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Pope: Ignorant or lying?
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Want to see the world?
The writer comments on feelings he had when returning home from a visit in Japan.
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Pilot who paused to pray is convicted
Crash pilot who paused to pray is convicted | U.S. | Reuters
PALERMO (Reuters) – A Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-pilot. …
The Political Obligations of Catholics
Catholic civic engagement plays a central role in American politics, and the question of how Catholic convictions translate to the public square is a matter of frequent discussion. In his recent book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (2008), the Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, argues that Catholics should take an active, vocal and morally consistent role in public debates, particularly on issues such as abortion, the death penalty and other matters they consider central to social justice.
I have no problem with that, as long as they lose their tax exempt status.
Is tension with Tibet behind China’s move to block video traffic on YouTube?
Is tension with Tibet behind China’s move to block video traffic on YouTube? – SiliconValley.com
China, which has previously shut down video traffic on YouTube’s network without explanation, did so again Tuesday, according to Google.“We don’t know the reason for the blockage,” said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Google, which owns the video-sharing site. Rubin said the network in China began slowing Monday and was eventually halted by Tuesday morning. As of 5:30 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday, Google was still working to restore the service.
March marks a year since riots last erupted against Chinese rule in Tibet. Last week, a video purporting to show handcuffed Tibetan prisoners being beaten by Chinese policeman was released by the Tibetan government in exile. The video was posted on YouTube on March 20. It also contained graphic footage of a man who was burned with cigarettes and had a nail driven into his foot after he intervened to try to help a monk who was being beaten….
Earth Hour is Saturday at 8:30 PM Your Time
South Africa Denies Dalai Lama Visa
allAfrica.com: South Africa: Cardinal Faults Dalai Lama Visa Denial (Page 1 of 1)
Pretoria — The Catholic archbishop of Durban, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, has sharply criticized a decision by the government to block the entry of the Dalai Lama into the country to attend a peace conference this week.
Quote of the Month…
“When I got married, all I was thinking about was my own joy at committing to my partner for the rest of my life. I didn’t think about all the people I was hurting by getting married. That was selfish.”
~ Portia de Rossi, commenting tongue in cheek on her marriage to Ellen DeGeneres.
Dead Palestinian Babies Make IDF Fashion Statements
Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques – these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription “Better use Durex,” next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter’s T-shirt from the Givati Brigade’s Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull’s-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, “1 shot, 2 kills.”
Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques – IDF fashion 2009 – Haaretz – Israel News
Buddhists don’t talk about blasphemy
Letters : Buddhists don’t talk about blasphemy | The Jakarta Post
Life is suffering. And suffering comes from desire; the desire, for example, of wanting to be “respected” by others. A true Buddhist does not talk about “blasphemy” as this is an irrelevant notion in Buddhism.There was never any enlightened soul who instructed others to build holy temples, and if these temples and statues exist, they are anything but the essence of Buddhism.
The Teen Rape Double Standard
The Teen Rape Double Standard – The Daily Beast
After a 17-year-old boy had sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend, he was charged with a felony for statutory rape. When a 17-year-old girl in the same town commited the same crime, she was charged with far less. Was the boy the victim of gender bias?
Selfish use of rivers seen threatening political stability
Environmental News Network — Know Your Environment
“The question countries must face is are they interested only in holding all the water themselves and living in a destabilized region, or do they wish to share the water and cooperate?”
And awaaaaaaay we go…!
Mainline Protestant Public Opinion on Homosexuality
Members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, two mainline Protestant denominations, are considering whether to allow the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians as members of their clergy. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that…
Pew Forum: Mainline Protestant Public Opinion on Homosexuality
One World, Under God
One World, Under God – The Atlantic (April 2009)
For many Christians, the life of Jesus signifies the birth of a new kind of God, a God of universal love. The Hebrew Bible—the “Old Testament”—chronicled a God who was sometimes belligerent (espousing the slaughter of infidels), unabashedly nationalist (pro-Israel, you might say), and often harsh toward even his most favored nation. Then Jesus came along and set a different tone. As depicted in the Gospels, Jesus exhorted followers to extend charity across ethnic bounds, as in the parable of the good Samaritan, and even to love their enemies. He told them to turn the other cheek, said the meek would inherit the Earth, and warned against self-righteousness (“let he who is without sin cast the first stone”). Even while on the cross, he found compassion for his persecutors: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
But there’s a funny thing about these admirable utterances: none of them appears in the book of Mark, which was written before the other Gospels and which most New Testament scholars now consider the most reliable (or, as some would put it, the least unreliable) Gospel guide to Jesus’ life. …
