Recently in Religion Category

One of the recent shocks in my life, like when I discovered that the overwhelming majority of librarians are political left-wingers, was to be presented the fact that the church to which I belong, the Roman Catholic Church, is against the private ownership of handguns.

Doug Bandow, a great guy I worked for as an intern over twenty-two years one summer, has a serious bit of journalism on the secular intolerance of traditional religious belief, esp. Christian, in Albion.

As someone who just broke his Day of Atonement fast with a turkey meal at the Village Kitchen--yum, yum--this is disconcerting. (Twenty-five hours without food or drink is tough.)

Bandow's point is, I think, irrefutable. Without a First Amendment protecting religious expression, the secular bigots take over. What he fails to do, however, is to link liberals' hatred of traditional religious belief--usu. Christian--that condemns homosexual practices. As Lawrence Auster has written, it all comes down to homosexuality.

Bandow, who worked in the Reagan White House and has a law degree from Stanford, is too nice & sensitive to make that connection--lots of gays at Cato, including its vice president--although his examples show it to be true. And Bandow's examples are truly chilling.

Pat Condell gives us another insightful rant, this time about the perpetually offended religion of peace.


I have to agree with Pat on more than one point, specifically those of tolerance and respect. Tolerance works in both directions. I will not be tolerant of an ideology that has none of its own. And respect is earned, it is never owed. Demanding that I respect someone who has no respect for me is a non-starter. It ain't gonna happen.

These endlessly pissed-off folk have got to get a grip on themselves and realize that the more they act like savages, the less we will listen to them and the less likely we will be to ever respect them.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

I can heartily recommend E.P. Sanders, a retired professor at Duke University, for his fair, learned, and balanced approach to this most important of questions. I have to concur with his assessment at the end: the Jesus that many of us were taught about in the pulpit bears less resemblance to the historical Jesus than church officials would have us believe.

Sanders's one-volume book on Jesus, which I reviewed for Amazon, is the best such publication I am aware of; additionally, the portrayal of Jews and Pontius Pilate in the NT doesn't seem to be intellectually responsible. I almost said, "They don't pass the smell test." For example, any historical look into Pontius Pilate's career reveals a man who was particularly brutal, which stood out in a brutal age. Also, according to Josephus, the Pharisees were a popular bunch, not the obnoxious bunch as depicted in some of the writings of the NT.

To me the historical truth of Jesus, what little we can distill, is one of the burning intellectual issues of the day. It was a recently as 1972 that the title of Geza Vermes's book, Jesus the Jew--the very title--caused outrage. Vermes was a Jew whose parents converted to Catholicism but still perished in the Nazi concentration camps. Vermes became a Catholic priest--only to revert back to Judaism, which he only occasionally practices.

Jews going down from an estimated 20,000 in 2000 to just 8,000 today? Oh, I see. The Catholic Church is pushing for more Muslim immigrants. Riiiight. Just like socialized medicine, which blew up in her face when the coverage for abortifacients and contraception came through.

During that same time the Muslim population has over tripled. And the Catholic parishes are in rapid decline.

Source. 

John Derbyshire writes: 

Huge loser from that growth?  The Catholic Church.  Major enabler of that growth?  The Catholic Church.  You can't make this stuff up.

Every so often someone comes along in our life that deserves a righteous fisking, and so it is with a fellow by the name of James Veverka of Tilton, New Hampshire.

Mister Veverka shows up regularly in the Letters section of our local newspapers, and in particular the Laconia (NH) Daily Sun.

For the most part I ignore Mister Veverka's leftist rants as almost everything he writes is right out of the left's talking point templates. I doubt he's had an original thought of his own in years. But it was one of his latest rants about the GOP in the March 17th edition of the Sun that goaded me into deconstructing yet another of his emotion-filled unthinking rants.

Let's get started, shall we?

Some things to consider.

First, religious liberties do not trump equality under the law. If one wants to be a religious fanatic, a bigot, a sexist, or a homophobe , they can do it in their own home, church, or private affiliation. People have used religious beliefs to support wars, cruel and unusual punishments, beating children, religious oppression, slavery, miscegenation laws, segregation, anti-semitism, anti-suffrage, polygamy, homophobia, and its all a failed Medieval argument.

Ooh, I love this guy! He trashes the First Amendment as if it means nothing because he's been told it does not trump "equality under the law" and then builds a strawman argument about why anyone who believes they should not be forced to go against their religious beliefs about the sanctity of life due to an unconstitutional governmental edict is automatically a religious fanatic who wants to return us to Medieval dogma and the auto de fe. How far would he take this? Would he demand Christian Scientists abandon their faith and beliefs in the power of prayer to heal and force them to support his "beliefs" against their will? (After all, Mister Veverka's deep religious faith in the power of an oppressive government to make sure everyone is equal is no different than the very religions he besmirches.)

Basically, Mister Veverka, you have libeled and slandered those of faith who have no designs to create a theological dictatorship. They just don't want to be told by an overreaching government that they must pay for medicines and medical procedures they see as no different than murder. After reading a number of your diatribes over the past few years, it has become quite evident that you have a deep seated hatred of religion or those who profess to religious belief. Who is the intolerant one here, Mister Veverka?

Let's move on.

For a bunch of tea bags who are concerned with abortion and welfare, they sure haven't thought this one out in the slightest. If one wants fewer abortions and less welfare families, family planning, sexual health care, sex education, and contraception are the only answers. Making contraception unavailable and abortion illegal is as about an intelligent a solution as the drug war is for drug use or banning guns is to end violent crime.

Here, right off the bat, he aims a sexual slur against Tea Party supporters, implying they are homosexuals. (Who's the homophobe, Mister Veverka?)

His statement also shows he is woefully ignorant about the Tea Party and what it stands for, and from earlier rants he's written, it's clear he doesn't want to. He'd rather stay within his own narrowly defined 'reality' so he can convince himself he's the only one who knows "The Truth!" If he even bothered to find out what it's all about he'd know that for the most part the Tea Party isn't interested in social issues he brings up. They just want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have on things we know don't work or is a waste of taxpayer dollars, stop passing laws and imposing regulations that do far more harm to the American public than any of the things Mister Veverka has accused the the GOP of trying to do, and for the government to stop its increasing meddling in our lives and our businesses.

If he wants fewer people on welfare, it isn't the GOP or the Tea Party (they aren't the same thing) that have trapped millions in poverty or want them to remain there. It is the government, and particularly the Democrats, starting with LBJ and his "Great Society". More people on welfare means more control by the government, something the Democrats love because it gives them a captive constituency.

He brings up that the only answers to this problem are "family planning, sexual health care, sex education, and contraception." He assumes these are the only solutions to the welfare problem. But the best way to get people off of welfare is to make it harder for them to get on it and easier for them to get jobs. But most of the programs created over the past 50 years and the rules and regulations handed down by the government have done just the opposite. And who created most of those programs and have been heavy handed in creating economy killing regulations? Hint: It's not the GOP.

To Be Continued...

Christians thinking it's Christian to support a massive entitlement program like ObamaCare is wrong. It's a program supported, not by voluntarily choices of people providing, but from the barrel of a gun.

That's what gubmit programs are. Next time refrain from paying taxes and wait a couple of years and see what happens. Men in black, touting real assault rifles--the state has the legal monopoly on killing--will indeed come.

Star Parker understands this, and Michael Moore does not. A three-minute episode of The View here.

Stop acting like women, women. That seems the feeling of aged slut Erica Jong. It makes her feel guilty she was such an imperfect mother. Why can't you be slutty and narcissistic? She seems to be saying this when complaining about mothers who spend too much time with their young children.

Yesterday in Spain, Pope Benedict XVI had this to say, which Europe needs to internalize in order to stop this secular nonsense. It'll be a short interregnum before Islam takes over.

Europe must open itself to God, must come to meet him without fear, and work with his grace for that human dignity which was discerned by her best traditions: not only the biblical, at the basis of this order, but also the classical, the medieval and the modern, the matrix from which the great philosophical, literary, cultural and social masterpieces of Europe were born.

While I have not commented upon the controversy in New York about the Ground Zero mosque..er...community center, it isn't because I don't have any to offer. Quite the contrary. It's only that nothing really spurred me to put words onto the 'net. That has changed.

An occasional commenter here posted her viewpoints about the Ground Zero mosque and I felt compelled to answer her. Paulina and I rarely see eye to eye on anything, but I respect her opinions because, quite frankly, she tends to think things through before writing about them. There are times when she lets emotion override logic, but it occurs rarely (that I've seen). I think this is one of those times.

When I first heard about the "Ground Zero Mosque" a few weeks back, all the controversy made me think there was a plan to build a Hagia Sophia type structure right where the trade center stood. Turns out it's some sort of community center (gym, swimming pool, theater and a mosque) two blocks away from ground zero, planned by a Sufi (read: peaceful, Buddhist-like) Imam (Feisal Abdul Rauf, or whatever). Never mind that there is already a mosque four blocks away and that lower Manhattan was originally a very muslim community (back in the late 19th century it was called Little Syria) - why is it that the very people who like to get all outraged on behalf of the constitution are forgetting it's very first amendment?

I know why, of course. It's because most Americans and certainly most conservatives, like to think of America as a christian nation. They like to throw their bible into political arguments (gay marriage? no way - it's an abomination!). More importantly, they have found themselves a nice little enemy in Islam. What used to be a multifaceted religion practiced by nearly a third of the world's population, is now equated with intolerant governments and terrorism. The idea that Islam is a violent religion is now somehow taken as a fact. And this I also understand. We all need an "other" to hate or put down. I myself have an "other" in conservatives and all religious fanatics, christian and muslim alike. Still, it is the intolerance and bigotry that piss me off the most when it comes to my "others" and so I've decided that it would be an excellent idea to build and actually mosque, with minarets and all, right there next to where the trade center stood, to symbolize the hope for tolerance and peace.

So the reason for the opposition is because we're all Muslim-hating, intolerant conservativs, and worse, Christians? Yeah. Right.

Here was my comment to her post:

We're told we must be tolerant of other beliefs, primarily Islam. However the reverse isn't true, as seen every day by the likes of the media, academia, the government, and the multi-culti proselytizers. Those of us of Judeo-Christian beliefs must not be tolerated because, after all, It's-All-Our-Fault. The Muslim community in New York has shown great insensitivity to the feelings and beliefs of those who lost loved ones on That Terrible Day. It is they who are showing intolerance, not those protesting against something they see as a slap in the face.

The argument has been made in other places that there are already churches, strip joints, and an OTP parlor surrounding Ground Zero, so why should building a mosque create such a controversy? It's simple, really. They were already there on That Terrible Day. Frankly, if the mosque had also been there on That Terrible Day, I doubt there would be nearly as much opposition to it. There might even have been none. But that isn't the case here.

Whether the intentions of those wanting to build the new community center are good or otherwise, I believe they could have handled it differently which might have lessened the opposition to it. Instead, they sprang it on the people of New York with little or no notice, something they should not have done. It showed insensitivity. Did they really expect any different response under those circumstances?

From WWWTW:

Extended family is the reason Americans survived the last Great Depression; the absence of extended family is the reason we won't survive the next one.

I have a brother and a sister; my wife has two sisters. All are or have been married. Out of these four, how many children do you think have been produced? One.

I have one nephew. My wife has no nieces or nephews. How sad. But typical. (My brother was only recently married, but figures to have only one or two.)

I've written about this before. The practical materialism of esp middle class whites will spell the doom of the American way of life. Middle class people--the "lower classes" from the aristocracy's point of view, it's interesting to note--have historically voluntarily limited their family size, unlike their social betters (nobles prideful of familial blood) and peasants (children are an economic asset to the farm). But never to this extent.

The college-educated American white woman has something like 1.2 children (on average) over her lifetime. What's needed for mere population equilibrium is 2.1.

Excellent point, Scott, of Powerline blog:  It's good for Muslims to build the GZM in New York, but not for Jews to build apartments in Jerusalem. Go figure.

Orthodox Jewish webzine Aish.com, in direct response to Chelsea Clinton's marriage to a Jewish guy and in light of the fact that nearly half of Jews marry non-Jews, throws down the gauntlet:

We have reached a point where a Jew is so uneducated about his own beliefs, so confused about what it means to be a Jew that he could intermarry and still feel proud to be a Jew.

Marc Mezvinsky's intermarriage is the result of our inaction.

Elliot Abrams, Neocon's Neocon, has come out very strongly against "intermarriage."

Edward Feser, an extremely intelligent Catholic philosopher, brings up the nuking of the two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which prompted the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire.

He says it was immoral, justified only by the erroneous "ends justify the means" argument, or consequentialism. He forces me to think and clarify my thinking. But I have to disagree.

I wish, though, we hadn't bombed Nagasaki, a city containing 60,000 Catholics, esp. so soon (three days) after Hiroshima. It should have happened a couple of weeks later.

The lively commentators are interesting, too.

The problem goes deeper than difficult doctrines or antiquated structures, problematic though these may sometimes be. Our children and grandchildren are abandoning the faith because they perceive--rightly--that its demands are at fundamental variance with the lives we have prepared them to lead. We have raised them to seek lives characterized by material comfort, sexual fulfillment, and freedom from any obligations that they have not personally chosen. Should it surprise us that they fail to take seriously our claims to follow one who embraced poverty, chastity, and obedience to the will of God? ~ a quote from the WaPo used in Lawrence Auster's "Should the Church Follow Society, or Society Follow the Church?"

Still in the shadow of the deeply diabolical French Revolution, Western man is totally stultified by electronics: TV, the Internet, video games, and pornography. He views the state as a provider and saddles up to the trough.

Freedom? That's a burden. The common man thinks only in clichés, which is to say he doesn't do much thinking though is under the delusion he does.

But the mores of the modern age--"practical materialism" as diagnosed brilliantly by my Catholic mentor Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in his 1999 Human Life Review article (He wrote one in 1992 that's similar in the same mag.) "Europe Without Vitality"--leads only to the cul-de-sac of demographic demise.

Having four children has ruined my life in the best way imaginable. But from a hedonistic standpoint, it's been an unqualified disaster, which may explain the sharp increase in couples opting to be, in the old diction, "barren by choice."

The Legionaries of Christ, the Roman Catholic order that employs me to teach English to seventh-graders and high school-aged boys (along with a smattering of Spanish and Greek), is in big trouble. Lauren Collins of NECN does a very credible job providing the background last February, going so far as to be filmed on the edge of the driveway of the Center Harbor, NH, school where I work.

Here's the latest.

The view of the school is just about the best in all the Lakes Region. I have never gotten sick of it. It reminds me that the best real estate in the world is owned by the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy.

The "greatest ecclesiastical villain since Judas Iscariot"? I Think Mr. Iscariot gets a bad rap. But this guy? Fuhgettaboutit.

And it does my heart good to see some disinfectant sunlight put on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) here. This group contributes to the Left's hysteria.

My liberal brother, now with the State Dept. as a diplomat, has given money to them.

But he may begin to feel what many Western Catholics are now facing up to with their own Vatican. Despite the good the Catholic Church does, the self-inflicted wounds and the secular leftist media's feeding frenzy (Matt Abbott explains why here.) have caused--and will continue to cause--massive damage. This is also a personal issue with me, as I teach at a Catholic school begun by a now-deceased Mexican priest who apparently has a lot to answer for in the next life. If there is a hell, he probably is there right now.

BTW, there's the NFL draft this week. I used to spend hundreds of hours prepping myself for it. Yes, I'm such a nerd. Here's my guess at what the Patriots do, if they stay at their current position of the 22 pick of the first round. Here are three players to focus on: Cal's extremely fast RB Jahvid Best, Penn State's very good DT Jason Odrick, and my personal favorite, Florida's versatile center Maurkice Pouncey.

There may be players they really like such as Brandon Graham of the Yellowbellies that they will trade up for if it's not too costly.

The family got all dressed up for church. I typically wear a suit and tie, anyway. But the daughter of mine was in a very pretty dress. As was Goodwife.

I thought this post is very appropriate. I really like Pope Benedict, but boy is he having a rough go of it. Some of it deserved. My Latin is almost nonexistent, but I think Oremus pro pontifice nostro means "Let us pray for our pope."

As I learned from Aristotle or Plato, childhood formation is key. That's when the ink written on a person's character is most indelible and remains clearest. Anything after that will never be as deep or trenchant.

It's a matter of public record that our President attended schools in Indonesia as "Barry Sotero," having been legally adopted by his second father, a practicing Muslim. While there, he was listed as a Muslim student and given approx. 10 hours of instruction in that religion per week in the public school he attended as was (and I suspect still is) the norm for that country.

This went on for ten years at a critical stage in anyone's development. I know, with four children of my own in that age bracket.

Perhaps he still thinks of himself as one. His memorable slip of the tongue (Freudian?) with George Steppie on ABC was perhaps revealing in more ways than one.

That so-called Christian church in Chicago with Jeremiah Wright? Pluuze. More Black Power than anything. Becoming a Christian, taking on that facade, may have been an act of convenience to make his political career viable.

It's all starting to come together as Gateway Pundit shows. We have our second anti-semitic president in my lifetime. Carter is the other. As a commentator to the news that Obama treated Israel, our staunchest Near East ally, as a pariah, says at Lucianne.com:

Reply 6 - Posted by: RedGoose,
Please excuse the oafish Marxist buffoon who has lied his way into our White House. I, and a great many like me, respect you [Binjamin Netanyahu] greatly and wish nothing but the best to you and your country [Israel].

Some thinkers in the future, after Obama has been booted after one term--unless he can get the illegals to vote for him--will view him as the true impostor he is increasingly showing himself to be.

Making America weaker. That's Barry. Helping the permanently disadvantaged minorities. That's Barry. Telling white America: Your day is over. Pay up.