it always turns eventually into people bringing the problems of the home into court with the silliness that is the concept of divorce- a concept that would entirely go away if we'd just do away with ALL the legal protections for marriage.

On this day when we celebrate the apparently antiquated and anachronistic concept of a Father, a role that almost no man under the age of 70 seems to be able to fulfill anymore in this age of feminism where all men are evil, I see no role left for marriage at all.

The only reason left to preserve traditional marriage, is if we want to bring back the concept of fatherhood- and we all know that the liberals are completely against *anything* to do with a patriarchy.