Hard to find. But Mrs. F takes a look at someone who is rather upset by this fact, and the implications it has on religion.

If I had been taught to believe in the God she describes, I'd run away screaming, too (and I'd be a lot less tolerant of believers than she claims to be.) She seems to have learned about God in the way many atheists and agnostics do: through sitcoms and comment boxes and fundamentalist kiddie songs.

Labels: religion

A rather bad Catholic pickup line.

“Let’s cut the chit chat. I’m thinking of one thing right now and it’s not the Eucharist.”

Labels: catholic, humor

I have been working on trying to be grateful lately. It seems that there are many wonderful things that will happen if I can accomplish my goal of not being a Debbie downer.

Those who count their blessings have less likelihood for depression, anxiety, or envy, while possessing stronger social connections, greater relationship satisfaction, and a real leg up in the workplace.

It also has the advantage of being the opposite of envy, which is kinda sorta on the list of deadly sins.

Labels: personal, Virtue

Singer not only holds that abortion is permissible at all stages of pregnancy, but also notoriously defends the view that there are circumstances in which it would be moral to kill a newborn child.

Singer arrives at this position by running a familiar anti-abortion argument in reverse. The anti-abortion argument is that because a child does not undergo any transformation in the course of being born that could plausibly be supposed to give it a right not to be killed, the unborn have such a right, since to deny this would lead to the absurd conclusion that there is nothing inherently wrong in killing the newly born.

Singer reasons in the other direction and denies that both the unborn and the newly born have a right not to be killed.

At least the reasoning is sound. Something I've written about in the past, for sure, but the article was in last month's First Things on the right side of the paywall.

Labels: morality, prolife

They don't have it.

In 2005, The New York Times somberly warned that the GOP’s “deeply misguided” attempt to change the Senate rules “poses a real danger of permanently damaging the system of checks and balances at the heart of American democracy.” This past November, the newspaper touted “A New Chance for the Senate”: Democrats, it said, “can vastly improve the efficiency of Congress and reduce filibuster abuse with a simple-majority vote. This time they need to seize the moment.”

Or from the other side

Seven years ago, the Heritage Foundation called for “ending the filibuster of qualified judges.” Now, Heritage deems the filibuster “the soul of the Senate” and attempts to reform it a “partisan power grab.”

Power is only good when you and your friends have it, otherwise it is evil and illegitimate, seems to be the message. For the record, I'm for the filibuster at all times. Efficient government is often the opposite of good government.

Thanks to Overlawyered for this one.

Labels: morality, politics

It's an ugly scene, as Jimmy Akin points out:

This makes it unmistakable that Jacob is suffering the consequences of his own act of deception. He deceived his father, and now as a father, he is being deceived by his sons.

. . .

We cannot "do evil that good may come," and we cannot know what other, better things would have happened if we had done what we should have.

Labels: Bible, morality

Here's a post on why imperial units are hot, thank to Hacker News. Short answer: they're organic.

Cups and pounds relate much better to real portion sizes in a traditional home kitchen. Almost all recipe’s call for a pound of meat as it’s a kind of natural portion amount of meat to cook with. The same with cups of liquid. It’s way more natural to use a cup of liquid as the base of a recipe than deciliters.

I don't know if I believe it, but it is interesting.

Labels: science