Morals and Ethics

A Hope for America

It's time for us to stop hating saints just because most of us haven't yet found the nerve to be one.

Swift Kick and Punt Return

Because blogging has become popular and has drawn off a small sliver of the public who might otherwise mindlessly read the country's major newspapers or watch its television media, we are now targetted by the same people who have been maneuvering big media to toe the Republican line.

A Test for Evil: Homosexuality

I'd like to suggest a test for evil and use homosexuality as the subject. The test is simple: an act can be called evil if it causes harm.

Intelligence, Sanity, Good, and Evil

An unchecked faith in our intelligence -- just like an unchecked faith in anything -- may be our own worst enemy. It is in the name of intelligence, I feel, that we make some of our greatest blunders.

Pot-Bellied Buddhism

The pot-bellied Buddha serves as the Bible does for Fundamentalists when they justify war, violence, and consumerism: to mystify and hide the nonspiritual, sense-bound nature of the hedonist lifestyle.

Bots and Guns

While editing the same massive script that I have been editing for the last two weeks, I came across the phrase "I do not like guns". ALICE, who professes to be a libertarian, asks "What about the Second Amendment?

Naked Quakers

If it had just been a group of teenagers," said Shari, "they probably would have overlooked it.

The "For the Sake of Argument" Argument

Straussian discourse must continually engage us in argument about things already proved so that the interests of the chosen elite will not be threatened.

Cowbird Morals

Stealth is not nearly as important as brazen insertion.

Catholics and the Hanging Gut

Why not just feel good about the way we look?

Catholic Suttee

When martyrdom is chosen because of social pressure and not because of personal devotion, it becomes murder.

Stephen Riddle Responds

It is increasingly hard for American Catholics on the Left.

Ecclesia reformada

I excommunicated the Catholic Church from giving me sacraments.

Fundamentalism is Overpermissive about Fat

"Oh, I eat very little," you hear them say. Then you see them, with their plates piled high at a smorgabord and you know that most of them are liars.

If Lucifer had a Hammer

Since when is Kevin one to complain about religious tolerance when he doesn't even acknowledge that leftist Catholics and others exist?

Suspend the Ump

I can see no reason for calling for the removal of the hijab from this woman's head, not for safety, not to make it easy to discern which team the woman played for.

More on Religious Tolerance

When statements about tolerance are couched in "We won't be able to win this one without them" you send the message that what matters most is the winning of the election, not the principles.

Religious Tolerance

For all their talk about tolerance, what are Patrick and Kevin doing to support the Christian Left?

The Inconvenience Posed by Sufis

This Catholic woman insisted that Sufism was part of a long established Islamic plot to create fellow travelers.

Goldilocks Robbed the Three Bears

Baby Bear smashes what is left of his chair over Goldilock's head.

The Poor and Rich

The poor are materialistic but the wealthy want power, not just to own objects but to own people, too.

Amending Arendt: Camp X-Ray Reveals Banal Evil

What "allegedly" happened in Camp X-Ray wasn't torture: it was sexual harassment, not unlike what Catherine McKinnon and others saw happening to women in the American workplace.

Scourges by God?

The message out of the Bible and out of Science is that these things are just diseases.

From a Notebook

I'm with Wittgenstein on this: scientific philosophy looks at things, describes them.

Martyrdom 6: Catholic Martyrs, Attis, Pious Frauds, and BDSM

It was not for beauty that the early church fathers banned the damaged from celebrating the Mass; the prelates were more concerned about the barbarous lengths to which some interpreted scripture and pagan rites in which initiates altered themselves.

Pseudonyms

I reject this thinking as unethical and as a capitulation.

Martydom 5: Vukovar, Guernica, and Hiroshima

I refused to take the side of any government, any army in a war.

Hannah Arendt on Eichmann

What mattered in the case of Eichmann is that he wanted to please his superiors.

Martyrdom 4: The Soot in the Fields

To thwart them, we must tell the whole truth. Sixteen million people died in the Holocaust: Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, and "defectives".

Martyrdom 3: Esprit de Corps

Generals such as Patton like to think that they are the high priests of vast congregations called "armies", but from what I have heard and read from grunts the spiritual community is more akin to that of Quakers than to the Vatican or Shinto.

Martyrdom 2: Pyramids, Tophets, and a Ram in a Thicket

The man or woman who lies down upon the altar is called a victim, from the Latin victima meaning an animal used for sacrifice. The word comes from an Indo-European root "weik" signifying that which is magic and holy.

Passion and The Passion in Lake Forest

Sitting in a restaurant talking about how the movie moved us is not putting ourselves in the position of Jesus, who suffered the tortures, carried the cross, and expired with his hands and feet pinned to its wood while slowly suffocating.

Martyrdom 1: The Martyrs of York and Edith Stein

Which were the martyrs of York? The ones who killed themselves or the ones who were massacred by the crowd?

Shooting P(h)easants

Tonight in the philosophy reading group that I attend, I advanced the idea (based on a reading of Iris Murdoch) that good was based on being aware of your place in the Universe and evil was a denial of that place.

The Golden Rule and Getting Laid

"Hey, I like people coming up to me and saying 'Do you want to have sex with me?' So it's OK for me to ask, right?"

Hijacked for God?

Passengers dialed relatives, perhaps in fear that they'd booked a ticket on a Christian Identity suicide mission.

Adolf, Dubya, and Me

if notified of such a funeral in Orange County, California and physically capable of doing so, I will attend, wearing only my dark suit and making no political comment at the scene.

Three Rights

Three fundamental human rights occur to me after the recent discussion here about domestic violence.

Honor, Shame, Friends, and Therapy

I can do without the good old days when we kept matters of incest and rape to ourselves. Rofayda Qaoud deserved shelter and understanding. If she couldn't find it within her family and her circle of friends, why couldn't she go outside of that box for it?

Prejudiced against the Rich?

"The rich are not like you and me" F. Scott Fitzgerald says in The Great Gatsby.

Culture of Victimization

If the charity of the wealthy is to be taken seriously, there can be no returns on it.

Money 2

Money is a useful tool. So is a hammer.

Church Sign

Make your own by clicking on the image!

Intelligent Design Network, Inc. Bears False Witness

I argue that, on the contrary, by promoting this ends justify the means attempt to seize hold of the American mind, Intelligent Design Network, Inc. is setting a hideous moral example for the youth they purport to "protect".

If Christ Drove....

The license plate holder read "Mission Viejo: DIABLOS".

Seen at a Bookstore

The newest book by GE chairman Jack Welch says that he is "speaks from the gut".

Hedonism and Greed

It's on the left that you will find peacemakers, people persecuted for righteousness sake, the poor, etc.

The Issue of Trust

Arnold's candidacy is thus undermining my faith in other people.

The Law and Morality

The logic is telling: if the law changes to allow a person to become legitimized, then that person is no longer illegal and therefore no longer morally suspect. The question which must follow is this: if the only thing that has changed is the status of the person under the law and not the behavior, why declare them morally reprehensible in the first place?

The Ten Commandments

It is unhealthy for any free society or any free religion to allow healthy and vigorous debate to be shut down by the whims of a majority -- no matter how slender or how broad. It kills the community and kills the soul.

An Alabama Recall

Riley, who is a devout Christian and a man of conscience, read a theological paper that discussed the Christian's obligation to the poor. His tax reform would have shifted the tax burden off the backs of the working poor and onto the backs of the wealthy.

The Gutless Agnostic Pacifist Speaks Up

Every Christian blog needs it's token agnostic!

Buddhism and War

During the heyday of Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent, emperors such as Harsha of Kanauj and Dharmapala of Binhar and Bengal waged wars of expansion quite avidly, despite their faith.

Mexican Gardeners and Middle Class Copouts

we claim that we want this end to illegal immigration. So why don't we seek lifestyles that are less dependant on lawns and nonnative shrubs?

Sin
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

Another Perversion of Founding Thoughts

It seems to me that the CC has hit on a way to bring moneychangers into the virtual temple.

Polygamy: A Descendant Thinks On It

If polygamy were legal, would I do it?

Relativism is Not a Morality

Those who insist that cultural relativism demands that we declare two cultures to be "equally wrong" on any given issue are -- dare I say it? -- wrong.

The Great Ape Molester

If Arnold becomes governor, expect the State of California to be wrapped up in sexual harassment lawsuits due to his behavior for years to come.

Why Questions Do Not Get Asked

It's too upsetting, for these, to think that we might be flawed and promoting ideals that are evil.

Arnold's Charity 2

So, Arnold, where's the renunciation of your films? Where are your demands to suppress your oeuvre of violence? Why did you make a Terminator 3 if you are a "peace-loving guy"?

Arnold's Charity

What impresses me is Arnold's dedication to promoting his own name as an actor and as a gubenatorial candidate.

The Ambiguity of Our Time

Our troops are doing monstrous things in Iraq and they're being undercompensated for it.

Hunting Confirmed?

Living in this world of violence pornography, surrounded by men who love it, can we really say that she is making a fully informed choice?

Hunting Women

Civil libertarian that I am, allowing as I do the expression of many bizarre practices as long as they do no harm to those involved, I must scream that willing or not, this harms not only the woman who runs but all women.

Special Rights

I'd like to turn the insinuation on its head: heterosexuals who oppose homosexual marriage are demanding special rights on the basis of their sexuality.

Jesus Opposed Prayer in School

You cannot serve two masters, Jesus warned us, but the prayer in school advocates pretend that God and Caesar are the same, which is clearly counter-Christian.

The Other Jesus

The more I see Fundamentalists running around attacking others, the more I believe that there must be a second Jesus Christ, other than the one who delivered the Beatitudes.

On Open Mindedness: A Pacifist Manifesto

To my pacifist friends: Keep the faith!

Baby Killers?

I still maintain that I while I do not support "our boys" as they ransack Iraq, I also will not fling nasty epithets at them when they return home.

Sermon on the March:
Beatitudes for the American "Christian"

For a contrary view on the meaning of Christianity, read Matthew 5: 3-11.

George W. Bush: Servant of Satan or Servant of God?

"I'm glad we have a Christian president," said "big_jizo" and I said "We don't."

Blackhawk Clowns

De Genova passes himself off as an ally in the struggle against the Bush Blitzkrieg of the checks against the rampages of the presidency and the sell-out GOPher Congress, but he's a friend I'd rather not have.

Prayer Resolution

Sometimes I think I left Christianity and became a agnostic so that I could better live the words of Christ.

My Father and the Cruise Missile

The night the cruise missiles rained on Bagdhad in 1991, I lay in my bed. I was desperate; I was in a distinct, determined minority because of my opposition, and I was not at all quiet: I was screaming.

Support our Troops? -- The Question is HOW?

Photos of "our boys" show them to be relatively fat and happy compared to these children. They will be in the crucible for a matter of weeks. The children of Iraq were born to this horror and they've been in it for years.

Our "Boys" are Men Who Made Choices

If anyone can devise a program whereby an Iraqi soldier gets one care package for each one I send to an Allied soldier, I will take part.

St. Antony's Sister

It makes a sweet story if you don't think it through.

A Blank Pillar

Charity isn't another form of glory or advertising.

The Gura and Others, Revisited

I know I sound extremely selfish right now. So does a starving woman when the subject of food comes up.

The Gura

I never caught on until later that I was being sized up for two things: the size of my discretionary income and my sexual attractiveness.

Homosexuality and The Divine Comedy

I support same sex marriage and discourage homosexual promiscuity in the same spirit that I discourage heterosexual promiscuity.

Crazy Tracy vs. the Vatican

I can't for the life of me see why the Vatican doesn't think that women are fit to preach the Gospel.