A kindly reader (cowboy hat tip to him) sent me a link to the following cartoon.
First a little background, though: In Dungeons and Dragons and similar games, players are given a "saving throw"–a roll of the dice to determine whether they will fall victim to certain kinds of attacks (e.g., magical ones). A character who succeeds in this roll is said to have "saved."
Now with that background . . .
[SOURCE.]
The Center for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which publishes Skeptical Inquirer magazine, has an anti-supernatural bias, but occasionally they get on right.
They just did!
(Well, technically they did in their November-December 2004 issue, which just showed up onlin.)
(I wonder if everyone on their staff is a P-10. Sure would be helpful in ferreting out information for their magazine.)
TKS blogger Jim Geraghty is going to be moving to Turkey soon because his wife’s job is taking her there.
As a result, he’s been studying up on NATO-member Turkey, learning Turkish, etc.
In the course of his studies, he came across an interesting Wall Street Journal piece about anti-Americanism in Turkey.
Here are a few excerpts:
Among the paper’s "scoops" have been the 1,000 Israeli soldiers deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq, and that U.S. forces have been harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."
It’s not much better in the secular press. The mainstream Hurriyet has accused Israeli hit squads of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul, and the U.S. of starting an occupation of Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. At Sabah, a columnist last fall accused the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, of letting his "ethnic origins" — guess what, he’s Jewish — determine his behavior. Mr. Edelman is indeed the all-too-rare foreign-service officer who takes seriously his obligation to defend America’s image and interests abroad. The intellectual climate in which he’s operating has gone so mad that he actually felt compelled to organize a conference call with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey to explain that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the recent tsunami.
Never in an ostensibly friendly country have I had the impression of embassy staff so besieged. Mr. Erdogan’s office recently forbade Turkish officials from attending a reception at the ambassador’s residence in honor of the "Ecumenical" Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul. Why? Because "ecumenical" means universal, which somehow makes it all part of a plot to carve up Turkey.
Perhaps the most bizarre anti-American story au courant in the Turkish capital is the "eighth planet" theory, which holds not only that the U.S. knows of an impending asteroid strike, but that we know it’s going to hit North America. Hence our desire to colonize the Middle East.
It all sounds loony, I know. But such stories are told in all seriousness at the most powerful dinner tables in Ankara. The common thread is that almost everything the U.S. is doing in the world — even tsunami relief — has malevolent motivations, usually with the implication that we’re acting as muscle for the Jews.
In the face of such slanders Turkish politicians have been utterly silent. In fact, Turkish parliamentarians themselves have accused the U.S. of "genocide" in Iraq, while Mr. Erdogan (who we once hoped would set for the Muslim world an example of democracy) was among the few world leaders to question the legitimacy of the Iraqi elections. When confronted, Turkish pols claim they can’t risk going against "public opinion."
Have fun in Turkey, Jim!
The blog’s average number of hits per day has finally been drug up to 1000.
As you can see, its total hits per day are considerably higher, but the early days of the blog drag down the average. I think yesterday we got between 6000-7000 hits, but it’s hard to tell since "Today" reckons hits in a really weird way.
Those are hit, though, not distinct visitors. (I.e., they include all repeat visits and clicking into comment boxes.)
Maybe we’ll get to that level some day, though.
We’re also closing in on 300,000 total hits (in less than a year of operation).
Amy Welborn had a really nifty globalinfographicthingie on where the world’s Catholic population lives.
So I swiped it.
Here ’tis:
Click to enlarge. (Makes it clearer.)
[Cowboy hat tip: Amy Welborn.]
Amy Welborn had a really nifty globalinfographicthingie on where the world’s Catholic population lives.
So I swiped it.
Here ’tis:
Click to enlarge. (Makes it clearer.)
[Cowboy hat tip: Amy Welborn.]
National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) head Nancy Keenan has written a letter to pro-lifers asking for their help (WARNING! Evil file format! [.pdf]).
Wellllllll now. . . . Isn’t that "special."
Let’s see what she has to say:
Hm. Help NARAL prevent abortions? They’ve seen the light and are joining our side? They’re changing their name to NURAL (National Unborn Rights Action League)? Doesn’t sound plausible. The credibility quotient of professional babykillers is low. Must be on lookout for incompetent attempts at deception.
For years, your groups and ours have waged one of the country’s most divisive political wars over a woman’s right to choose to kill her own offspring.
True.
We believe passionately that women have the right to decide for themselves when to
bring children into the worldkill their own children [sorry, the kids are already "in the world" as soon as they’re conceived] – without government interference. You disagree – passionately and sincerely.
Darn tootin’!
We will never resolve our differences on this basic question.
If by "we" you mean most individuals who are alive in the pro-abort movement right now and most individual pro-lifers, you are correct. Though some individuals may convert from one side to the other, most of the most committed members of both sides will remain where they are. On the other hand, if you mean our movements will always be locked in this struggle, no. Pro-lifers reproduce themselves while pro-aborts do not. Eventually, your movement will wither for demographic reasons (a phenomenon dubbed "the Roe effect"), leaving the pro-life movement free to protect unborn children again. The only question is how long it will take to stop the abortion holocaust you have initiated and how many millions of children will be murdered in the meantime.
But we should agree on an equally fundamental point: America would be a better country if no woman ever faced the difficult choices posed by an unintended pregnancy.
Yeah, and it would be a better country if there was no such thing as cancer, heart disease, obesity, or AIDS and in which nobody had to work for a living and nobody ever disagreed with anybody or had to do anything they didn’t want to do and we all had superpowers.
Furthermore, what’s all this dissing of "unintended pregnancies." Used to be a lot of folks would be excited when they got pregnant even though they weren’t intending to do so this month. Babies were looked forward to as positive things and as gifts from God. Some folks still take such attitudes, despite your propaganda campaign to equate "unintended pregnances" with unwanted babies.
What better way to end the debate (as if ending debate were an end in itself) over abortion rights than by eliminating the reasons women seek abortion?
You mean you want to change the facts that abortions are permitted by law and people have been propagandized to regard them as morally licit and to regard babies as an unwanted burden rather than as a positive contribution to humanity? Heck, yeah! I’m all up for changing those facts!
The time has come to join together in a new campaign to reduce the number of abortions.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!! IMPENDING INCOMPETENT DECEPTION ATTEMPT!!!
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid – who slightly disagrees with us only so he can protect his Mormon base on the issue of abortion – has offered a
commonsensedeceptive bill deceptively called the Prevention First Act which would help reduceunintended pregnanciesunwanted babies through better access to often-abortifacientbirth controlcontraception. This landmark legislation represents aserious first step in addressing the problemlaughably transparent attempt to score political points with the public by appearing to claim the moral high ground while advancing our anti-baby agenda through other means that actually will increase the number of abortions occurring early in pregnancy, and I hope you–the pro-baby patsy of this evil scheme–wi’ll join pro-choiceabortion Americans and me, the Abortion Queen, in foolishly offering your support.Let’s work together to pass this bill, and <completely insincere offer>make it the first step in a dialogue</completely insincere offer> about preventing
unintended pregnanciesunwanted babies.I eagerly await your answer despite the fact I didn’t include my address, phone number, or e-mail on this letter.
Nancy Keenan
President
NARAL Pro-Choice America
GIVE NANCY KEENAN YOUR ANSWER.
TEXT OF THE "PREVENTION FIRST" ACT. (More fisking to follow)
[Cowboy hat tip: Pajama Hadin.]
Karl and I did the honors.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Karl and I did the honors.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Down yonder, a commenter (in dialogue with another commenter) writes:
The Church has traditionally distinguished between material apostasy and formal apostasy.
Jews who were never Christians are mateiral apostates. Jews who once were Christian are formal apostates.
"Based on that definition, any non-Christian of the Christian era could be considered a material apostate."
This is correct.
"Jews who sincerely believe that God requires them to follow the covenant established with Abraham and the Law given to Moses, and are therefore doing so to the best of their ability, can in no way be termed ‘apostates,’ materially or formally."
You obviously do not know the meaning of the phrase "material apostate" or "material sin" in general.
I’m sorry, but no.
The term "apostasy" is defined as follows:
[A]postasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith (Latin, apostasia, fidei christianae ex toto repudiatio) [CIC, Can. 751].
Regarding the material/formal distinction in moral theology, those who commit a sin "materially" are those who perform it through no fault of their own (i.e., without culpability), while those who commit it "formally" are those who perform it through their own fault (i.e., with culpability).
In regard to the sin of apostasy, a material apostate would be one who totally repudiates the Christian faith without being culpable for doing so (due to a defect of knowledge or intent), while a formal apostate would be one who totally repudiates the Christian faith with adequate knowledge and intent.
The problem with maintaining this in the case of Jews or other non-Christians in the present age is the meaning of the word repudiatio.
As you might suppose, repudiatio means "repudiation"–the rejection of something one has previously held.
One thus cannot be an apostate from Christianity unless one has previously been a Christian and then totally repudiated the Christian faith. Jews who have never been Christian and other never-been-Christians of the present age (or any age) are thus not apostates.
The correct term for never-been-Christian Jews and never-been-Christian others is "the incredulous" (i.e., those who do not believe), per the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Incredulity [Latin, incredulitas] is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it [CCC 2089].
Those never-been-Christians who are disbelieve through no fault of their own are the materially incredulous. Those never-been-Christians who disbelieve through their own fault are the formally incredulous.
