Christopher Hitchens, God hater, died of complications from oesophageal cancer last night; he is the first of the atheist Four Horsemen to meet his maker.
God’s mercy is greater than Hitchens’ hate: may Hitchens at last be willing to receive it.
From here:
A billboard put up outside an Auckland church has been labelled “weird” and “inappropriate”.
It shows the Virgin Mary clearly shocked as she looks at a positive pregnancy test – but it’s not the first time the church has courted controversy.
It’s supposed to be the Virgin Mary’s moment of epiphany.
“I think it’s really weird,” one person told 3 News. “I don’t think it’s that appropriate to have outside a church.”
“It’s weird, but not really offensive,” said another.
“Well, I obviously don’t agree with it being weird and creepy,” says Glynn Cardy, vicar at of St Matthew-in-the-City, who came up with the idea for the billboard.
“It’s trying to make people think about Christmas and to then think compassionately and kindly about people in a similar situation.”
When Glynn Cardy tells us it should make us think “kindly about people in a similar situation “, he has a point: there are pregnant virgins popping up all over the place these days.
I’m getting at least four calls per week from scammers offering to fix my computer.
I recorded today’s fun:
From here:
I have one consistency, which is [being] against the totalitarian – on the left and on the right. The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. And the origins of that are theocratic, obviously. The beginning of that is the idea that there is a supreme leader, or infallible pope, or a chief rabbi, or whatever, who can ventriloquise the divine and tell us what to do.
I think Hitchens is correct in defining totalitarianism as the enemy – although, “political enemy” would be more accurate. Where he misses the mark is identifying God as the supreme totalitarian.
In practice, the most evil totalitarians have been godless individuals who, without the restraints that fear of the Divine engenders, cavalierly visited murder and mayhem on their own people.
If the Triune God exists, as I believe he does, far from being a celestial tyrant, he is the creator of human freedom, a freedom which allowed humanity the choice of rebelling against its Creator to the cost of God himself in his atoning sacrifice on the cross.
If God does not exist, if the natural is all there is, the true tyrant is our genetic makeup and the molecules in our brains: they guarantee that no choice we make can ever be free of what they compel us to do.
From here:
It appears the Toronto Zoo’s famously same-sex pair of penguins have not only gone their separate ways, but are even pursuing female partners.
Buddy and Pedro, a pair of male African penguins whose same-sex bond made worldwide headlines this fall, were separated in November so they could mate with females.
Those who argue that the existence of homosexual behaviour in animals shows that homosexuality is natural in humans, should now be arguing that since homosexual penguins can change their ways, homosexual humans can, too.
I’m not holding my breath, though.
According to Peter Mullen here:
Richard Dawkins says that David Cameron is “not really a Christian”. The fact is that it is only God to whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid. So Dawkins has no means of telling whether Cameron is a genuine Christian or not.
We can, however, know that Dawkins is not a proper atheist – that is an intelligent atheist – from his own puerile writing and pathetic attempts at philosophical theology. For example, he writes: “Either God exists or he doesn’t. It is a scientific question. The existence of God is a scientific question, like any other.”
This is idiotic. Science investigates material phenomena, observable entities in the universe. No competent theologians or philosophers – not even the atheist ones – have ever declared that God (if he exists) is an object in his own universe. Perhaps there is no God, and intelligent Christians readily admit that there may be some legitimate doubt. But if the Judaeo-Christian God exists, then he is the maker of the universe and not an entity within it.
That is why science can make legitimate pronouncements on whether bigfoot, fairies, flying spaghetti monsters – and even Greek gods who were believed to be a part of the natural universe – exist, but not God the Creator, whose actuality is independent of his creation.
From here:
A national atheist foundation plans to seek permission to hoist its own banner to join secular and religious Christmas displays on an East Texas courthouse square.
The display surrounding the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens includes a traditional Nativity scene, as well as multiple Santa Clauses, elves, wreathes, garland, trumpeters, dwarfs, snowmen, reindeer and Christmas trees, the Athens Daily Review reported.
[…]
However, county officials received a letter Monday from the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued the seasonal display on courthouse grounds amounts to an unconstitutional endorsement of the Christian faith.
In Elmwood City, Pa., the foundation has proposed hoisting a banner that reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, LET REASON PREVAIL. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
It is clear that atheists hate Christmas – the real Christmas – and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to try to make everyone hate it as much as they do. What is less clear is why, after strenuous efforts to make their case, they couldn’t come up with a statement of their position that at least makes sense.
If in your first sentence you trumpet that reason is to prevail, why, in your third, would you make a statement that is unprovable by reason – i.e. “There is only our natural world”?
Perhaps atheists are so smug in the certainty of their assumptions, that they have become incapable of examining them.
Can be found here.
Some interesting tidbits:
1959
A new distribution concept benefitting dioceses and the national church is forged. All identifiable givers to the church receive the newspaper along with their diocesan publication. Circulation skyrockets to more than 200,000.
Since I still receive the Journal, I must be viewed as an “identifiable giver”: believe it or not, I don’t actually give the Anglican Church of Canada any money, so my identifiable giving must be all the free publicity the ACoC receives on this blog. It’s gratifying to be appreciated.
Come to think of it, though, the Journal receives a yearly subsidy of $596,627 from Canadian Heritage, so, as a taxpayer, I am still contributing to the Anglican Church of Canada. Very reluctantly.
1968-1975
Hugh McCullum, a well-respected journalist and activist, is the first editor to hire professional reporters rather than clergy to produce stories on poverty, aboriginal land claims, pollution, abortion law reform and apartheid. A fierce advocate of editorial independence, he believes that an open, transparent church is a stronger church.
And now, 40 years later, the ACoC is such an “open, transparent” church that its membership has strengthened from around 1.36 million to 320,000, many of whom are septuagenarians.
1977
The newspaper’s editorial policy is revised. While the Canadian Churchman remains the national newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada, its’ [sic] position as an independent voice rather than the official voice of the church, is made clear.
The supposed editorial independence of the Journal is frequently reiterated, largely to avoid losing its substantial grant from Heritage Canada. In reality, it has about the same amount of independence as Pravda had from the U.S.S.R.
Even with the yearly grant, the Journal has been shrinking – it must be getting stronger – and has had to appeal to members for money:
1994
With funding from General Synod slashed by 38 per cent, the Journal seeks donations from readers for the first time. Proceeds from the Anglican Journal Appeal are shared 50/50 with the diocesan newspapers.
Rest assured, though, that it has not abandoned its liberal blinkers: instead it now oozes reader friendliness:
2010
A re-design of the Anglican Journal, the first in a decade, is launched with the April issue, offering a bold new reader-friendly look.
The New Statesman inviting Richard Dawkins to edit the Christmas edition of its magazine is as sensible as Switzerland nominating Moammar Khaddafi to sit on the U.N. human rights council.
From here:
We have no reindeer, but four horsemen; no single star of wonder and no astrologers bearing gifts, but a gifted star of astronomy who knows wonder when she sees it; no kings from the east, but the modern equivalent of a king from the west; and wise men – and women – all around the table. Please join us at the feast.
Four horsemen bearing gifts of pitiless indifference, nihilism, God hatred and meaninglessness each wrapped in a disguise of enlightened rationalism.
Merry Christmas.
