religion

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Calvin Freiburger anti-Semitism, gay marriage, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy, illness, Islamofascism, judicial activism, McCain, Obama, racism, religion, RINOs, Ted Kennedy, video games, Wii
“The Barack Obama I knew,” according to, er, a Palestinian anti-Zionist activist. Wonderful company this guy keeps….
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Political personalities, coming to a Nintendo Wii near you.
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Nobody should take pleasure in Ted Kennedy’s recent medical woes, and most conservatives have offered him and his family their condolences and prayers, as well they should. But for John McCain to go so far beyond that as to say it’s “a great privilege to call” this guilty-of-manslaughter demagogue “my friend” is pathetic.
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In the wake of California’s latest same-sex marriage decision, Dennis Prager has some must-listen segments on the matter.
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Pot, meet kettle.

Atheists Crying Wolf, Part 1

Calvin Freiburger Alonzo Fyfe, atheism, bigotry, blogosphere, Bush, Constitution, demagogues, history, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, religion
A while back I took on charges of anti-atheist bigotry leveled against an Illinois lawmaker by atheist blogger Alonzo Fyfe. Beyond that, Fyfe claims a whole host of things amount to prejudice against poor, innocent atheists:
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(1) A sitting president said that atheists are not fit to be judges – and the statement can still be found on the White House’s own web site.”[W]e need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. And those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.”
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(2) We have atheists who stand and feign support for a Pledge of Allegiance that says, “As far as this government is concerned, atheists (those not ‘under god’) are the moral equivalent of those who would commit themselves to rebellion, tyranny, and injustice for all.”
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(3) We have a national motto on our money and going up in more and more places in this country that says, “If you do not trust in God, you are not one of us.”
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(4) Atheists are routinely blamed for everything from terrorist attacks to school shootings to hurricanes to the Holocaust.
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(5) On this latter point, there is a movie that will officially debut around the country on April 18th that is making a blatant attempt to link atheism to the Holocaust.
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I intend to show that these victim-centric interpretations are wrong, and that, when not distorted by atheist activists, none of them constitute bigotry against those who don’t believe in God. My case will be divided into three posts: this one on atheism and the judiciary, a second on ceremonial references to God & religious symbolism, and a third on atheism and violence.
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(1) “[W]e need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God.” President Bush is right, and if a statement like this is enough to send Fyfe flying off the handle, methinks he needs to re-read the Declaration of Independence, brush up on American history, and take a couple deep breaths.
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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” So says the Declaration of Independence, the guiding light of American governance. Examples of the Founding Fathers echoing and elaborating upon this sentiment are abundant. John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government assumes men to be “the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker.” The concept that our rights come from God was a sharp departure from prior conceptions that rights originated either from government or from cultural lineage. Its implications are powerful: it divorces human rights from intellectual, physical, or racial superiority, or from bloodline. All individuals deserve equal treatment simply because they are human beings. Accordingly, under this conception of God-given rights, government becomes a servant of the people, rather than the master.
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If one believes in judicial originalism, that the purpose of judges is to faithfully glean and apply the original meaning and intentions of a law, then why wouldn’t it be legitimate to consider a potential judge’s understanding of the Framers’ conception of rights? A judge who sees our rights as God-given understands that he doesn’t have the authority to thwart them by judicial fiat, no matter how much he might think his personal views on any given case might be better. I, for one, think that sort of humility is highly desirable in a public figure, especially one wielding the power of an unelected, unaccountable, lifetime position.
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Granted, the Constitution prohibits faith-based legal disqualifications from public office, and Bush didn’t propose any. But that isn’t the same as the individual in charge of choosing a candidate—the executive making his appointments or the voter casting his ballot—having a preference for the type of ideas which he or she believes can best serve the office. Unlike skin color or sex, religion and atheism are ideas (or the absence of particular ideas) with implications relevant to society. Therefore, it’s reasonable for people to use them as criteria when judging potential public officials. Surely many atheists think believing Christians are less-than ideal officeholders, as is their prerogative. I’d passionately disagree, of course, but it’s not bigotry to take religion, or lack thereof, into consideration. Then again, perhaps the actual goal isn’t tolerance, but rather to insulate one’s worldview, via intimidation if necessary, from critical evaluation by the people.
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By all means, atheists like Alonzo Fyfe should have equal opportunity to seek public office. But that doesn’t mean they get to pretend the philosophical foundations of the nation never existed, or to exempt their ideas from public consideration.

Catholics & Abortion? – UPDATED

Calvin Freiburger abortion, all.org, Catholicism, evil, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, murder, pro-life, religion
UPDATE: Good news—St. Thomas has backtracked, and Star Parker is set to speak there after all.
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Two extremely disturbing stories regarding American Catholics. First, the University of St. Thomas shunned a planned pro-life speech by Star Parker. Ed Morrissey has the details. Second, the following is a column I just received via email from ALL’s Judie Brown:

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Just when I thought there might not be anything worthy of a blog post, two news items came to my attention within the short span of five hours; In each case I was appalled at what the facts exposed.
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Let me begin in San Francisco, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It is also one of the most salacious. It wasn’t too long ago, last October to be exact, that we read about Archbishop George Niederauer giving the body and blood of Christ in Holy Eucharist to two members of the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.’ After several Catholics expressed outrage, the Archbishop claimed he didn’t notice the garb these two men were wearing when they approached him for the sacrament during the Mass. While his apology was certainly appropriate, his original action boggles my simple little mind.
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I almost believed that he had honestly not noticed the outrageous face makeup and costuming worn by the two gay “nuns.” But that was then and this is now.
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Just yesterday I learned that when Catholic Charities hosted its annual banquet this past Friday, the Archbishop was scheduled to present an award to George Marcus, a real estate investment mogul who is a large supporter of Planned Parenthood.
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In selecting George Marcus as a 2008 honoree, Archbishop Niederauer stated, “Through his passion for philanthropy, interfaith collaboration and insistence on making life more beautiful for all people, George M. Marcus is an example of how a single individual can positively impact the lives of many.”
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Are we to suspect that the Archbishop simply didn’t know about Marcus’ involvement with the world’s leading promoter of abortion? I think not.
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As if this April 11th news was not enough, I also learned that a coalition of Catholics described as liberals are mobilizing behind the scenes to provide Barack Obama with support for his campaign. As soon as Deal Hudson revealed this story to the media, Alexis Kelley and Sister Simone Campbell, SSS, of Catholics in Alliance responded that Mr. Hudson was mistaken. They wrote that the organization they represent is a “non-partisan, nonprofit organization that promotes the fullness of Catholic social teaching.”
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But I would suggest to you that these ladies are protesting too much, and that it is quite certain that Hudson is not far off the mark with his comments.
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Now why would I say this? Because these women represent the same organization that issued a call for “civility in politics” last November. While they have subsequently removed the document from their website, due in large part to our exposing the effort for what it truly was—a statement lacking all respect for the sacrament of Holy Eucharist—the fact remains that the group did issue it and that is a recorded fact.
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I welcome you to read my commentary on this ridiculous statement and our call for the signers to remove their names. As I wrote in this column:
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The first point in their series of bulleted statements reads, “As Catholics we should not enlist the Church’s moral endorsement of our political preferences. We should do this out of respect for our fellow Catholics of equally good will but differing political convictions and our interest in protecting the clergy from being drawn into partisan political to the detriment of the Church’s integrity and objectivity.”
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This is the most inane representation of alleged acts of civility that I have ever seen; in fact I dare say it is purely evil in its intent. American Life League has repeatedly called for bishops, priests, deacons and Eucharistic ministers to protect Christ from sacrilege by denying the sacrament to public figures who claim to be Catholic while also supporting abortion. The group’s statement characterizes our actions as somehow exhibiting disrespect for our Church leaders who have been ordained to serve Christ. It is completely irrational to propose that out of respect for those who favor child killing, or as this group puts it, “Catholics of equally good will but differing political convictions,” we would withdraw our campaign to make sure that Christ, truly present in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, is protected from sacrilege.
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In light of these facts I believe that Hudson is right and the women are simply attempting to back down from what in my humble opinion is their political agenda at the current moment.
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How can Catholics do such things? Why are such actions tolerated? Well, don’t ask Archbishop Niederauer.
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I suppose you may be scratching your head and wondering what in the world is going on with “Catholics” these days? I must tell you that if I knew, perhaps I could sleep better at night. Sadly, it would appear these examples represent a trend that has no end in sight, at least for the foreseeable future. Moral relativism has crept into the statements and actions of even those called to lead Catholics and teach them. Such a situation should sadden each of us beyond description.
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The antidote is, of course, total faith in Christ and resolve to defend the Catholic Church and her teaching regardless of the scandalous comments and behavior we see around us. And we should recall those ageless comments of Pope Benedict XVI, who said:
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The human race—every one of us—is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way. The Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of Heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross. He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all—he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Inauguration as Pope, April 2005
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Let us pray for the Holy Father and be confident that in God’s time all of the chaos within the Church will be exposed, and souls will be healed and brought into full union with Christ, our Shepherd.

"Atheist Ethicist" Should Rethink Blog’s Title

Calvin Freiburger Alonzo Fyfe, atheism, bigotry, blogosphere, dishonesty, ethics, hatred, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Illinois, religion, school shootings, stupidity
Atheist blogger Alonzo Fyfe is up in arms over a controversy in Illinois. It seems that, while debating a proposed public donation to Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, Democrat Rep. Monique Davis went nuclear on area atheist activist Rob Sherman:
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I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy—it’s tragic—when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school. I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln, where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children […] What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous…It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat! […] You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
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Anybody who’s ever listened to Christopher Hitchens for about five minutes knows there’s at least a strain of atheism that is so “enraged in anything related to God, they want to fight.” I agree that atheist attempts to purge even the most innocuous signs of America’s religious heritage from the public sphere are attempts to destroy America’s foundation, and I suspect most atheists trying to rewrite history know better. Is disbelief in God dangerous? In activist form, absolutely. I’d even say the accusation that Sherman “believe[s] in destroying” is accurate, since this is his idea of a good cause. However, it is stupid to suggest an atheist has “no right” to be part of the debate and decision-making process.
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On his website, Sherman reports that Davis called him to apologize:
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Rep. Davis said that she had been upset, earlier in the day, to learn that a twenty-second and twenty-third Chicago Public School student this school year had been shot to death that morning. She said that it was wrong for her to take out her anger, frustrations and emotions on me, and that she apologized to me. I told her that her explanation was reasonable and that I forgave her.
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End of story? Not for Fyfe: evidently the apology is even worse than the initial comments:
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She hears about a school shooting, and she immediate takes it out on the first atheist she comes into contact with. She says, “You believe in destroying” and “It is dangerous for children to even know that your philosophy exists.” Obviously, she is a victim of the prejudice that says that atheists and evolutionists have been responsible for every act of school violence since Columbine. This was no apology. This was actually nothing more than Davis admitting her bigotry, and slapping Sherman and all atheists again with the accusation that atheism was responsible for this student’s death.
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What is this guy smoking? The original context of her explanation is crystal-clear: horrible news of yet another injustice against a child filled her with pent-up anger looking for an outlet, and she blew up in the face of a passionate disagreement, which just happened to be with an atheist. Presumably, had the docket been different that day, any number of different straws could have broken the camel’s back.
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There is not a shred of substance behind this attempt to play victim. But then, it’s not as if Alonzo Fyfe really gives a damn about demagoguery—about scientists (and those backing them) actively working to disprove the Left’s global warming propaganda, he says:
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I consider those who funded and supported this campaign to be among the most evil people that this planet has hatched, easily comparing to those Nazis who not only knew about the Holocaust but actually participated in it. These people are willing to put hundreds of millions to billions of people at risk, and inflict tends of trillions of dollars, all for the sake of personal profit.
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Peddling false claims about other people doing precisely the sort of thing the peddler is guilty of isn’t quite my idea of an “ethicist.”
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UPDATE: Apparently I’m a bigot because I don’t think challenging the secular crusade is akin to making atheists second-class citizens. Heh.

What’s So Great about Christianity?

Calvin Freiburger atheism, books, Christianity, d'souza, debate, religion
Currently I’m about halfway through Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, What’s So Great about Christianity, and it’s outstanding. Arguing from history, science, philosophy, and reason, D’Souza promises to beat the secularists on their own terms—and he does with flying colors. For Christians who want to defend their faith, atheists willing to put their beliefs to the test, or agnostics on a search for truth, I cannot recommend it highly enough. (For more, check out D’Souza’s debates with atheists Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.)

The Obama Future: Haven’t We Been Here Before?

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy, Jeremiah Wright, liberalism, lying, moonbats, Obama, racism, religion, scandal, spin
No matter how you try to parse it, there’s no way to make Barack Obama’s history with Reverend Jeremiah Wright look good. On March 14, Obama told Fox News’ Major Garrett, “none of these statements were ones that I had heard myself personally in the pews” (which becomes “I knew about one or two statements” later in the interview). To buy Wright Spin 1.0, you’d have to believe that the sound bites we’ve heard were all isolated incidents outside of which Wright’s message was totally different, and that Obama never caught wind of any of it, either in person or from fellow congregants, even though this was the kind of thing the church made available on video, and his wife sure as heck was paying attention. So the best case scenario is that Obama is Jacques Clouseau. Now there’s presidential material!
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As unflattering as “inattentive buffoon” is, Obama could have settled for it. But no, in his “A More Perfect Union” speech, he said “Did I ever know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.” Make no mistake: this is an admission that Barack Obama, the new-style politician of hope who is going to restore our ability to believe in the process, lied to the American people just days earlier.
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But that’s not all Messiah has to offer. He continues to maintain that, deep down, Reverend Jeremiah—who’s like an uncle to him—isn’t so terrible: even though he made “mistakes” (you mean the CIA didn’t invent AIDS? Whoops, my bad), there was enough talk of love and Christ and helping the poor amongst the lies, demagoguery and insanity to justify regularly exposing his kids to this man and his message. I don’t buy it—especially not after Wright’s flattering appearance on Hannity & Colmes last year. (By the way, this would happen to be the same Barack Obama who called for Don Imus to be fired and for Trent Lott to resign, each for considerably less. What a fraud.)
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Then there are the cheap shots towards Geraldine Ferraro, who “some have dismissed…as harboring some deep-seated racial bias” (not Barack, of course; he just, y’know, thought you might be curious about what people are saying), “politicians [who] routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends,” and “talk show hosts and conservative commentators [who] built entire careers unmasking bogus cases of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality.” Nice. And let’s not forget Obama’s charming reminiscence about Grandma. As Ann Coulter writes this week:
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Discrimination has become so openly accepted that—in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist—Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist “old uncle,” Rev. Wright.
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First of all, Wright is not Obama’s uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don’t choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with the idea that you can’t be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives. But Wright is not a relative of Obama’s at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright’s racist invective to his actual grandmother, who “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
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Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama’s grandmother—who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school—has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has. Unlike his “old uncle”—who is not his uncle—Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama’s grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn’t get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she’s white. Denounce the racist!
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And finally, the heart of his message is fundamentally contradictory. Sure, he throws in the obligatory scolding of Wright’s “profoundly distorted view of this country,” and admits that “all too often [anger] distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.” But in the same breath, Obama perpetuates the distraction by saying he could no more sever ties with Wright than with the black community, thereby identifying the two as one and the same. Give to bigotry no sanction…unless the bigot in question talks about nice stuff, too. I don’t think so, Barack.

Ben Stein vs. Richard Dawkins

Calvin Freiburger atheism, Dawkins, DVD, evolution, God, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, intelligent design, religion, science
Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled sounds eye-opening, and if this observation for Mariano at Atheism Sucks is any indication, it sure will be:
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Now on to Prof. Dawkin’s ID promotion. Mr. Stein’s interview with Prof. Dawkins is something to behold—a feast sights and sounds, I assure you. For instance, Prof. Dawkins asserts that people feel liberated and relieved when they realize that God does not exist. Mr. Stein asks him how he knows that, he is after all speaking with an empirical scientist. Prof. Dawkins responds that he receives letters from people to that effect. To which Mr. Stein states that there are some 8 billion people in the world and asks, “How many letters do you get?” This is funny and even embarrassing but think about it: the sorts of letters that Prof. Dawkins receives to that effect are of a very particular sort having been written by people who were motivated to contact him in order to either thank him, or buddy up to him, or congratulate him, etc. This certainly constitutes a biased sample. This sadly short segment is peppered with Prof. Dawkins making authoritative pronouncements only to be asked how he knows that and being forced to admit that he does not.
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Finally, he is asked how life could have originated presuming that God does not exist. He begins to explain Darwinian Natural Selection but is asked to back up to how life began in the first place. Taking a page straight out of Francis Crick’s atheist escapism playbook—he proposes Directed Panspermia. He lucidly explains, beyond any obscurity, that alien civilizations could have developed to the point of gaining the ability to seed life on earth. This is a theory for the intelligent design of life on earth. What then is the next logical question? How did life originate on that alien world? Prof. Dawkins explains that he believes that it was through Darwinian mechanisms.

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger 2008, abortion, books, Fred Thompson, Giuliani, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iraq, religion, romney
In his latest column, Jonah Goldberg gives the bottom-line reason why no decent or responsible person can support abortion: “I don’t see how you can be that sure, which is why I’m pro-life — not because I’m certain, but because I’m not.”
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More good news from Iraq, but the bulk of the article is about how decreasing violence is bad for the cemetery business. Cry me a river.
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As mayor, Rudy Giuliani formed a coalition to combat “anti-immigrant” legislation—which included George Soros, who “Hizzonor” (dopey nickname) recently lashed out at. Seems to me like a two-in-one flip-flop at least as bad, if not worse, as the charges the Rudy hacks regularly level at Mitt Romney. Ye hypocrites!
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Speaking of the hacks, you know something’s rotten in Denmark when “Republicans” favorably cite the Associated Press.
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The other frontrunners were unsurprisingly peeved last week when Romney claimed to be the candidate representative of the “Republican wing of the Republican Party,” and responded in kind. That’s politics. But, none of the others came close to telling the kind of lie Fred Thompson’s campaign did, by claiming Romney “ran for Senate to the left of Ted Kennedy.” The discrepancies in Romney’s record are a fair issue. This, however, is a lie – not a matter of casting facts & circumstances in a certain light. I guess ol’ Fred is OK with lying to people to win the presidency. That should give his supporters pause.
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New, promising books: there are too many of ‘em!
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Dinesh D’Souza (author of one of the aforementioned books) has an interesting take on miracles, science, and the lack of conflict between the two.

Gee, Thanks JB

Calvin Freiburger atheism, bigotry, Constitution, GOP, JB Van Hollen, law, Paul Bucher, religion, Wisconsin
A pack of intolerant secularists has managed to get innocent religious content purged from a memorial service organized by the Wisconsin Department of Justice:
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A religious hymn called “This Too Shall Pass” and a closing prayer by a Lutheran pastor will not be included in the ceremony as initially planned, department spokesman Kevin St. John said Friday…After a review, St. John said the department agreed the content was on shaky constitutional footing. “Rather than create the unintentional appearance that the state was endorsing religion or a particular creed, the department amended the program to exclude those parts,” he said. “We certainly wouldn’t want to have an appearance of a potential church-state violation overshadow the event.”
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Hey Kevin—if you did the right thing, it wouldn’t be the DoJ “overshadowing” anything; it’d be the group of atheist thugs and their obsession. But the worst part of the story? These thugs “praised Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s office for quickly addressing its protest.” Y’know, that’d be the JB Van Hollen who ran as a strong conservative who knows the law.
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General Van Hollen, I supported you in the Republican primary. I worked for you in the general election. For what? For you to needlessly cave when faced with lawless attacks on America’s heritage? Well, if Paul Bucher wants to take another stab at the job, I’ll be watching….