Category Archives: Catholicism

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: Louisiana Lunacy: Tens of Millions to be Spent on Faith-based Education

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SCHOOLS run along faith guidelines have hit the jackpot big time following Louisiana’s decision to siphon tens of millions of tax dollars out public schools and into religious institutions where only creationism will be taught.

In what is described here as “the nation’s boldest experiment in privatizing public education”, the state will pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.

Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.

Said Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican who muscled the plan through the legislature this spring over fierce objections from Democrats and teachers unions:

“We are changing the way we deliver education. We are letting [some of the most notoriously uneducated] parents [in the country] decide what’s best for their children, not government.”

Jindal is a [converted] devout Catholic, and this is what he believes:

“As Christians, we’re secure in the knowledge that in the Book of Life, our God wins. He gets off that cross. He beats Satan. We’re not called to be despondent. We are called to be salt and light and to be planting the seeds of the gospel.”

Read more . . .

h/t: The Atheism News Magazine

CHRISTIAN BIGOTRY: Lawrence M. Krauss / Does Religious Liberty Equal Freedom to Discriminate?

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[…]

. . . [T]he right to marry, . . . is a secular legal issue. Even if the state were to recognize same-sex marriages, churches, mosques or synagogues or other places of worship would not be required to hold wedding ceremonies within them or sanction such marriages because the no legal standing is attributed to such ceremonies or sanctions. Where is the attack on liberty?

[…]

. . . [T]he banner of ‘religious liberty’ is effectively more akin to the ‘right to discriminate.’ For the state to treat organized religious groups differently than it does other organizations implies special rights for these groups to behave differently than others. But this requires such religious groups to determine who is in the “in’ group, and who is in the ‘out’ group, and because religious doctrine guides moral behavior, it provides an opportunity for members of the group to condemn the behavior of those not in the group.

[…]

. . . [W]hen organized religious groups gain power of any form, power over the state, power over women, or power over children, the results inevitably lead to restrictions on liberty based on discrimination [bigotry].

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CATHOLICISM: Catholic Cardinal Says Church Is Willing To Let Poor People Starve In Protest Of Contraception Mandate (MUST WATCH VIDEO)

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan has made it very clear that he doesn’t like President Obama’s contraception mandate. And apparently, he and the Catholic Church are prepared to let poor people starve to death if President Obama doesn’t give in to their demands.

In an appearance on Martin Bashir on MSNBC on Tuesday, Dolan said that the Church would abandon Jesus’ effort to help the sick and feed the poor in protest of the contraception mandate that only applies to insurance companies and not the Church itself.

“If these mandates kick in, we’re going to find ourselves faced with a terribly difficult decision as to whether or not we can continue to operate,” Dolan said. “As part of our religion — it’s part of our faith that we feed the hungry, that we educate the kids, that we take care of the sick. We’d have to give it up, because we’re unable to fit the description and the definition of a church given by — guess who — the federal government.”

Bashir then pointed out that the Catholic Church had taken a staggering $2.9 billion from the federal government to pay for the charitable efforts the Church provides. “They don’t seem to bristle at the hand of government when it comes to money, do they,” Bashir commented.

Continue reading, and watch video . . .

Aphorism: On Spontaneous Human Combustion

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By Madison S. Hughes (05.09.2012)

I cannot say that spontaneous human combustion is my forte; however, judging from the bits and pieces of information concerning such that have entered my realm of thought, I must say that I am not convinced by any evidence that proponents have put forth to support such claims.

Certainly, a “loving” God would not allow such, but somehow I doubt One that engages in world genocide would take issue with a burning here and there. As a matter of fact, His followers have historically proven rather fond to burnings. I wonder if those that spontaneously combust are also of the more intellectual among us.

FFRF’s ‘Quit the Catholic Church’ ad in today’s Washington Post

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Click on image to enlarge.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s full-page ad, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church,” runs in today’s Washington Post (A-5 Main), urging liberal and nominal Roman Catholics to “quit” their church over its war against contraception.

The provocative ad asks: “Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs?”

The ad is similar to the full-page ad that appeared in The New York Times in March, which is still creating shockwaves among conservative religionists. The Washington Post, unlike the Times, accepted FFRF’s punchy headline, “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”

Additionally, FFRF has placed the full-page ad with a splash of color on the back of the Washington Express, handed out for free to Metro riders and D.C. residents. Express distributors will be wearing the ad on their vests.

“It’s a disgrace that U.S. health care reform is being held hostage to your church’s irrational opposition to medically prescribed contraception,” the ad states. “No political candidate should have to genuflect before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

Continue Reading . . .

Conversion on Mount Improbable: How Evolution Challenges Christian Dogma

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During most of my years as a liberal Protestant minister, I never saw a contradiction between my Christian faith and the fact of evolution. Like many progressive Christians, I did not understand evolution as a challenge to the doctrine of divine creation ex nihilo; evolution was merely the mechanism that God used for creating life on our planet.

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My indifference towards evolution changed dramatically when I ran across Richard Dawkins’ analogy of natural selection as “climbing Mount Improbable.” In that memorable and vivid metaphor, Dawkins illustrates the truly incremental and gradual nature of the evolutionary process. Opponents of evolution have contended that, while change within species can occur, the leap from one species to a new species is just too improbably great to have happened by purely natural processes. Outside assistance must have been involved. Dawkins addresses that claim by acknowledging that, yes, the leap from one species to the next seems improbably difficult—like scaling the cliff of a mountain to reach the peak. However, if one approaches the peak not from the formidable cliff but instead moves slowly along the slope on the other side of the mountain, reaching the peak of “Mount Improbable” becomes quite possible, although it might take a very long time.

[…]

Which core doctrines of Christianity does evolution challenge? Well, basically all of them. The doctrine of original sin is a prime example. If my rudimentary grasp of the science is accurate, then Darwin’s theory tells us that because new species only emerge extremely gradually, there really is no “first” prototype or model of any species at all—no “first” dog or “first” giraffe and certainly no “first” homo sapiens created instantaneously. The transition from predecessor hominid species was almost imperceptible. So, if there was no “first” human, there was clearly no original couple through whom the contagion of “sin” could be transmitted to the entire human race. The history of our species does not contain a “fall” into sin from a mythical, pristine sinless paradise that never existed.

Read more . . .