Pope sentencing people to die ?

A friend of mine, a good Catholic (well, maybe not according to the pope....) had this to say after the Pope's recent comments on NOT distributing condoms. The Pope is still anti-birth control, not to mention disease control.

Hello, Pope Benedict. Remember me? I’m the cradle-to-tithing Catholic who frequently offers you advice not heeded. Gee whiz, now there you go again doing the flat earth thing with condoms. In Africa of all places! I thought you would welcome the Godly logic our good Lord gave us. Heck, Germans’ gave us the reformation and the Mercedes, for Pete’s sake!. But no, you rejected science and the efficacious prevention of HIV all in one breath amidst corpses from AIDS stacked like firewood. No wonder you embrace priests who believe the holocaust never happened and that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath. You cloak the face of Jesus in a world desperate to see Him when you condemn millions to hideous preventable deaths because of your intransience on human sexuality, the same condition Jesus enjoyed. I love you, Joseph Alois Ratzinger. But I reject your position, i.e., condoms won’t help the problem of HIV, as one of many positions you take that shroud Jesus; misogyny, homophobia and exclusivity to name a few. Yet the body count for earlier flat earth encyclicals pales compared to the number of God’s children extinguished by your comments in Cameroon. Like the previous Joe, Karol Józef Wojtyła, whom I also loved, you’ll have to answer more than the average Joe for the misery of the Corpus Christi. Did you hear the cock crowing for the third time in Africa? The rest of us did. Loudly.

MJC

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." Acts of the Apostles

Religulous

Finally saw Bill Maher's film (DVD) and it is good. Nothing new if you have thought about this stuff before, but entertaining. Not likely to change anyone's mind unless you are on the bubble already. Worth the rental fee, tho.

Preacher leaves the faith.

Fresh Air w/ the author of Gospel Truth. Long, but interesting.
In brief, he was raised a good christian, went to seminary, became a religious teacher, but later saw bible inconsistencies, world wide suffering, and ultimately left the church. However, as an agnostic believes he has even more meaning in his life.

How about that!

Rush is hurting his own party.

Hopefully they won't catch on any time soon. See NYT story.

Don't know if anyone is checking this out. Been a while since I posted anything new.
Enjoy, whoever is out there.

Book on Amish - Excellent!

I am reading a great book - Plain Secrets, by Joe Mackall - about the Swartzentruber Amish in Ohio, the most conservative Amish branch, and so far it is fascinating. It is amazing that any of these groups that work so hard to stay in the past technologically can survive within the modern world. They do lose a lot of their children, but you'd think every kid would leave.

Here's some intersting pics and info on the group.










Don't know if this is true (didn't do a Snopes check) but it is a good story (provided by brother Terry).

Subject: Florida Court Sets Atheist Holy Day
In Florida , an atheist created a case against the upcoming Christmas and Hanukkah holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews, and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized day.

The case was brought be fore a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed".

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your Honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter, and others. The Jews have Hanukkah, Passover, and Yom Kippur, yet, my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do, counsel, your client is woefully ignorant." The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists." The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is 'April Fool's Day'. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

Bamboozled again ?

Bailout reports - it's not looking good.
Reports are now coming out re the effectiveness of the bailout payments and the necessity for them - in retrospect. Is it too late to take it back?

The Christmas Wars

This is happening in Wash. State. There were complaints and lawsuits about Christmas trees and other symbols so they had to let Freedom From Religion Foundation put up a sign. It was stolen but recovered. They would have been better off keeping all that stuff off public property in the first place! Oh, well. Maybe next year.