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Steve Martin – Atheists don’t have no songs.
Pornography is an addiction. The pleasure derived from it is neurochemical, no different than any other pharmaceutical high. Men are particularly susceptible. And the culture continues to shift towards a society where porn is like aspirin.
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson’s remarks, as expressed in a Sunday Union Leader staff editorial, suggest that it is immoral to reduce what the government spends on health and social programs.
As quoted, "When sacrifice is perpetrated on the vulnerable and weak by the strong and prosperous, it is social abuse."
He goes on to include the poor, the disabled, the blind, the unemployed, the impoverished elderly, the uninsured and children living in poverty.
His point (one of them at least) is that by reducing government’s fiscal contribution to bureaucracies established to manage such things, that governor John Lynch and the New Hampshire legislature are considering immoral choices to balance the state budget.
So where do I begin?
This from CBN.com:
That is the title of Kathy Sullivan’s most recent contribution to the Union Leader. "Straight? Republicans Want To Meddle In Your Marriage, Too." And I must confess that my initial reaction after trying to wade through her editorial and then through HB 569 to see if she was just making stuff up again was, "what the hell is this bill?"
And then it dawned on me. (or maybe the coffee kicked in.)
The sole purpose of HB 569 is to preserve existing civil unions and Marriages while removing the State almost entirely from the business of marriage altogether. HB 569 does not dissolve your marriage, it simply (well, not simply) re-defines the state’s role in the decision of any two legally eligible persons to form a domestic contract, with or without a religious ceremony referred to as a marriage.
It’s like a union between "State" and "none of your damn business."
Chaeyoon Lim has published an article in the American Psychological Review that… "substantiates that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building intimate social networks there.”
So all that stuff about God, that’s just window dressing?
“Our study offers compelling evidence that it is the social aspects of religion, rather than theology or spirituality, that leads to life satisfaction,”
"In particular, we find that friendships built in religious congregation are the secret ingredient in religion that makes people happier.”
This looks like a conclusion looking for research to support it. But has Chaeyoon really gone out on a Lim?
Starting in 2011, public sector workers will no longer get days off related to any religious holiday, nor will they receive any compensation for these days unless they actually work. If as the liberals and secularists suggest, that we can’t have any God in government, then no one in government should get a paid day off as a result.
…and here’s a fitting rebuke to all those who worship government and the power of the State while striving to stamp out Christmas and Christ from the public sphere. Merry Christmas to you all! —Tim Condon
For as long as I can recall the New Hampshire Democrat Party has been using the “Press Release” to make up crap about people, misrepresent the words they use, change the meaning of their words, or in some cases creating out of whole cloth whatever perception they think will advance their clawing obsession with accumulating political power by damaging anyone or anything that stands between them and their Pinky and The Brain like nightly quest (minus the Brain) to take over the world.
A spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, someone named Harrell Kirstien, has accused GOP state Rep. David Bates (Salem/Windham) of trying to impose a "Bible belt social agenda" after seeing a video of Rep. Bates speaking and praying at the New England Solemn Assembly in Plymouth Mass. What follows is what prompted the attack from the New Hampshire Democratic Party. (Note … Read more
Old-hand conservative political activist and anti-establishment agitator Sam Pimm is back in town! Read upon on what he’s setting up this time.
Sam says….
Let me be clear. My towns middle school does not do all that bad a job covering the US constitution. I can say this mostly because they actually cover it for a few weeks, during an exploration of American history and the founding of the nation. But being either a victim of or party to the kinds of support materials embedded into the public education system, I still manage to find a few ringers that make me shake my head and smile.
Not too long ago I regaled you on these pages with the tale of just such a ringer on the Middle Schools ‘citizenship quiz,’ where it asked the question, where does free speech come from? The correct answer is of course, ‘our creator,’ who provided us with a set of unalienable rights that exist even in the vacuum of the necessary evil of government. But that’s not the answer they were looking for. They expect you to write ‘The 1st amendment.’ This is of course incorrect. It assumes people could not speak freely prior 1791 when the bill of rights was ratified which is why I am forever reminding my children that the US Constitution does not give rights, it protects them.
Which brings me to this newly discovered Gem. Yesterday I came across a series of poorly worded essay questions—my second sons homework–the worst of which was this; What part of Article VI of the US constitution supports the idea of separation of church and state? Explain. (Go ahead and roll your eyes or make a grunting noise, or whatever it is you do when confronted with such nonsense.)
On one string, there was a discussion about God, politicians and politics – that they were not too enthused about people talking about their faith. In one case, this was first said:
"…The Marxists and collective Salvationists of the left, and the Christian Fundamentalists of the right…"
and said that these people could stop populism that is the TEA Party movement. To further this thought, this was quoted about Sharon Angle (NV-R, trying to oust Dingy Harry from his Senatorial seat):
"We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government," she said.
and then proceeded with a negative commentary about those of faith cause others to be fearful.
So, you think I could leave that alone??? I certainly went ballistic on the first assertion (so, Christians are the same as Marxists???). And as an evangelical Christian, I agree with Sharon Angle that God, and God alone, is who we should be dependent upon. Secularists and Progressives CERTAINLY are pushing policies so that people are and will be come more and more dependent on Government.
Here was step 1 of my answer:
There’s some dispute regarding appearance standards in which a young woman has insisted that her pierced nose is part of her religious beliefs. Long story short–she does not want to remove the piercing on religious grounds because she is a member of the "Church of Body Modification."
The Church of Body Modification espouses an open minded approach to what it calls ancient body modification rites that are essential to spirituality. Funny, that’s what most ancient body modification cultures said to justify ritual human sacrifice. You know, removing the heart, chopping off heads, that sort of thing. Had to do it to appease the gods. Millions ‘modified.’
And aren’t clitorectomies and ancient religious form of body modification? I wonder if they are tolerant of those as well? Stoning women is another winner–not so much spiritual, but a religiously motivated modification none the less.
…and desire to understand the intersection of the truth at the core of both Christianity and Capitalism, this essay by George Gilder remains remarkably transcendent today: "The Soul of Silicon." Recommended. But then….
Sure, the US Constitution asserts the right for any religion to build a facility, even if it’s in a location that instigates, insults and disrespects the sacred plot where almost 3000 people were slaughtered in an act of cowardly terrorism.
Fine. Americans have to deal with this all the time.
As a firm believer and follower of our Constitution, I will never say "they can’t build it". I will, however, protest and argue, in an attempt to influence public opinion, perhaps applying enough pressure to force them to build it elsewhere.
I will ALSO advocate acts of reciprocation, similar to those shown below…
Again, from an email thread based on an assertion that "Christian Fundamentalists" could be treated similarly as Marxists (as both can be viewed as totalitarian). My take? Not so much, and not so fast, for if you eliminate God…
I will quickly, and only briefly (as I have a jam packed day today and do NOT have the time to attend to this subject properly) wade in here.
I think it totally appropriate to bring "the God thing" into the conversation, and my eyebrows crawled a couple inches up my forehead at the phrase "Christian Fundamentalists", as normally that is used as a pejorative when brought into the political arena.
Indeed – the Left is working its tail off to try to take it off the political table. They know that it is a bedrock of traditional Americana – remove that brick from the wall of Traditional Values, and it only becomes a WHEN and not an IF that we will (not may, will) lose the bedrock supposition of our Republic.
Yet, I think MORE talk of THE First Principle must happen – that our Rights stem from God. The secular Left (and many on the Right) wish to suppress that discussion. The Left does because then they have to acknowledge that they and Government are NOT the absolute entities they believe themselves to be or should be – and thus, free to make decisions for the rest of us "without a controlling legal authority" as Al Gore once put it. And if they continue to sever that relationship, they will have more and more leverage to continue their Progressive march towards complete Socialism – a God-less based society and a replacement of an internal law based society with more and more of a external law based society.
And they are on their way, make no mistake about it! When a federal judge can blithely, in an attempt to institute homosexual marriage in California and sweep a boilerplate of Christian orthodoxy in that "gender plays no role in marriage".
Guest post from Robert Jursik…
For a man seemingly incapable of going fifteen minutes without saying "Let me be clear," President Obama evidently has an uncanny knack for being misunderstood. Following the iftar dinner hosted at the White House Friday night, headlines in every major newspaper in America – and even the New York Times – screamed something similar to "President Backs Ground Zero Mosque." Within twenty-four hours came the update: "Uhh, no he didn’t."
Now we are told that he actually meant he supports the RIGHT to build a mosque but would not actually comment on the WISDOM of it. Horse hockey. The "eloquent" Harvard-trained lawyer-turned-best-selling-author-turned-president knows exactly what he meant: he wants everyone to think he agrees with them. It should not be that difficult to come down on one side of this question or the other. The debate we’re seeing in this country now proves that without question. Given the choice between progressive liberalism and libertarian constitutionalism, I choose…neither.
In fact, I choose – as I always do – conservatism…
I am a member of a number of email group lists – primarily those I would consider to be of the "Liberty and Freedom" (insert "Individual" into that as well) that are often very lively and there are a lot of Really Smart People talking about a lot of stuff – and there are disagreements!
Someone really smart brought up the phrase "Christian Fundamentalists" in a very slightly negative (in my reading of it) fashion as being one end of the political spectrum – but the other end was bracketed by "The Marxists and collective Salvationists" at the other. Thus, the implication was written (IMHO) that Christians are the same as Marxists, just the other side of the coin. Well, even with all the stuff I wanted to accomplish today, I felt the following was needed to be written.
I will quickly, and only briefly (as I have a jam packed day today and do NOT have the time to attend to this subject properly) wade in here.
I think it totally appropriate to bring "the God thing" into the conversation, and my eyebrows crawled a couple inches up my forehead at the phrase "Christian Fundamentalists", as normally that is used as a pejorative when brought into the political arena.
Yet, I think MORE talk of THE First Principle must happen – the our Rights stem from God. The secular Left (and many on the Right) wish to suppress that discussion. The Left does because then they have to acknowledge that they and Government are NOT the absolute entities they believe themselves to be or should be – and thus, free to make decisions for the rest of us "without a controlling legal authority" as Al Gore once put it. And if they continue to sever that relationship, they will have more and more leverage to continue their Progressive march towards complete Socialism – a God-less based society and a replacement of an internal law based society with more and more of a external law based society.
Those on Right simply think it is a "yucky" topic and belongs solely…