Faith Quickies

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In  a recent broadcast of his radio show, Michael Savage joked that if Pope Francis was serious about wealth distribution, then the Pope should sell the Sistine Chapel ceiling to him for one million dollars.

Where to begin with how stupid this proposal is?

-Does he have any idea what the appraised value is? Somehow I doubt it, but it’s higher than 1 million.

-Is he aware no one in the Vatican has authorization to sell that ceiling? Mostly because the Sistine Chapel is to the Vatican what the White House is to the US.

-Does he have any idea how much restoration costs would be?

-If he has a million dollars to blow on artwork, then doesn’t that mean he has his own wealth to redistribute first?

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The St Louis Rams recently drafted the first openly gay NFL player and the media keeps showing the video of him kissing his “lover.”

Now I am not so naïve to think the NFL is a bastion of family values, but I do know football players are quite religious and have teammates from different backgrounds and denominations. So, one would think the NFL of all groups would be tolerant (there’s that word again) of people who don’t agree with their view.

No surprise then they reprimanded and are now thinking of fining another player who tweeted his disapproval.

Now articles are appearing that say this is going to “redefine masculinity”  in pro-football.

Are they nuts or do they not understand what masculinity means? For our purposes, the root of the word came from a Latin phrase referring to the form and traits men were expected to have.  Even today, we have expectations of what a man is, despite what feminism wants us to believe.  So how are we going to explain to an impressionable child who follows this player on Twitter, finds this out about him and want to imitate him?

Today at Harvard, the school will host its first ever Satanic mass, fresh off the erection of a satanic monument in Oklahoma City.

I never thought I’d have to post about something like this, but one day I will put together a post about the evils of Satanism (no conspiracy theories, I assure you) so for now let me ask this:

Why is it okay to have this type of event at Harvard when you can’t say the phrase “man up” because someone might be offended by it?

For that matter, why is any sane parent even thinking of sending their kids to Harvard?

In yet another case of gay activists not giving a crap about people who disagree with them, a judge in Arkansas has overturned the state amendment banning same-sex marriage. Sure, the amendment was voted on by the people but since when have activists ever cared when the vote doesn’t go their way?

No surprise here: the judge that made the ruling is a registered Democrat.

Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me at all considering the type of state Arkansas is. Sure, it’s in the Bible Belt, but since Protestantism reigns, then everyone has their own view of God’s word with no objective check on it.

If there is no objective check, what’s to stop someone from ignoring the verses against homosexuality? It’s their interpretation and they’re free to have their own view, right?  

Supreme Court Calls BS on "Prayer Offends Me"

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High Court Ruling Favors Prayer at Council Meeting

Supreme Court says Christian prayers to open council meetings don't violate Constitution

By MARK SHERMAN

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Prayers that open town council meetings do not violate the Constitution even if they routinely stress Christianity, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The court said in 5-4 decision that the content of the prayers is not significant as long as they do not denigrate non-Christians or proselytize.
The ruling by the court's conservative majority was a victory for the town of Greece, N.Y., outside of Rochester. The Obama administration sided with the town.
In 1983, the court upheld an opening prayer in the Nebraska legislature and said that prayer is part of the nation's fabric, not a violation of the First Amendment. Monday's ruling was consistent with the earlier one.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the prayers are ceremonial and in keeping with the nation's traditions.
"The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers," Kennedy said.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court's four liberal justices, said, "I respectfully dissent from the Court's opinion because I think the Town of Greece's prayer practices violate that norm of religious equality — the breathtakingly generous constitutional idea that our public institutions belong no less to the Buddhist or Hindu than to the Methodist or Episcopalian."
Kagan said the case differs significantly from the 1983 decision because "Greece's town meetings involve participation by ordinary citizens, and the invocations given — directly to those citizens — were predominantly sectarian in content."
A federal appeals court in New York ruled that Greece violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity.
From 1999 through 2007, and again from January 2009 through June 2010, every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation. In 2008, after residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens complained, four of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians, including a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha'i congregation.
A town employee each month selected clerics or lay people by using a local published guide of churches. The guide did not include non-Christian denominations, however. The appeals court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there.
The two residents filed suit and a trial court ruled in the town's favor, finding that the town did not intentionally exclude non-Christians. It also said that the content of the prayer was not an issue because there was no desire to proselytize or demean other faiths.
But a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that even with the high court's 1983 ruling, the practice of having one Christian prayer after another amounted to the town's endorsement of Christianity.
Kennedy, however, said judges should not be involved in evaluating the content of prayer because it could lead to legislatures requiring "chaplains to redact the religious content from their message in order to make it acceptable for the public sphere."
He added, "Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy."
Kennedy himself was the author an opinion in 1992 that held that a Christian prayer delivered at a high school graduation did violate the Constitution. The justice said Monday there are differences between the two situations, including the age of the audience and the fact that attendees at the council meeting may step out of the room if they do not like the prayer.
Kennedy and his four colleagues in the majority all are Catholic. They are: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
In her dissent, Kagan said the council meeting prayers are unlike those said to open sessions of Congress and state legislatures, where elected officials are the intended audience. In Greece, "the prayers there are directed squarely at the citizens," she said. Kagan was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Of the four, three are Jewish and Sotomayor is Catholic.
Kagan also noted what she described as the meetings' intimate setting, with 10 or so people sitting in front of the town's elected and top appointed officials. Children and teenagers are likely to be present, she said.
The case is Greece v. Galloway, 12-696

(For a link, click here.)


THE ANGEL POSSENTI:
 So now what, atheists? You can't play the "prayer is offensive" card ever again. There goes one of your key weapons.

If this logic was applied to other things...

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The Angel Possenti:

In my last post, I talked about how the phrase "you can't legislate morality" doesn't make any logical sense in any way, shape or form. Why? Partially because law by its very nature is based on morality--at least in some sense--but mostly because the people who say this are really saying they---and only they--- have the authority to determine what morality is.

The biggest cop-out--or at least one of the biggest cop-outs-- concerning this mindset can be summarized with one sentence. I haven't met anyone who can look me in the eye and say they've never heard this sentence because that's how prevalent this phrase is.

And what is this one sentence? This big-bopper of a cop-out?

"I am personally opposed to [insert issue here], but I don't want to impose my morality on others."
(Note: although this could apply to any issue, most of the time this is used on abortion issues.)

I have never in my life ever thought this notion made any sense…yes, even back when I was weak in belief, I never thought this made sense.

Imagine for a moment if people applied this pseudo-logic to other areas:

-"I should teach my kid 2 +2=4 , but I shouldn't impose my belief on him."
-"I should tell that thief that stealing is wrong, but I shouldn't impose my belief on him."
-"I think people should learn new things, but I shouldn't impose my belief on others."
-"I should teach my two-year old how to use the toilet, but I shouldn't impose my belief on him."

If you're a thick-heaed atheist and still don't see why this doesn't make sense, let me make this even clearer:

1. It is impossible to go through life and not impose anything on anyone.
We all learn and draw conclusions from a variety of sources and each one tries to convince us about the truth.
2. We judge people on what they do, and not what they say they'll do.
99.999 times out of ten, the people who say they don't impose their morality on others go against the very morality they just said they believe. Speaking of which…
3. The supporters of the notion in reality don't believe in the morality they just said they believe in.
4. If it's someone running for public office who says this, they just want power over your life.

Only atheists are dumb enough to believe the notion and atheists are idiots.

Anti-Atheist Meme #11

Anti-atheist meme #10

A Test 99% of Atheists Fail

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The Angel Possenti:

For this post, first look at these two photos:

One of these men was convicted for possession of child pornography. Care to guess which one?

anti-atheist meme #9