One of the more vapid mistakes of our culture is its constant equating of beauty with prettiness. Certainly, a thing of beauty might be called pretty. But prettiness, likability, and shininess make a thing beautiful as throwing glitter on a pile of feces makes it art. This is beautiful: This, not necessarily so: To elevate eye-candy to summit of beauty is to render it unable to give evidence of the supernatural in Nature, limiting it to the cute, the sexy,... Read more
One of the more exciting hobbies of The Guttmacher Institute — besides receiving annual donations from Planned Parenthood — is demanding greater legal access to abortion in countries where abortion is restricted. This demand blooms from studies of these countries — usually Guttmacher’s — which consistently find high numbers of illegal abortions and abortion-related maternal deaths. Their message is simple: Legalize abortion, for there exists a massive need for it, and women are dying in their attempt to meet that... 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... Read more
Let us grant the atheistic assumption that all humans are destined for non-being. There is nothing after death, only the absence of existence. Is it possible for man to conceive of this — non-being and pure absence? Is it possible for man to grasp what it means to be a corpse? Try. Conceive of Nothingness. Think on non-being. Did you think of a large expanse of black? Try again, for you’ve thought of a large expanse of black, which is something. Of white? Nope, still something. Did... 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... 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 fade. In 10^100 years... Read more
Love is infinite. By infinite I mean: 1 : extending indefinitely : endless <infinite space> 2 : immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive: inexhaustible <infinite patience> 3 : subject to no limitation or external determination 4a: extending beyond, lying beyond, or being greater than any preassigned finite value however large <infinite number of positive numbers> This truth sets fire. This truth, if indeed truth, can stop suicide, heal hearts, and sharpen our lives like swords — that is to say,... 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... 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 abortion... 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”... Read more
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