Latest Real Jesus Discovered!

I sometimes wonder if these endlessly invented Jesus' aren't celebrated because they offer yet another excuse to ignore the Jesus of Christianity. He is, after all, a very discomforting Person who requires us to surrender our ego and comfort for His Love. The Gospel of no suffering and self-affirmation can't hold a candle to Him.

Aa Mark Shea says in the article he links to at the bottom of this post:

Every Latest Real Jesus at variance with the constant tradition of the Church is always a reflection of the obsessions of the discoverer, not a revelation of who Jesus really was.

Latest Real Jesus Discovered!:

Turns out that in addition to being a robust heterosexual who married Mary Magdalene, he was also gay.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Cohabitation’s Dirty Little Secret

I meant to blog on this article when I first saw it. It reminds me of friends I knew who had lived together for some years prior to marrying. Empty-headed I said something conventional after their marriage like " at least now you two know each other better because of living together for a few years". She responded, not without bitterness: "No, I never knew him. After we got married he became a different person". They were divorced some years later.

Cohabitation’s Dirty Little Secret:

Back the 1970s there was a lot of talk that living together before marriage was a “wise” thing to do. After all, said its proponents, “You need to try a shoe on before buying it” and “You take a car for a test ride before negotiating the deal.” Never mind that human beings are a little more dignified and complicated than shoes or cars, and that we don’t “buy” one another. Never mind all that, according to the proponent of this theory, we were supposed to bow our heads to the obvious wisdom of “shacking up.”

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

In Memoriam

With Mike Wallace's recent passing here is an opportunity for a two-fer: a remembrance of Mike Wallace and of Margaret Sanger:

Mike Wallace's classic interview with Margaret Sanger makes the rounds after Wallace's death...:

Margaret Sanger was many things admirable: a vibrant personality, a brilliant organizer, a canny reader of the temperature of the times, a woman who built powerful institutions in a man’s world. But she was also many things ugly and even despicable: an egotist who frequently clashed with others; a free-love advocate who had a dizzying number of affairs and who hurt many men as a result; and a eugenicist who argued that “birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defective.”

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Speak the Truth

Here's an articulate discussion of the HHS mandate, contraception and gender in the light of the Catholic Faith by (gasp!) a Catholic laywoman:

The HHS Mandate gets Pwned:

Here’s how you fight it:

Don’t just call it an attack on religious liberty: make it clear that contraception is *morally wrong*, and don’t let people think it’s just ritually impure like eating pork.

And do it in the confidence that this is a winning issue for the Church and a losing issue for Obama. Don’t back down. Resist the Tyrant!

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

My Right to Not Be Offended

is more important than your right to free speech. That is, if I belong to a protected group. Welcome to LIberal Fascism.

Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

On December 10, 1948-63 years ago today-the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted; 48 nations voted in favor, 8 abstained, and none dissented. The Declaration proclaimed a simple idea: that all human beings are born equal and free in dignity and rights. The Declaration also made it clear that rights are not conferred by governments. They are the birthright of every human being regardless of where they were born, what the color of their skin is, or what religion they practice. These rights include the right to freedom of expression and opinion, as enshrined in Article 19 of the Declaration.

Read the whole thing.

(Via First Things: On the Square.)

Kantian Philosophy

can be a minefield for the new philosopher. He's extremely important for understanding modern philosophy but can be abstract and difficult to understand. So follow the little girl in the video to get a glimpse of what might be wrong with Kant:

Do you understand the philosophy of Immanuel Kant? Why it ultimately fails? Then give me five minutes of your time, because this is important...:

Do you understand the philosophy of Immanuel Kant? Why it ultimately fails? Give me five minutes of your time; this is important. Some would say Kant's principles are the very cornerstone of our civilization. The term "categorical imperative" means that we decide right from wrong by the premise, "If it's OK for me to do it, then it has to be OK for everybody to do it. If it's not OK for everybody to do it, then it's not OK for me to do it either." Or said a little differently, “One must always follow one’s own conscience.” Sound familiar? Immanuel Kant taught that the obligation of moral command comes from the will (we all want to do the right thing), that in matters of conscience individuals have absolute autonomy (follow your own conscience), and that mere obedience to an external authority was immoral. That's right - immoral.

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Philosophy is Hard

Especially when you have a cold. Nonetheless Professor Beckwith cites four pdf documents of some of his arguments against a Rawlsian view of democracy and law. They are worth reading and pondering, though I did burn out by the last one:

President Obama: Ex-Liberal:

President Barack Obama has abandoned liberalism. What I mean by liberalism is not the political philosophy that we typically associate with left-of-center politicians and candidates. The president, of course, remains unabashedly in that camp. What I am referring to is a particular posture concerning moral questions, which the preside.

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)