{"id":1953,"date":"2011-01-06T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T09:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/01\/fr-damien-continues-to-inspire\/"},"modified":"2014-12-31T14:32:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T21:32:24","slug":"fr-damien-continues-to-inspire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/01\/fr-damien-continues-to-inspire.html","title":{"rendered":"Fr. Damien Continues to Inspire"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>There are no Christopher Hitchens Leper Colonies or Richard Dawkins Charities.  In a Darwinian world, concern for the weak and sick doesn\u2019t tend to reach the top of the To Do list.  No, that doesn\u2019t mean \u201cAll atheists are immoral\u201d.  But it does mean that ideas have consequences and if you groom a whole population to think \u201cIf they be like to die they had better do it and help decrease the surplus population\u201d what you will get is a population that, on the whole, thinks that way and does not regard helping the weak or the sick as particularly worthy of attention.  <a href=\"http:\/\/amconmag.com\/article\/2005\/oct\/10\/00022\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Hitchens himself is quite clear about how the gleaming efficient atheist state of the future should treat undesirables.<\/a>  Even P.Z. Myers is appalled by Hitchens\u2019 zeal for \u201cputting a bullet through every God-haunted brain\u201d.   <\/p>\n<p>Religious cultures that say \u201cGive alms, even when it seems like a waste of time\u201d or \u201cInasmuch as you did it to the least of these\u2026\u201d or \u201cThe Lord is the Defender of the Alien, Orphan, and Widow\u201d are a challenge to much of the Darwinian narrative as it is voice by Planned Parenthood (\u201cInconvenient, expensive or physically disabled?  Kill it!\u201d).  Atheism tends to create cultures that view charity as a waste of time or, at best, a calculated investment.  God help those who do not promise a good return on the investment.  Rationalism dictates their extermination.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/explore.org\/videos\/player\/hawaii-kalaupapa-love-story\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Fr. Damien<\/a>, who cannot be explained by the little systems of order created by Ditchkins, shows us another way.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are no Christopher Hitchens Leper Colonies or Richard Dawkins Charities. In a Darwinian world, concern for the weak and sick doesn\u2019t tend to reach the top of the To Do list. No, that doesn\u2019t mean \u201cAll atheists are immoral\u201d. But it does mean that ideas have consequences and if you groom a whole population [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fr. Damien Continues to Inspire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are no Christopher Hitchens Leper Colonies or Richard Dawkins Charities. 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In a Darwinian world, concern for the weak and sick doesn&#039;t tend to reach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/01\/fr-damien-continues-to-inspire.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-06T09:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-31T21:32:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/3469526-276286305238583352?l=markshea.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/01\/fr-damien-continues-to-inspire.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/01\/fr-damien-continues-to-inspire.html\",\"name\":\"Fr. 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