"Ireland has voted by a huge majority to legalise same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to do so by popular vote in a move hailed as a social revolution and welcomed around the world. Some 62 percent of the Irish Republic’s electorate voted in favour of gay marriage. The result means that a republic once dominated by the Catholic church ignored the instructions of its cardinals and bishops." Read more
The authors, like all of their characters, seem to have forgotten entirely about the scene of tragedy and suffering they have just left behind them. It's out of sight and out of mind. For LaHaye and Jenkins -- as for Rayford, Buck and the doctor -- those other people and their suffering and need simply do not exist. Lazarus is invisible. Lazarus does not exist. Read more
I don't think Walmart's lawyers can argue that Walmart.sheep is anti-Walmart. But I think we can argue that Walmart's business practices are anti-sheep. Also: "Religious liberty" cheerleaders not lining up behind Christian minister who was fined and arrested over a sacrament; End Times predictions (and death-bets) from Little Hagee and Franklin's sister; and a Kiwi Sikh lives out a Gospel story. Read more
The phrase "erotic liberty," as Al Mohler is trying to use it, only makes sense if you accept Mohler's premise -- which is that "erotic" has, and can only have, negative connotations. For Mohler and his Mohlerettes, "erotic" means dirty. It means sex -- and sex is a bad, naughty, nasty, filthy thing. For Mohler, in other words, "erotic" means "shameful." Read more
As far as I know, Walmart has not yet launched its army of lawyers to seize the domain name Walmart.cow. Also: Naloxone is saving lives here in Chester County; Pelagian virginity; the Witch House is not the Mystery House; and a promise not to redirect you to the Go Garden Club (at least not on purpose). Read more
We humans from earth have been looking up at the stars and thinking about the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life for a very long time. The best of this speculation -- whether in stories or in more scholarly non-fiction -- builds on this long tradition. Thus when Carl Sagan had Ellie Arroway and her father say, "If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space," he was borrowing from the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1541-1601) who argued, in Burton's paraphrase, "that he will never believe those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect of the whole." Read more
Some appalling new offerings from TLC; the lies that launched the US-led invasion of Iraq were not accidental mistakes; the laws of Moses forbid destroying olive trees; and several reminders that human theology will always be full of errors, mistakes and misconceptions. Read more
"So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took some torches; and he turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves." Read more
No, Texas: Accurately noticing that many Christians do not give as much as they can to help the poor is not "bashing on the Christian community" -- although Jesus, James, and many of the early church leaders did bash on the Christian community for that very reason. Plus: RIP BB King; Republicans name Ronald Reagan the greatest living president; three more things that confound Louis Gohmert; and if you want to be a hero, YNATKC. Read more
Over time, these kinds of tribal-cheerleading responses to pollsters and other catechists eventually become required responses. And thus, over time, the things that people pretend to believe as a "way of showing that they're members in good standing" of their political faction become the things that members of that faction actually believe. The fluff becomes substance -- becomes dogma. And the tribe is transformed to conform to this new dogma. Read more
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