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Hurricanes and Hitler are often cited as the most difficult challenges to the belief that God is good. A more compelling answer is He has deprived us of the chance to have a young Clint Eastwood play President Andrew Jackson.
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| Old Hickory | Young Easty |
Tom posted this at 2:00 PM EST on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Faith, Film Rants
Much of the time, ‘Christianism’ is just a label applied to any conservative who expresses his religious views in a way that displeases Andrew Sullivan. Then there’s stuff like this.
H/T: Huffington Post
Tom posted this at 1:02 PM EDT on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 as Faith, Audacity of Hype
Christopher Hitchens here writes about how terrible it is that McCain and Palin are railing against some of the billions of dollars the federal government spends on research. In the midst of which, we get this:
We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of “teaching the argument,” as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now.
A. All the recent stories have been that Palin is the only one of the four major candidates frequently having discussions with the media. It seems that lots of people get to ask her questions these days.
B. It doesn’t require a federal research grant to search the interwebs and find that Palin actually doesn’t promote the teaching of creationism. Hitchens has no excuse for peddling lies, though the irony of doing it in this particular column made it worth my time to read this. Flippin’ Wikipedia even got this one right.
C. I don’t think that Sarah Palin has said whether she’s a creationist or not, so the last line of speculation is largely baseless. I actually like that she doesn’t talk about that, since it’s a complete non-issue what our politicians think about the vast majority of scientific issues.
For someone so concerned about science and research, this was a remarkably fact-free tirade.
Hitchens then proceeds to a lengthy paragraph of unhinged and unsupported speculation about Palin as a religious fanatic. There’s not too much actually connecting Palin personally to religious fanaticism (and, by any historical or global standard, Pentecostals are some pretty mild religious fanatics), though I’m not sure it’s a terribly American past time to begrudge politicians their peculiar theological beliefs. It’s interesting for Hitchens, who hates all religion, and who understands the finer points of Christian theology about as well as a hammer understands a wine glass, to involve himself in such a discussion.
Apollo posted this at 5:17 PM EDT on Monday, October 27th, 2008 as Faith, Hitch-slapped!
I’m tired of the Bristol Palin pregnancy story. But I did see two commentaries about it that deserve more attention. First up (H/T) is a piece that discusses the evangelicals reaction, which is much different than how lefties think evangelicals react:
For what the Left sees as hypocrisy, most folks who are not Obama voters just see as falling short. As, of course, we, as humans, all do.
Bristol Palin’s journey is a human story. She tried to be good. She fell short. Instead of aborting the baby she will carry it to term and marry the father. To socially conservative America, there is nothing tragic about this.
You see, to many of the voters Barack Obama has not yet seemed to reach and who have thus far been ambivalent about McCain, this is exactly how these things are supposed to go. Their reality has not been shaken, the scales have not fallen from their eyes.
Sarah Palin did nothing “wrong.” And Bristol Palin did nothing other than sin, which we all do. She is now managing her sin as prescribed by tradition. To the traditionalist the situation is not ideal, no, but it is not a disaster.
This is a human story. The more the left attacks, attempts to expose “hypocrisy”, the more the personal will very much become the political. Unfortunately it will become political in a way that leads all those hard working Bubbas, all those church-going single mommas, right out to the polls to vote for that war hero and and those women they now identify with, Sarah and Bristol Palin.
What’s more concerning is the second take. David Frum essentially asks, why didn’t the McCain campaign handle this better?
Many conservatives, including my friends at the Corner, are outraged that the pregnancy of Bristol Palin has drawn swifter and more ferocious media attention than the adultery and (probable) out-of-wedlock fatherhood of John Edwards. They blame media bias, and probably they are right. Sexual adventuring or embarrassment involving Republican politicians is usually covered much more eagerly than that involving Democrats.
Question though: Is media bias a new or surprising fact about American politics? Wasn’t the reaction to the Palin pregnancy foreseeable? If so, why wasn’t it foreseen?
Thoughts to consider.
Hubbard posted this at 1:31 PM EDT on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 as Faith, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Audacity of Hype
I’m normally not a fan of Gospel music, but this one (NSFW) (H/T) had me in stitches.
Hubbard posted this at 4:50 PM EDT on Monday, August 18th, 2008 as Humor, Faith, Pop Culture Is Filth
About a week ago, a student at Central Florida University attended Catholic mass was given Eucharist — i.e., a communion wafer — and did not eat it immediately as one is supposed to do and, indeed, took it home with him over the objections of the church. In addition to being physically grabbed by some of the other parishioners and igniting a media and campus firestorm, he has apparently received death threats.
Though other Christain denominations also ‘take communion,’ few believe it to be as literally true as Catholics do; indeed, they believe the wafer is literally changed into the body of Christ through during the mass and that consuming it is a vital and necessary act of communion with God. Though it still looks and tastes like a bread wafer it is, for all intents and purposes to them, Jesus’ body and holy beyond measure.
It’s unclear why the kid did it. In this article, he alternately claims to have been trying to show it to a friend to explain Catholicism to him — which is something like explaining Islam to someone by ripping the best pages out of a Koran and showing them to him…only worse — and then then seems to have been protesting the pubic university’s funding of religious institutions.
Predictably, the professional hysterics at the Catholic League launched a campaign of manufactured outrage as soon as they got wind of it. Equally predictably, biologist and atheist apologist Professor PZ Myers — whom this blog has linked to approvingly before — was outraged by the outrage, especially (and quite rightfully) by the death threats. Less predictably, Myers went on to write this, which I can only imagine would make Richard Dawkins blush for shame:
I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.
Tom posted this at 1:16 PM EDT on Friday, July 11th, 2008 as Science & Evolution, Faith, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior