Another Free Speech Award Winner!

Posted on October 26, 2007 by me

Thanks to my friend Mike for pointing out “former homosexual and HIV-positive Christian activist” James Hartline, who demonstrates that ultra right wing Christian fundamentalists also take advantage of our freedom of speech. Now, I’ve never heard of Mr. Hartline, but I felt compelled to go to the source and check him out. Wow. That’s all I can say.

Here, from his very own blog, is the quote that won him this prestigious award:

They shook their fists at God and said, “We don’t care what God says, we will issue our legal brief to support gay marriage in San Diego!” Then Mayor Jerry Sanders mocked the Christian vote and signed off on this rebellious legal document to support same-sex marriage.
And then the streets of La Jolla under the Mt. Soledad Cross began to cave in.

They shook their fists at God and said, “We don’t care what the Bible says, We want the California school children indoctrinated into homosexuality!” And then Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the heinous SB777 which bans the use of “mom” and “dad” in the text books and promotes homosexuality to all school children in California.

And then the wildfires of Southern California engulfed the land like a raging judgment against the radicalized anti-christian California rebels.

Apparently Harry Reid was wrong. It’s not global warming, it is the gays. We should have known. So, Mr. Hartline, you win! If this blog made a profit, I’d send you a trophy or something. But, as it is, the prestige will have to suffice. I should point out, if you’re new to the blog, that the Freedom of Speech award is given to those who proudly take advantage of the First Amendment, which guarantees us the right to say really stupid things in front of millions of people.

What’s “really stupid” about the statement I quoted? Well, one of the commenters on Hartline’s blog had this to say:

god demolished new orleans via katrina. well, except bourbon street, where all the homos are.

currently, fires are burning in southern california, but the city of los angeles has been spared. west hollywood is still standing, but republican strongholds have been turned to ash.

clearly, god hates black people and republicans.

What’s wrong with this “judgment” mentality? Well, consider these Old Testament examples: God sends the flood, but saves the only “righteous” man left (and his family). When Abraham negotiated with God for Sodom & Gomorrah, God agreed to hold off judgment if a mere handful of righteous people remained; as it turned out, he removed Lot and family from the place first. Does God have a pattern of destroying the righteous and leaving the “sinners” behind? It wouldn’t seem so. By the way, in San Diego, you’d expect the Hillcrest area to go up in flames first (along with my favorite restaurants…), not conservative Poway and Rancho Bernardo. Were the people who died gay?

It’s bad theology, bad logic, and just plain ignorant. From this comment, it appears that Mr. Hartline doesn’t know his Bible, and doesn’t know his God (or maybe we have different gods…). I am not “pro-gay” by the way. I’m just pro-truth.

To Freedom of Speech!

Posted in Politics/Current Events, The Freedom of Speech Awards | 1 Comment

The new Freedom of Speech Award goes to…

Posted on October 25, 2007 by me

Harry Reid!

For those who may not be aware, since it’s been some time since I gave out this award, The Freedom of Speech Award is given to those who go above and beyond in celebrating their right of freedom of speech. And, as I’ve explained before, the freedom of speech is defined by me as “the right to say really stupid things in front of millions of people.”

Which brings us to Harry Reid, who could qualify for this award on a fairly regular basis. But, I wait until I see a prime example of public stupidity – I mean, free speech – to take up space here. As reported on the Maverick Philosopher blog, The Hill posted an article Wednesday which included the following gem from our man Reid:

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

In a perfect example of America’s much-valued privilege of Freedom of Speech, Reid is completely shameless in being a political opportunist as well as a speaker of public stupidity. Where else but in America! The Maverick P’s post goes on to make the following observation: “The hot air of a jackass like Reid plays more of a role that any supposed global warming.” However, as the Maverick P goes on to state, Hugh Hewitt doesn’t seem to appreciate free speech as much as I do:

Reid is a witless opportunist. Half a million people are evacuated, at least 1,200 homes have been lost so far, federal, state, county and local resources are performing acts of heroism all over California to save lives and property, and Harry Reid wants to blame it on global warming to score political points for his energy bill? What a creep.

Oh well… Hugh has his First Amendment rights, too. I just like to look at the positive side of things.

Posted in Liberal Logic, Politics/Current Events, The Freedom of Speech Awards | 6 Comments

Where is “real” worship to be found?

Posted on October 20, 2007 by me

From the i-monk:

If you want to see genuine worshipers, I’m not sure your local evangelical “praise and worship” service is necessarily the right place to go. Maybe….maybe you might want to stop in that 8 a.m. mass over at St. William’s.

This is a nice companion to something I wrote a while back. Someday soon I’ll write about why I’d consider rejoining a Lutheran church… if one (in the original sense of the word) still exists.

Posted in Church, My Own Personal Religion, Theological Musings | Leave a comment

A high school-level philosophical reply to Dawkins

Posted on October 20, 2007 by me

While browsing around the web this morning I came across this article by Doug McManaman, a philosophy instructor at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, and also the President of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. In the paper, apparently written to his students to deal with the apparent issues raised by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, he deals with two of Dawkins’ arguments:

  • There is no evidence for the existence of God.
  • Truth is essentially scientific.

What I like about McManaman’s article is that it is written for his high-school students, thus I have a fair chance of understanding it. About the issue of the existence of God, he writes:

But the existence of God is not a scientific hypothesis that is meant to fill in the blank to the question of the origin of the universe. It is certainly possible for God or gods to be taken in this way, that is, to attribute certain unexplained natural phenomena to a god, as if the sun is a god, or the rain, etc. If one thinks along these lines, one will certainly have to provide evidence for such an hypothesis. But that is not what Jews and Christians mean when they speak of God.

He goes on to explain, as I have attempted to do in the past, that God is not a contingent being of the sort that Dawkins argues against. Of course, Dawkins has built in an opposition to that question in the book, (“don’t argue that you don’t believe in this god either, I can’t deal with everybody’s particular god!”), but that’s simply because that argument is a rather good one.

With regard to the claim that “all truth is scientific,” he presents a simple exercise in logic that demonstrates the error of this assertion, then deals briefly with Dawkins’ claim that the God of the Old Testament is immoral. Summing up, he says:

So how does Dawkins get away with this? To be honest, I’m not sure how much he’s getting away with. It seems that most of the bloggers and book reviewers I read are able to see through him to some degree or another.

It’s a fairly short, simple, look at these issues, but I think he’s done a good job. Now, having never been Roman Catholic, I doubt that I will agree with some of McManaman’s thoughts on other issues, such as purgatory, penance and the Pope. However, he’s also put together a basic primer on philosophy (from a Catholic viewpoint, of course) which I have bookmarked and will look through.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 7 Comments