Does the Bible Condemn Homosexual Sex? | Dave Armstrong

Dave explain the Biblical condemnations clearly.



Does the Bible Condemn Homosexual Sex? | Dave Armstrong





Pax et bonum

Judge Not? | Catholic Answers

Making many of the same points I've been making -



Judge Not? | Catholic Answers





Pax et bonum

Don't impose your "don't impose your morality" on me

Even if it hasn’t been addressed at us directly, we’ve all heard and read the classic response when discussing moral issues: Don’t impose your morality on me.

That response is actually meaningless and hypocritical.

First, it is an attempt to impose the speaker’s morality on us.

Second, all laws and all judgments are based on morality and thus, under the moral relativism that underlies the response, they can be considered imposing morality on others. Laws against accepting bribes, pedophilia, theft, discrimination, illegal immigration, trespassing, plagiarism, voter fraud, unethical business practices, assault, and so much more are based at some level on moral principles with which some people might disagree. If we accept this response as valid, the pedophile, the thief, the corrupt public official can all legitimately declare: Don’t impose your morality on me.

Third, this response is often motivated by a desire to avoid honestly addressing the moral position that prompted it. In some cases, the responder is in actuality comfortable with imposing morality as long as it is his or her morality. In others, the responder is trying to redirect the discussion to get away from the sometimes uncomfortable truth that underlies the moral position.

Finally, it often is not a matter of imposing the moral position on others. It is a matter of reminding others of the moral positions they perhaps did not know or understand, or have neglected, or which might make them look at themselves. There is often an underlying fear of honestly dealing with the reality that underlies the moral position, for that might call into question their beliefs and actions.

So when people say, “Don’t impose your morality on me,” often what they are really saying is, “Don’t make me be honest with myself, because I might have to admit I support or do something wrong.”

Now if we were dealing with an issue of someone forcefully imposing religion on others – as, for example, some Christian and Muslim conquerors have done in the past – that would be a different issue. But that is not what we are dealing with here.

Ultimately, “Don’t impose your morality on me” is simply an empty rhetorical cop out.

Pax et bonum

Fatima Shrine

Yesterday for our anniversary (okay, two days after our anniversary), the Good Looking One and I traveled out to the Fatima Shrine North of Buffalo. We went to Mass, wandered the grounds, had lunch, viewed wildlife, and, of course, visited Mary.

Pax et bonum

Ayn Rand: Pulp in My Laundry

Years ago when I started college Ayn Rand was in the air, like the ever-present lingering incense from dorm rooms up and down the hall.

So because I was like all the other self-conscious rebels, I started reading one of her novels. I got pretty far into it, then, with it in my backpack, had occasion to hitch somewhere (back in the day when hitching was a thing).

I stood on the side of the road, flashing my thumb for each passing car. It was hot, dry, like a desert day, and as each car passed I felt as if I was slowly desiccating. At one point I squatted, imagining myself like Tom Joad trying to go home, and thought about the novel. I began to feel more and more hollow, more and more empty, like a dry bone with the marrow long gone and the hot, dry air inexorably drifting through it.

And I had the feeling that I could give in to the emptiness, my soul evaporating into the nothingness.

And I knew I would be lost

And I almost didn't care.

Then a driver picked me up. He was a friendly fellow. I remember he had a big smile. He laughed like a man who liked to laugh. We engaged in small talk as we drove on, and the desert moment passed.

A couple of months  later, I was living in a big city, having taken a leave of absence from college. I was working in a group home, and becoming involved with a girl and her older sister and all their friends. Ayn Rand was floating about there too, lingering in the air like the stale cigarette smoke my big-city acquaintances exhaled as they proclaimed their collective uniqueness.

In my loneliness I tried to be unique too.

I had finished the first Rand novel, and, at the urging of my girlfriend, I began a second. I got part way through it, then, one day, threw in into a bag of laundry I was taking to the group home where I worked, thinking I would read more of it at lunch. In a hurry, I dumped my laundry into the washer, then ran off to do some things with the home's residents.

Later, I opened the washer.

The paperback novel had been reduced to pulp, shreds of it scattered throughout all my clothes.

I had to take the clothes out, item by item, pick out all the pieces of the novel, and rewash the clothes. I still found shreds of the novel in my underwear and socks weeks later.

Feathers in the wind.

A nascent poet, I saw a metaphor in this. And I took it as a sign from God.

I stopped reading Rand uncritically.

I read Tolkien and Lewis and Chesterton instead.

I still read them.

Which explains so much..

Pax et bonum

The Fatal Formula

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The coming blue wave ...

What I think of when I hear about the coming "Blue Wave."

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