The Ark and The Dove

Be Careful What You Wish For...

I was watching this YouTube clip of Ann Coulter being interviewed on MSNBC.
The host asks her what her ideal vision of America would be. She says everyone would be Christian.
He attacks her for being anti-semitic. Unfortunately, her line of argument was that Christianity was the perfection of Judaism. It wasn't the finest of arguments, and it was clear that she really hadn't anticipated the line of questioning to which she would be subjected.
What I find unfortunate, however, is that the host insinuates that it is somehow hateful and ignorant to want everyone to be the same faith...in an ideal state.
It was rather like asking someone: "If you could create the ideal dessert, what would it be?" And then berating the person for being a glutton who had no concerns about obesity: "You would want what for dessert?!? That's absurd? That would make you fat."
He asked a question that disregarded practical issues, and then derided her for not giving a practical answer.

Speaking of Atheists...

Via Mom...

The Catholic League recommends not seeing The Golden Compass until after Christmas as a form of protesting the movie's anti-Catholic source materials. I've never read the books, but to hear the CL describe it, they're the atheist's equivalent of The Chronicles of Narnia.
What's particularly noteworthy is that the CL isn't complaining about the movie itself. The CL is merely concerned that the movie, which has been revised to tone down the anti-Christian elements, will lead people to buy the books as Christmas presents--which would be pretty ironic if the books are as bad as they say.
I'm currently trying to do the best I can to read up on what the author, Phillip Pullman, does that is so offensive. As far as I can tell (spoiler) he tries to argue that the God of Christianity is really the great deceiver in the cosmic war that's been raging on around us. (I kept thinking of the really bad Star Trek movie where God was an alien...)

Anyway, if any book publishers out there want to respond with a nice Catholic children's book, I have a manuscript waiting for you...

Wish You Were Here...

"If I were not an atheist, I think I would have to be a Catholic because if it wasn't the forces of natural selection that designed fish, it must have been an Italian."
--Douglas Adams, from "Riding the Rays" in The Salmon of Doubt

Saying "No" to GAP

Dr. Mike S. Adams delivers a pro-life argument against the Genoicide Awareness Program.

Some of the readers here might recall that I personally had a very negative experience with GAP during one of its visits to Maryland's campus. GAP often shuts down conversation by offending people on both sides of life issues, but several rabid GAP members who didn't know me actually went after my jugular (metaphorically speaking) when I stopped by to see how some of the CSC volunteers were doing.

The question pro-lifers have to ask is whether the number of people for whom GAP is persuasive outweighs the number of people who become totally turned off. Dr. Adams's suggestion is to replace the pictures of mutilated babies with pictures of living babies (which makes sense to me since GAP never seems to be able to adequately address accusations that the pictures are fake).

Healthy Diet

We fell by eating fruit; we are saved by eating bread.

Religious Nutjobs

Who is utterly anti-tradition, believes in determinism, and argues that the people have to seize power away from crusty old man-made institutions?
If you said the modern day secular progressive, you might be right...but it's not what I was thinking of.
I'm actually thinking of Renaissance puritans, or, as we might label them in today's jargon, the religious left wing nutjobs. Not only did these guys hate Catholics, they rabidly clung to Calvinist doctrine, which led them to make conclusions that traditions were corrupting forces made to manipulate the superstitious (much like modern atheists would argue); they concluded human action was preordained, effectively dissolving free will (much like modern atheists would conclude, although they arrive at this conclusion much differently); and they thought religious hierarchy consisting entirely of wolves-in-sheeps'-clothing, requiring the laity effectively to revolt against the clergy (which sounds like any piece of "liberal" anti-religious rhetoric).
If there's one thing that has been historically scarier than the religious right...it's the religious left.

Talk about Potential Sibling Rivalries...

There's this guy who is considering fathering his own grandson.
This seems like a logical fallacy to me...unless you count incest as a logical institution.
At best, his biological son can allow his wife to be impregnated with his father's sperm, and then adopt his brother.
I imagine it's hard enough to live in the shadow of an older brother...but imagine if he were also your legal dad!
(Incidentally, I just read a line in Milton where he talks about Satan being the father of his own grandson...it's uncanny how topical those early modern authors can be today...)

You Certainly Won't Want to Miss this...

Also in my inbox...an e-mail to Rally for Domestic Partnership benefits for UMD employees!

You can read the e-mail in the following...

I'm not a Woman...

...but for some reason I'm on the Network of Enlightened Women mailing list, and I just got their most recent e-newsletter.

It's an organization for conservative college students (female ones in particular), and they've sent me e-mails before asking if I know anyone (with two x-chromosomes) who'd like to start a chapter on Maryland's campus. It seems like something that certain readers (not the creepy men) here might want to get involved in, so I'm giving them a plug again. Keep in mind that it looks good on your resume to be a founder of a chapter of a national student group (unless, of course, you're applying somewhere that hates conservatives, like a university).

Plus, I figure there has to be some kind of finder's fee or baked goods or something in it for me if I'm responsible for a student making contact.

Call Me Rocky Terp...

After my nihilistic contemplation of the academic researcher's plight, I have a little update about what I've been digging up. I'll spare you the gory details...especially since it's something I want to pursue further and one one must play one's cards close in this field. That being said, I think you'll find it pertinent to the topic of this blog.

So I'm paging through a late Elizabethan defense of Catholicism, and I come to a short chapter defending the papacy. That in and of itself isn't particularly surprising, but one of the arguments that the author makes is.
The writer suggests that one reason that English Protestants have a hard time with the papacy is actually linguistic. Specifically, the problem is with the name Peter. As his theory goes, non-English-speakers are constantly reminded that Peter's name means rock because, in romance languages, the name still sounds like the native word for rock. This reminds people that Simon got the name Peter when Christ said he'd be building a Church on him, a rock. The author doesn't quite say this, but you might imagine Peter would sound like "Rocky" does to us today. In English, however, the name Peter doesn't really remind us of anything...unless you fill your car with petrol...which most Renaissance reformers didn't. For English speakers, Peter is just a person's name...it doesn't really have any more significance (in the sense of signifying) than any other name. For speakers of Romance languages, however, asking someone why Peter should be thought of as the first pope would be like asking why Jesus should be thought of as a religious leader just because his last name happened to be Christ.