Human beings suck. We've murdered, raped, belittled, ignored and otherwise objectified each other since we first learned to totter on two feet, and will continue to do so until the whole edifice of earth collapses beneath us. If you nodded, agreed, or agreeably grunted at that statement, then please -- go outside, take a knee, punch yourself in the face. Reject despair. Mankind will always face temptation. Evil will always be seductive. But every sin is a free choice made by a person … [Read more...]

If we were decent, self-respecting animals, we would naturally prefer good environments -- in which all our needs were met -- over bad ones. As it turns out -- and as a brief survey of popular culture makes apparent -- we are currently thirsting for an environment in which all our needs are threatened by animated corpses seeking to slurp out our brains through crazy straws. I speak, of course, of the Zombie Apocalypse. The Zombie Apocalypse has become such a common part of daily discussion … [Read more...]

To "love your neighbor as yourself" is not a restating of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", and I thank Christ for the fact, because the Golden Rule -- taken as the singular guiding principle of morality -- is frightening as all hell. For a sizable portion of the population, following the Golden Rule involves leaving others alone to drink Jaegermeister and play World of Warcraft. It could consist of treating others with rainbow-puking positivity, in a syrupy effort to … [Read more...]

An excellent New York Times opinion piece is making its dutiful trudge around the Internet, proclaiming (if I may do the author, Yoram Hazony, the injustice of wedging his piece into a nutshell) that God should not be considered perfect, for such a philosophical view is directly contradicted by the God of the Old Testament. Hazony says: The God of Hebrew Scripture is not depicted as immutable, but repeatedly changes his mind about things (for example, he regrets having made man). He is not … [Read more...]

All things come from and tend towards Nothing. The Big Bang Theory supports the former claim: The dense, hot, rapidly expanding singularity that was our universe some 13.75 billion years ago contained within itself all space, time, matter and energy. "Before" it existed, nothing existed. All things come from Nothing. The law of entropy backs the latter claim, dictating that all systems regress into a state of disorder, all organization tends towards chaos, and all things crumble and … [Read more...]

The Holy Internet demands writers present the truth in 500 words or less, with a picture for every 100 words. But when considering Libby Anne's recent claim -- that if pro-lifers were really interested in saving the lives of unborn children, they would promote the use of contraception -- I'm afraid I cannot abide by such a limit. Allow me to reduce my pageviews by 75% and say it: The reality of the contraception/abortion link is not conducive to short posts. We will march like the dead … [Read more...]

We move swiftly to Libby Anne's second claim in her wonderful post denouncing the pro-life movement: "I learned that all banning abortion does is make abortion illegal – and unsafe. I found that almost 50,000 women worldwide die each year from unsafe abortions, and that many more experience serious injury or infertility. These deaths happen almost entirely in countries where abortion is illegal – and thus clandestine. In fact, when abortion was made legal in South Africa, the number of … [Read more...]

Libby Anne, author of the blog Love, Joy, and Feminism, recently wrote an excellent J'accuse, denouncing the pro-life movement for several mistakes that seem to contradict its own proclaimed goal -- the end of abortion. I laud her for being willing to dive deeper into the evidence, and I hope she will continue to do so, for the degradation of scientific truth into a pre-ordained set of pithy slogans is a frustrating trait of both the "pro-choice" and the "pro-life" movements. Far better for a … [Read more...]

"The hurricane blew away the sad, noxious particles which befoul the sorrowful old Eastern sky and Midge no longer felt obliged to keep her face stiff. They were able to talk. It was best of all when the hurricane's eye came with its so-called ominous stillness. It was not ominous. Everything was yellow and still and charged up with value." -- The Last Gentleman, Walker Percy Sandy was undoubtedly a very bad thing, but our anticipation and witness of the hurricane was a perversely happy … [Read more...]