One result of the Vatican’s attack on Catholic nun and theologian Sister Margaret Farley and her 2006 book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics that I wrote about yesterday is that her book shot up in Amazon rankings from #142,982 to #16 just one day after the attacks began.
Frankly, I think I am a much harsher critic of the Catholic Church and the pope than Farley so I am appealing to the pope: Please, please, attack me and my books, as harshly and loudly as you can.
More details on the sordid behavior of the Catholic Church hierarchy in covering up the sexual abuses cases by its clergy keep emerging. The latest is this revelation that the church paid priests accused of such abuse to leave. The church, of course, denies that this amounted to a secret payoff to keep the matter quiet by quietly getting rid of the priests rather than reporting them to the authorities. [Read more…]
McLeroy is a dentist who was on the Texas School Board. He was a creationist and was one of the key people pushing their agenda (as well as some other extreme right wing positions) on the schools and its textbooks. He was narrowly prevented from serving a second term. [Read more…]
… and for people like him who try to use quantum physics and cosmology to argue for the existence of god. [Read more…]
There is a small group of Christians who take the Bible literally and interpret a passage from the very last chapter of Mark (16:17-18) that reads: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” as a test of faith and handled deadly snakes to show that they are indeed true believers. [Read more…]
David Drumm discusses the Euthyphro dilemma which can be stated as “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?” [Read more…]
The US First Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt another blow is favor of same sex marriage by uninanimously ruling that the infamous Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. [Read more…]
Mr. Deity and Jesus review candidates to fill the third spot, though Jesus cannot quite figure out why he is necessary.
JC Penney is an icon of the American middle class. So it’s decision to run a Father’s Day ad featuring a same sex couple playing with their children is noteworthy, especially after their decision to hire Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson and rejecting the demands by the homophobes that she be fired.
Buddhist monks, especially those belonging to the Theravada/Hinayana branch, are supposed to live austere lives, detaching themselves from all worldly things, living celibate lives in monasteries and subsisting entirely on the charity of others. And the charitable donations they receive are not taxed. [Read more…]