Monday, September 29, 2014
Sexuality and Pelagianism
Same-sex marriage, on this view, is utterly necessary for churches to affirm because it is a means for gay Christians to participate in Christ’s atoning self-gift. Or, as Eugene Rogers has put it, gay Christians’ renunciation (rather than consecration) of their desires “gives God nothing by which to redeem them, no hook in the flesh by which to capture them and pull them up.” What this means, as Douglas Farrow has pointed out, is that “Eros”—or the human pursuit and cultivation of it—“is the real mediator here, not Jesus Christ.”There's plenty of heresy to go around!
But things aren’t always better in the traditionalist camp. Mirroring the rhetoric of some of their ideological opponents, conservatives, too, can fall into the moralizing, semi-Pelagian trap. We—I count myself among them—can speak of celibacy as a faithful path for gay Christians in such sunny, sanguine terms that one might think salvation comes by saying no to gay sex rather than by the mediation of Christ.
Friday, September 26, 2014
I'm too young to die
ObamaCare was designed to a significant degree by a man who believes that living past the age of 75 is living too long. Think about that.I wonder if this is true? That would be disturbing.
Labels: health care, politics
Thursday, September 25, 2014
While while
In my latest reason to hate the English language, I just used the phrase.
I was talking to her for a while while walking around.Which I guess is correct, but made realize that the word while is ambiguous.
The NYT and bogus contraception stats
It's a matter of being bad at math, it seems. Leah Libresco picks them apart.
You may have seen the New York Times‘s much shared infographic on contraception failure rates, and I’m here — statistics cop badge in hand — to tell you that it ain’t necessarily so. There are some huge methodological flaws in the way that the NYT chose to model the risk of unplanned pregnancy over ten years, and I’m explaining just how badly they went wrong at The American Conservative.
Labels: contraception
Pro-choice to pro-life
Josh Brahm writes about his friend, Deanna, one of the interviewees in yesterday's post about the LGBT Pro-life community's thoughts.Always a good story.
Labels: prolife
A secular pro-life blog
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Capital gains tax and corporate tax
Apropos of nothing, here are three interesting articles about corporate/capital tax reform I found recently.
Capital Gains Taxes
How should governments tax capital
One way to fix the corporate tax: repeal it
Capital Gains Taxes
How should governments tax capital
One way to fix the corporate tax: repeal it
Labels: economics
Especial
I forget how this came up, but I ran across something that made me wonder about the adjective especial, which I think of as an antiquated and/or British equivalent of special and have never (to the best of my knowledge) used. It turns out there is supposed to be a difference between the two;Who knew?
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Onanism in other cultures
Despite the statistic that everyone's doing it, it turns out that only every college student is doing it.
Fully 96% of the subjects whose behavior has been reported in top psychological journals were drawn from only 12 % of the world's population.
. . . .
However, as the Hewletts document in their 2010 study, Western sexual patterns, including our frequent masturbation, are unusual by cross-cultural standards. The Hewletts arrived at this conclusion in part by studying the sexual behavior of two central African cultures. They were astonished to learn that neither the Aka nor the Ngandu were aware of masturbation
And Dirks is looking better all the time!
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
I'm glad Nick Dirks is no longer at Columbia
Because this letter is an embarrassment to his new university. Watch Popehat pick it apart.
Yesterday Chancellor Dirks sent an email about free speech to Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. In today's competitive publishing environment it is astonishingly difficult to distinguish yourself as an academic by being wrong about free speech, but Chancellor Dirks is equal to the challenge. His email is so very bad on every level — legally, logically, rhetorically, and philosophically — that it deserves scrutiny.I'm tempted to exercise my free speech rights and call Chancellor Dirks various bad names. But I will resist the urge.
Monday, September 08, 2014
Conservative by temparment
Read Chesterton as he talks about why it's a bad idea to destroy things we don't understand.
And when, in the general emancipation of modern society, the Duchess says she does not see why she shouldn’t play leapfrog, or the Dean declares that he sees no valid canonical reason why he should not stand on his head, we may say to these persons with patient benevolence: “Defer, therefore, the operation you contemplate until you have realised by ripe reflection what principle or prejudice you are violating. Then play leapfrog and stand on your head and the Lord be with you.” Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/08/if-its-bad-for-the-family-its-bad.html#ixzz3CkzvMVNX
Caffe Reggio
Went to Caffe Reggio on Saturday night for the first time since before Christmas. Had a sfogliatella, a favorite of mine. Go there before it turns into a Starbucks.
