An interesting post on the rationality of evil

Dennis Prager , in this episode of his Prager University series of videos, takes on an ever popular heresy:  evil is irrational.  This heresy is popular for any number of reasons but doubtless it all boils down to the belief, completely unfounded in human experience, that reasonable people will agree on what is good and what is evil.  The experience of the last half century in the West should have knocked that bit of foolishness into a cocked hat.  Agreement on good and evil in practice is largely a matter of convention.   If the social norms of a people come under challenge, we quickly see apparently reasonable people disagreeing on such fundamental questions as whether an unborn child has a right to life, or whether sex outside of marriage is evil.

Concepts of good and evil are either based on revelation from God, or are matters of opinion to be argued about.  Fewer people in our society believe in revelation, hence good and evil become matters of opinion for debate.  When the debate is joined we often find that there is little agreement on goals and that therefore what is rational to each individual takes varying paths to differing goals.  Widespread disagreement on good and evil also causes the State to grow ever larger to enforce the version of good held by those in power in the State.

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Former Obamacare booster’s monthly health insurance premium goes from $291 to $647

“I spent two years defending Obamacare. I had constituents scream at me, spit at me and call me names that I can’t put in print. The congressman was not re-elected in 2010 mainly because of the anti-Obamacare anger. When the congressman was not re-elected, I also (along with the rest of our staff) lost my job. I was upset that because of the health care issue, I didn’t have a job anymore but still defended Obamacare because it would make health care available to everyone at, what I assumed, would be an affordable price. I have now learned that I was wrong. Very wrong.”

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Editor’s note: Reality bites!

A response to Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence by “Godless Geeks”

Hundreds of (not very good) Proofs of God’s Non-Existence

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT
(1) If reason exists then God does not exist.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) If I say something does not have a cause, it does not have a cause.
(2) I say the universe does not have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe does not have a cause.
(4) Therefore, God does not exist.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) I define God to be something inconceivably absurd.
(2) Since I cannot conceive of that, it must not exist.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) St. Anselm has a proof for God’s existence.
(2) I look at the proof and laugh.
(3) I’m not quite sure how to disprove it.
(4) But I laugh at it all the same.
(5) Therefore, God does not exist.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (III)
(1) The Ontological Proof for God’s existence relies on the assumption
that existence is greater than non-existence.
(2) But existence is not greater than non-existence.
(3) Existence is the worst thing there is.
(4) Therefore, God does not exist.

MODAL ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) God is either necessary or unnecessary.
(2) God is not necessary, therefore God must be unnecessary.
(3) If something is unnecessary, then, necessarily, it does not exist.
(4) Therefore, God does not exist.

Many more

Worth Remembering: Fathers Are The Priests Of The Home!

The Ten Commandments For A Husband And Father

I. Develop an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus, allowing Him to forgive you of your past, to talk to you, to heal you and to guide you. Then, trust the Holy Spirit in all things. Trust Him to provide everything you need, including financial help.

II. Get your priorities in order: Jesus first, your wife second, your children third, your work fourth, etc. Develop a weekly schedule, blocking out quality time for the Lord, your wife, each child and the family as a whole. A husband’s most important time during any given day is the first five minutes when he gets home from work and the love and attention he shows his wife and children at that time. Remember that your human fatherhood is rooted in the Divine Fatherhood of Almighty God (cf. Ephesians 3:14-15; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2214).

III. Realize that you are the “priest” of the home. It is your primary responsibility to oversee the TV and its influence, the internet and its influence, as well as the books and magazines that enter into your home. You must stand firmly against all evil influences, asking constantly for God’s strength and guidance to lead your family in living a pure, holy and non-violent lifestyle. Esto vir! (Be a man!). A father fosters moral virtue within his home first and foremost by example. Get into the habit of blessing your children – both alone and with your wife – before they go to sleep at night or before they leave the house in the morning.

Seven more – from Father Wade Menezes

PRAYER FOR OUR FAMILY Heavenly Father, most good and gracious God, sustain our family in Your love. Make our family home a place where holiness and love abound. In our daily actions, help each one of us to learn to be more like Jesus. Aid our family to imitate the Holy Family of Nazareth: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Help our family to learn from the good example of those families that especially please You in their way of life. May our family members learn to give good example always by living lives in true Christian faith, hope and love. Assist our family in learning to bear pain and suffering as Jesus did. Aid our family members, too, in overcoming difficulties and carrying their crosses. Help our family life to lead to Jesus Christ, the Source of all Truth and happiness. We ask this through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. AMEN.

FAMILY PRAYER TO OUR BLESSED MOTHER, MARY Holy Mary, Virgin Mother of God, we seek your patronage and we invoke you under your title “Queen of Families.” O Blessed Mother, you were conceived without sin. May every family choose you this day as the model for their household, along with St. Joseph, your most loving, chaste and caring spouse. Through your Immaculate Conception, preserve all families from every disaster, from all violence and from every misfortune. O Holy Virgin, bless and protect all families, strengthen them in trial and keep them from every evil. AMEN.

Submitted by Robert K.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice = The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights = Major Scandal and Sin

A small book, “Holy Abortion?: A Theological Critique of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice” does an exquisite job of explicating the “yawning gap” (as one reviewer put it) that exists between the abortion position espoused by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) and various mainstream religious denominations who list themselves as supporters of RCRC.

Like NARAL, RCRC has gone through a name change. Founded in 1973, it was then known as the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.

But whatever the name, what gives RCRC its influence (as authors Professor Michael J. Gorman and Ann Loar Brooks write) is that
“Nearly 40 national organizations from Christian and Jewish denominations, movements, and faith-based groups, as well as Unitarian, humanist and ethical associations, now make up its membership.”

Among that group the real muscle is provided by four mainline Protestant denominations – – the Episcopal Church (USA), the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.

For those of us who belong to one of these denominations, it is a constant source of irritation and spiritual exasperation that they are yoked to an organization for which there is no such thing as an unacceptable abortion. At the least a trial separation is in order, in anticipation of a final parting of the ways.

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Gregg Cunningham of the Center for Bioethical Reform: “Two things that have to happen in order for the pro-life movement to be effective, and they aren’t happening anywhere in the world in any systematic way”.

First, and prior to making gains in legislation, “the population has to be convinced of the humanity of the unborn child, early in pregnancy. And the population has to be convinced of the inhumanity of abortion, early in pregnancy.”

He pointed out that the gains made in public opinion have been in support for abortion restrictions only in later stages of gestation, when abortion is already much less common. Most US and British opinion still favours largely unrestricted abortion in the first trimester, when the great majority of abortions are conducted.

“Most people hear the word ‘embryo’ and in their minds that term is synonymous with ‘blob of tissue’ or ‘blob of cells’. And they see abortion perhaps as evil but as the ‘lesser of two evils’ at worst. Certainly not evil enough to justify putting anyone in prison who performs abortions.”

“Nothing is going to change until we persuade the population that the baby really is entitled to developmental rights of personhood from the moment of fertilisation. And that abortion is an evil of sufficient enormity to justify criminalising the act. By which I don’t mean putting women in prison, I mean putting doctors in prison,” he continued.

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The true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty – a genuine WWII hero

He (center left) was the Irish Oskar Schindler, risking his life to save the lives of 6500 POWs, Jews and other enemies of the Nazis.

Fascinating 7-minute audio presentation

Rent the full length movie on-line 

An Irish Vatican priest hides allied PoWs from the Germans occupying Rome, during World War Two. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (Gregory Peck) is under threat from the Chief of the Gestapo (Christopher Plummer) who orders the priest captured or killed if he is seen outside the protection of the Vatican walls.

• Directed by: Jerry London
• Runtime: 2 hours 18 minutes
• Studio: ITV Global Entertainment Ltd

The Evils of Modernism as demonstrated by the seriously flawed documents of Vatican II and the subsequent teachings of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Frances

Modernism thrives on vague and ambiguous expressions, on lack of precision, on lack of clear definitions, because Modernism, being sinister, detests clarity, which is one of the hallmarks of truth and orthodoxy: “For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved” (John 3:20).

Modernism seeks to make what is certain, doubtful, what is clear, confusing; it tries to make the straight paths of True Catholicism crooked, and so becomes the anti-Gospel.”

A.J. pulls no punches

Pope Francis violates his own standards, by enumerating his Twitter followers.

“Dear Followers I understand there are now over 10 million of you!” the pontiff wrote on his nine accounts, which publish simultaneously in languages including Latin, Polish and Arabic. “I thank you with all my heart and ask you to continue praying for me.”

Link

Editor’s note: Rampant Pelagianism has evidently penetrated to the highest level of the Catholic Church.

Related link: Pope Francis “dissing” Catholic group that prayed 3,525 rosaries on his behalf – merely for mentioning the number of rosaries that were prayed!

There hasn’t been a disastrous roll out like Obamacare, since the end of the Second Vatican Council.

A pair of  colossal “train wrecks”!

by Doug Lawrence

Both were liberal political fantasies which aimed to replace perfectly good, workable systems, unequaled in both efficacy and objective truth, with untested, unworkable, pie-in-the-sky, progressive ideologies and practices, no matter the cost or consequences!

Enter the Pale (Sickly Green) Horse from the Book of Revelation

Revelation 6:7-8
(7) And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
(8) And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

*****

An official with the CDC has a serious warning for the world. We are now living in an age where antibiotics can no longer cure serious diseases. We may soon see the reemergence of deadly versions of previously well-controlled diseases because of the overuse of antibiotics.

CDC official: It is now too late, the age of antibiotics is over

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY TO TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO PROMOTE, PROTECT OBAMACARE-COVERED ABORTIONS

The course, “Regulatory Advocacy: Women and the Affordable Care Act,” is set to be taught at Georgetown Law, and it has upset staunch Catholics, according to The Cardinal Newman Society, which first reported on the new academic offering.

“We have long warned about Georgetown scandals that undermine the Church’s strong defense of innocent life,” Patrick Reilly, society president, told Catholic Education Daily. “But here students are being required to work for a pro-abortion lobby, making America’s oldest Catholic university an active agent of the culture of death.”

Link

Submitted by Mark H.

Witchcraft and other occult practices

The Witch of Endor (1st Samuel 28:7)

All witches believe in the power of charms and spells – indeed witchcraft is largely about exercising this power. What are we to think of this claim to spiritual power through charms, spells, and curses? From my experience and from consulting people from this and other countries, I have not the slightest doubt that spells and curses do have power, can really affect people, including people who do not know that they have been the object of spells and curses. I am even more certain however that Jesus can protect his followers from any and every spell and curse, even though they may sometimes have to pass through a difficult time.

Last year I spoke with an English Catholic doctor who had been working in the Pacific islands. Quite a number of times people who had been cursed would be brought to the hospital. There was nothing wrong with them physically, but they simply and rapidly faded away and died. He said to me how frustrating it was. He would tell them with vigour that there was no medical reason for them to die – but they did die! A missionary from Nigeria told me of a similar case, in which a healthy young man at the university after being cursed by a witch simply declined and died within two weeks. A member of our monastic community who comes from Ghana assures me that witch doctors’ curses and spells in that country can have real power to harm, including harming people who do not know that they have been cursed. (A Dutch medical anthropologist working in Ghana confirmed this.) A Catholic doctor in this country consulted me about the case of a woman here who had been cursed by another woman at work – and the health of the first woman collapsed and remained collapsed in a way which was medically inexplicable.

A Catholic man from the third world came to us one evening seeking help. He had been a university lecturer and indeed a government minister in his country. His wife, from whom he has separated, was very deeply involved in witchcraft and she had got him cursed by ‘experts’. His life was now in a state of total disarray and he could not concentrate to read a book or write letters – and there were other very difficult problems. In the name of Jesus we prayed against all curses and demonic attacks. He was immediately much better, and after a few more sessions he was able to work normally again. He then got a responsible job in an organisation helping the third world.

In nearly all third world countries the people living there seem to believe in the power of curses and spells. Indeed, their lives may become an existence of fear and misery, unless they have a truly living faith in Jesus. Increasingly also in our own country and the rest of the first world, people are coming up against the power of the occult and witchcraft. How sad it is to find Catholics, including some priests, who do not believe in the existence of demons and who therefore are not able fully to help so many needy people.

Doubtless quite a proportion of the people who come for this sort of help are just imagining things. But there are certainly many others who are not just imagining. On a number of occasions I have thought it was all imagination and psychological sickness, only to find out later that I was wrong. (A lonely widow from the third world came to us for help on account of the voices she was hearing. We prayed. the voices continued and I thought she was simply suffering from schizophrenia. However a very gifted and experienced Anglican exorcist prayed with her, delivered her from one or more evil spirits, and the voices ceased.)

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Excerpted from:

I Saw Satan Fall – The Ways of Spiritual Warfare by Benedict Heron OSB

The Penny Catechism – a “Pelagian*” feast for the soul.

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FAITH

Faith in God

1. Who made you?

God made me.

2. Why did God make you?

God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.

3. To whose image and likeness did God make you?

God made me to his own image and likeness.

4. Is this likeness to God in your body, or in your soul?

This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.

5. How is your soul like to God?

My soul is like to God because it is a spirit, and is immortal.

6. What do you mean when you say that your soul is immortal?

When I say my soul is immortal, I mean that my soul can never die.

7. Of which must you take more care, of your body or of your soul?

I must take more care of my soul; for Christ has said, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?’ (Matt. 16:26)

8. What must you do to save your soul?

To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope and Charity; that is, I must believe in him, I must hope in him, and I must love him with my whole heart.

9. What is faith?

Faith is a supernatural gift of God, which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed.

10. Why must you believe whatever God has revealed?

I must believe whatever God has revealed because God is the very truth, and can neither deceive nor be deceived.

11. How are you to know what God has revealed?

I am to know what God has revealed by the testimony, teaching, and authority of the Catholic Church.

12. Who gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach?

Jesus Christ gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach, when he said, ‘Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations’. (Matt. 28:19)

Link to site

*According to Pope Francis’ personal definition

Jews, pagans, heretics and corrupt politicians can get in to see the pope, but Father Nicholas Gruner cannot.

Alleged “phony” consecration to Our Lady doesn’t go unnoticed. Vatican is “stonewalling” concerned critics. Head of Vatican Security tells Father Gruner: “Don’t go near the Pope!” Why is Father Gruner so dangerous? What is the pope’s “end game”?

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One of the recurring misconceptions that other Christian sects have about Catholicism is that the Catholic Mass is not biblical and Catholics do not read the Bible.

Let’s take the Mass, for instance. Scott Hahn, a world-renowned Catholic theologian converted from evangelical Calvinism, surreptitiously attended a Catholic Mass in Wisconsin in the early 1980s before his conversion. Bible in hand, he began to follow this “strange” liturgy in an attempt to take notes and return to his students to show how the Catholic Mass was the ultimate sacrilege.

Long story short, Hahn states that “something hit me.” He realized that the words on the liturgy of the Mass were coming from the open Bible beside him. A line from Isaiah, another from Paul, another from a psalm.

Hahn learned later that during the Liturgy of the Word, Catholics, over a three-year period, hear the Scriptures proclaimed from the Old and New Testaments and the four Gospels. Furthermore, Hahn points out, during the Eucharistic Liturgy part of the Mass, the believer is drawn not only into the Last Supper but also into the glorious New Heavenly Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation with all its hymns and praises.

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Pope Francis appears to be worried about the wrong things

Is Pope Francis afraid of Cardinal Lefebre’s ghost?

The Pope expressed his respect for a mission his predecessors has entrusted to a religious family with which there had been differences in the past. These differences came up in Francis’ speech to members of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM), during their meeting at the Centre for Studies at Sumaré, in Rio de Janeiro last July.

In his message, the Pope spoke about the ideological temptation of Christians he described as “Pelagianism”, which apparently manifests itself in the idea of “restorationism”. “In dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely disciplinary solution is sought, through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer meaningful,” he added.

Bergoglio warned bishops: “In Latin America it is usually to be found in small groups, in some new religious congregations, in (exaggerated) tendencies to doctrinal or disciplinary “safety”.”

The Pope was not hesitant in admitting that this current scared him, particularly as representatives of the Incarnate Word consider the Church to be a disaster.

In an off-the-cuff comment, Francis added: “In the first year of Benedict XVI’s pontificate I had to personally intervene in a case involving the founder of a movement who was linked to this apocalyptic viewpoint.”

Link

Editor’s note: Pope Francis seems to be a bit too old to be afraid of imaginary bogeymen. Maybe he needs to change hotel rooms.

He ought to be afraid of radical theologians and heretical priests and bishops. But no – only traditional Catholics pose any real threat to the rapidly fading and hugely scandalous post-Vatican II revolution.

As for exaggerated tendencies – how about that “New Springtime” we Catholics have been hearing about, for the last fifty years? No sign of that yet!

Perhaps the pope’s definition of the word “disaster” is different than what’s commonly accepted. In that case, I wish he would provide specifics.

This is getting very old!

photo: www.cfnews.org

Forgotten virtue: The more vital and essential victory of Christianity lay in the strange, impractical, altogether unworldly tenderness of the moral intuitions it succeeded in sowing in human consciences.

(Click image to enlarge)

I have spent the last 3 years trying to complete David Bentley Hart’s book, Atheist Delusions, and the great pleasure I take in reading his inimitable celebration of language makes me wish the book had no final chapter.

In any event, there was one quote (pp. 215-16) on the utterly singular contribution of Christianity to ethical thought that I felt compelled to share here in its entirety. Brace and pace yourself for its density, but let me opine that the yield of insight is worth the labor!

…In short, the rise of Christianity produced consequences so immense that it can almost be said to have begun the world anew: to have “invented” the human, to have bequeathed us our most basic concept of nature, to have determined our vision of the cosmos and our place in it, and to have shaped all of us (to one degree or another) in the deepest reaches of consciousness.

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Editor’s note: Be sure to read the last paragraph of the referenced article.

Appealing to “the base”: Los Angeles Archbishop celebrates along side a host of pro abortion, pro homosexual politicians.

Archbishop Gomez could have helped pass AB 60 and celebrated its passage without giving honor and credibility and obvious “vote-for-these-good pro-abortion and pro-homosexual Democrats” coverage on the front cover of his own weekly newspaper.

See what all the fuss is about

Editor’s note: I’m sure the archbishop engaged in very extensive dialog before appearing on the dais with all those glad-handed, morally bankrupt  political hacks. Perhaps Pope Francis will warn the Archbishop about the type of company he keeps.  But I doubt it!

I believe the old saying goes, “You lie down with dogs – you wake up with fleas.”  Or some variation thereof …

“Zombie” Catholicism: Pope Francis breathes new life into Cardinal Bernardin’s legacy.

While there is no indication that Francis knows the writings of Bernardin, who died in 1996, many say the pope’s remarks repeatedly evoke Bernardin’s signature teachings on the “consistent ethic of life” – the view that church doctrine champions the poor and vulnerable from womb to tomb – and on finding “common ground” to heal divisions in the church.

Ironically, the re-emergence of Bernardin — a man who was admired by a young Chicago organizer named Barack Obama — is exposing the very rifts he sought to bridge, especially among conservatives who thought his broad view of Catholicism was buried with him in Mount Carmel Cemetery outside Chicago.

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Editor’s note: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression and only six months in, Pope Francis’ ill considered rhetoric has already alienated a good part – the most consistently faithful part – of the Catholic Church. No “seamless garment” is going to be able to patch that up, and the scheduled 2014 canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II is likely to only make things worse.

At least the late Cardinal Bernadin (who was my archbishop, as well as a working associate of Barack Obama/Barry Sotero) managed to conduct his nefarious business without insulting huge numbers of Catholics and that’s probably why he was such a remarkably effective operator. Thank God he died before they could elect him pope!

Pope Francis by comparison, has so far acted more like the humble, likable, but almost totally inept former American President Jimmy Carter – the guy who got Egyptian President Anwar Sadat killed – and by his timely gutting of the CIA and abandonment of the Iranian Shah –  lit the fuse of the powder keg which promptly exploded into today’s Middle East.

All the more reason to pray fervently for Pope Francis!