Daily Hilarity: A New Pope In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

The absurdity of religious ceremonial pretensions are clarified a bit: Thanks to Heather for the link. Your Thoughts?

U.S. Bishops Argue Employers Should Be Allowed To Consider Being Gay A Fireable Offense

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a letter addressed to the United States Congress people opposing ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act For the sake of clarity, permit us first to state two basic tenets of Catholic Church teaching on this issue. First, persons with a homosexual inclination “must be accepted with respect, compassion, [...]

52% Of Americans Now Judge Gay Relationships Morally Acceptable

Not that moral correctness requires popular approval, but moral admirableness of the populace does require morally correct opinions, and so this is a heartening development which sees America finally starting to get it right, with its first ever clear majority (52%) judging gay relationships “morally acceptable”: Andrew Sullivan analyzes the data: A large part of [...]

The Catholic Church’s Struggles With Sex Abuse Scandals Down Through The Ages

An unusually historically informative short video, via Unreasonable Faith. On edit, back at Unreasonable Faith, PsiCop argues the video is factually challenged: This video has some factual flaws, and even in addition to that, it’s anachronistic. The “pedophilia” referred to in early documents like the Didache and at the synod of Elvira very likely alluded to a [...]

Atheist In Liverpool Sentenced To 6 Months In Jail For Blasphemy

In late 2008 Harry Taylor was arrested for putting anti-religious leaflets in a prayer room in the John Lennon airport in Liverpool.   The specific charge was an Anti-Social Behaviour Order.  Here are a few of the images for which he would be going to jail for 6 months were his sentence not suspended for [...]

Arrest The Pope?

Johann Hari argues that London should do just that. The interesting discussion in which he makes this case takes place in the entire first video and the beginning of the second video: Your Thoughts?

Ross Douthat Claims Arguments Against Gay Marriage Lose Because They’re Just “Too Abstract”

Ross Douthat half admits to the intellectual bankruptcy of his opposition of to same-sex marriage and then tacitly demonstrates it with his pathetic reply when pushed to address the topic last month at the New School: “I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.” Mr. Douthat indicated [...]

Judge This: Hitchens On Whether Islamist Jihad Is Justifiable Response To Western Imperialism

The question is morally challenging but I think Hitchens’s reply is compelling and impressive.  Your Thoughts? And for a bonus, to add more fuel to the fire of this topic, here is (a hilarious) Bill Maher on why our extremists are not as bad as Muslim ones: Your Thoughts?

Vatican Snubs Kennedy Over Inconsistent Fielty

One can understand cool feelings and justifiably harsh moral judgments of Ted Kennedy over his behaior at Chappiquiddick.   But the Roman Catholic Church apparently takes more offense at his political independence of itself.  The pope has yet to issue any statement in the wake of Kennedy’s death and when Obama hand delivered a letter [...]

Atheism’s Evil History

via Hollie Pugliares

Richard Dawkins Interviews Jesuit Astronomer Father George Coyne

An utterly fascinating dialogue, Coyne throughout is a novel, deeply scientifically informed, and riveting thinker and Dawkins puts exactly the right questions and brief challenges to him.  Watch all 7 parts, they’re great. Your Thoughts?

Conservative Christians Coming Around On Harry Potter?

The contrast: Conservative Christian reviews of the new Harry Potter movie are surprisingly positive. “As ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ opens, we are once again reminded of the characteristics that make him something of a Christ figure,” Connie Neal writes for the evangelical Christianity Today. “It is more likely that at the end of [...]

How Can You Join A Conversation If You Won’t Dialogue?

Business ethicist Chris MacDonald is opting to skip the Pope’s new encylcical despite its high profile attempts to discuss the ethics of how business is done.  The reason? my main reason not to bother with the Pope’s new essay — with all due respect to my friends among the several hundred million Catholics in the [...]

The Gayby Boom?

Johann Hari on the rise of open gay parenting in the UK and the research indicating no averse effects for children: The children of gay couples are desperately and passionately wanted. They are, by definition, planned, with parents who have to go to a great deal of hassle and heart-searching before they are created. Compare [...]

The Pope’s Left Wing Views And The American Right’s Cognitive Dissonance

jfxgillis picks apart National Review Online (and other right wing) attempts to rationalize away the decidedly left-wing aspects of the Pope’s new encyclical.  The whole article is excellent and worth reading.  Here is his reply to attempts to claim the encyclical is not meant to be political: Pope Benedict says himself it’s a political in [...]

The Pope Not Interested In “Perfect Ideological Conformity?”

Russ Douthat has a strange column in The New York Times today arguing that because the pope’s views cross the standard political lines of America’s left and right wings (denouncing both environmental destruction and embryonic) that he shows “that truth may not be served by perfect ideological conformity.” The church is not a think tank, [...]