Wednesday, December 26, 2007

TIME Magazine's Top Ten Religion Stories ...

... included this one:

#5 The Slow-Motion Episcopal/Anglican Train Wreck
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"The Episcopal Bishops' meeting in New Orleans fails to stem the ongoing defection of conservatives over the church's positions on gays, or the likelihood of a worldwide Anglican split over the same issue."

Read the others here ...
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... and maybe next year the story will be "life goes on!"
I mean, who really cares, at this point, about whether a bunch of over-fed, over-egoed bishops get their every-ten-year-whether-they-need-it-or-not junket to Jolly Olde for tea at Lambeth?
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Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Time Magazine Poll: Anti-Gay Stance Hurts Christian Image

Christianity's Image Problem
Kinnaman says non-Christians' biggest complaints about the faith are not immediately theological: Jesus and the Bible get relatively good marks. Rather, he sees resentment as focused on perceived Christian attitudes. Nine out of ten outsiders found Christians too "anti-homosexual," and nearly as many perceived it as "hypocritical" and "judgmental." Seventy-five percent found it "too involved in politics."

Not only has the decline in non-Christians' regard for Christianity been severe, but Barna results also show a rapid increase in the number of people describing themselves as non-Christian. One reason may be that the study used a stricter definition of "Christian" that applied to only 73% of Americans. Still, Kinnaman claims that however defined, the number of non-Christians is growing with each succeeding generation: His study found that 23% of Americans over 61 were non-Christians; 27% among people ages 42-60; and 40% among 16-29 year olds. Younger Christians, he concludes, are therefore likely to live in an environment where two out of every five of their peers is not a Christian.

Churchgoers of the same age share several of the non-Christians' complaints about Christianity. For instance, 80% of the Christians polled picked "anti-homosexual" as a negative adjective describing Christianity today. And the view of 85% of non-Christians aged 16-29 that present day Christianity is "hypocritical — saying one thing doing another," was, in fact, shared by 52% of Christians of the same age. Fifty percent found their own faith "too involved in politics." Forty-four percent found it "confusing."
DUH!!!! THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!!!!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The O'Racist Factor

BILL O"REILLY'S RACIST COMMENTS ON HAVING DINNER IN HARLEM AT SYLVIA'S RESTAURANT WITH REV. AL SHARPTON:
"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City," he said. "It was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. It was the same. And that's really what this society is really all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference."
He later added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, '[Expletive], I want some more ice tea.' It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there ordering and having fun and there wasn't any craziness at all."

WHAT A HORSE'S ASS!!!!!

Monday, September 24, 2007

I wish I could have been at Columbia University today...........




Earlier today, the university had been the scene of gathering protests as it came under criticism for giving Mr. Ahmadinejad a platform.

Before he turned the lectern over to Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bollinger said that he wanted to emphasize that “this is the right thing to do” to have him speak at the university, because of the American tradition of openness and free speech.

But addressing Mr. Ahmadinejad, he said, “You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.”
HOW EXCITING FOR THE STUDENTS TO GET A FIRST HAND LOOK. TO THOSE WHO PROTEST, REMEMBER, WE ARE A NATION BASED ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH...EVEN IF WE DO NOT AGREE. LET'S NOT FORGET THAT! KUDOS TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Bravo Dan, they done you wrong!!!!!


Rather sues CBS for $70 million, saying he was made a scapegoat



Associated Press September 20, 2007
NEW YORK - Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and his former bosses yesterday, stating that they had made him a scapegoat for a discredited story about President Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.

The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months as a news anchor were clouded by controversy over the story, said the actions of the defendants damaged his reputation and caused him significant financial loss.

The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, states that the network intentionally botched the aftermath of the story about Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard and had Rather take the fall to "pacify" the White House. He was removed from his job at "CBS Evening News" in March 2005.
CBS MADE DAN RATHER TAKE A FALL WHEN THEY BOWED TO WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE. HIS DISTINGUISHED CAREER ENDED IN A CLOUD OF CONTROVERSY. I HOPE HE WINS THIS LAWSUIT!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

I'm dumbfounded!


Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?


Many people will say it is morally acceptable to pull a switch that diverts a train, killing just one person instead of the five on the other track. But if asked to save the same five lives by throwing a person in the train’s path, people will say the action is wrong. This may be evidence for an ancient subconscious morality that deters causing direct physical harm to someone else. An equally strong moral sanction has not yet evolved for harming someone indirectly.
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Where do moral rules come from? From reason, some philosophers say. From God, say believers. Seldom considered is a source now being advocated by some biologists, that of evolution.

At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living. Could the behaviors evolved by social animals to make societies work be the foundation from which human morality evolved?

In a series of recent articles and a book, “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, has been constructing a broad evolutionary view of morality that traces its connections both to religion and to politics.

Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) began his research career by probing the emotion of disgust. Testing people’s reactions to situations like that of a hungry family that cooked and ate its pet dog after it had become roadkill, he explored the phenomenon of moral dumbfounding — when people feel strongly that something is wrong but cannot explain why.

Dumbfounding led him to view morality as driven by two separate mental systems, one ancient and one modern, though the mind is scarcely aware of the difference. The ancient system, which he calls moral intuition, is based on the emotion-laden moral behaviors that evolved before the development of language. The modern system — he calls it moral judgment — came after language, when people became able to articulate why something was right or wrong.

The emotional responses of moral intuition occur instantaneously — they are primitive gut reactions that evolved to generate split-second decisions and enhance survival in a dangerous world. Moral judgment, on the other hand, comes later, as the conscious mind develops a plausible rationalization for the decision already arrived at through moral intuition.

Moral dumbfounding, in Dr. Haidt’s view, occurs when moral judgment fails to come up with a convincing explanation for what moral intuition has decided.

Monday, September 17, 2007

I Never Was A Barry Manilow Fan.....Until Now!

Barry to Elisabeth Hasselback of The View: Your "View" is Dangerous





Legendary singer Barry Manilow has pulled out of his scheduled appearance on "The View" tomorrow -- because he strongly disagrees with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck's conservative view!

In an press release Barry says, "I strongly disagree with her views. I think she's dangerous and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her." Barry, is taking a stand! Manilow is currently on a press tour promoting the release of his new album, "Greatest Songs of the Seventies."


BARRY, YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!