A Roman Catholic demonstrates his indifference to his Bible and his god, preferring the wiggle room of the Aristotelian lukewarm middle

You might almost call it hatred.

The top commenter here:

As we all know, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference and Boris is, as in so many things, extremely indifferent to the race-thingy and a lot of other cause-célèbre-thingies which seem to motivate the congenitally hateful left or the Compassion Inc. crowd or the old school Slob.

And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. -- Genesis 37:4

Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone. -- 2 Samuel 13:15

And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD. -- 2 Chronicles 19:2

Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. -- Psalm 97:10

SAMECH. I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love. ... I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love. -- Psalm 119:113, 163

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? -- Proverbs 1:22

But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. -- Proverbs 8:36

Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. -- Proverbs 9:8

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. -- Ecclesiastes 3:8

For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. -- Isaiah 61:8 

Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. -- Ezekiel 16:37

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. -- Amos 5:15

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; -- Micah 3:1f.

And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD. -- Zechariah 8:17

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; -- Matthew 5:43f.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. -- Matthew 6:24

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, -- Luke 6:27

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. -- Luke 16:13

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. -- Romans 9:13

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. -- Hebrews 1:9

Islam's Protestants: The old rebellious faith of the Bedawin of El-Hejaz

We pray not, because we must drink the water of ablution.

We give no alms, because we ask them.

We fast not the Ramazan month, because we starve throughout the year.

And we do no pilgrimage, because the world is the house of Allah.

-- Sir Richard Francis Burton, Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Meccah and Medinah (London: William Mullan and sons, 1879), p. 370.

The-world-ends-this-week Laugh of the Day: Sorry, can't take the interview until next week

I thought the intensity of the pain was all I had left of his fire

Mary Katharine Ham, here:

The fire is more remote than it used to be. My distance from it feels disconcerting even as it relieves the pain. I remember someone saying to me, right after he died, that they’d like to fast-forward to a time five years later when it didn’t hurt so much to remember him, and we could talk about him with smiles and laughter. I remember feeling panicky at the thought. I thought the intensity of the pain was all I had left of the fire. It was my tether to a time when he still existed on this Earth. And I knew every moment of every day, I was moving inexorably further from that time, and there was a part of me that hated it.

The Muslim call to prayer startles a kafir in Brooklyn

Video here.

The residuum of the introspective conscience of the West shows up in narcissism study

Once the religion is stripped away, the self-absorption lives on in another form.  

From the story here:

"Narcissists aren't afraid to tell you they're narcissists," said study co-author Brad Bushman, a communications and psychology professor at The Ohio State University. "They're not embarrassed about it at all."

People with a classic narcissistic personality tend to have an overinflated sense of self, an exhibitionist streak, a sense of entitlement and little empathy for others. People in Western countries rate higher on narcissistic traits than do those in Eastern nations, and millennials— people born between the early 1980s and early 2000s — are more likely to be self-centered than previous generations, at least in the United States, Bushman said.

"The self-esteem movement, I think, is a big part of that," Bushman said. "Also, I think social media provides a venue for people to project themselves to very large audiences."

Hillary's sacrament of abortion

Pattern development: Nineteen year old black rapper releases video depicting lynching of a white child

"The Florida rapper, born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, can then be seen slipping the noose over the white boy's head." He then pulls a rope and the boy is raised into the air as his legs can be seen twitching as he his lynched.

Changing diapers is such a drag: Employee gives birth at work, tries to flush the boy down the toilet

From the story here:

Police arrived later to find the baby in Lockner’s arms, San Mateo County Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

The baby had no pulse and was not breathing, so officers performed CPR and rushed the infant to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, he said.

The infant is alive and in stable condition, but the extent of the baby’s brain injuries was not known, Wagstaffe said.

Catholic moral hierarchy on display: Raymond Arroyo evidently thinks some stealing is forgivable

Sixty-four percent of abortions in the US are performed on minorities

36% on blacks

21% on Hispanics

7% on other minorities

Story here.

That means whites are killing their own future at a rate of 36%, equal to blacks, proving once again that equality isn't everything it's cracked up to be.

Today's strange new respect award goes to Steve Bannon

Here:

The bishops have been terrible about this. By the way, you know why? You know why? Because unable to ... come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches. ... [I]t's obvious on the face of it. That's what – the entire Catholic bishops condemn [Trump]. ... They have ... an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.

"Bacon-chasing" Muslim attorney files lawsuits against restaurants

From the story here:

On Tuesday, Dearborn attorney Majed Moughni filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Jewish woman in Sterling Heights, Angela Montgomery, 30, who says she found bacon in a vegetarian omelet she ordered at a Denny's restaurant in Sterling Heights. ... In a separate lawsuit, filed Aug. 22, a Yemeni-American Muslim couple from Dearborn, Askar Abubaker, and his wife, Hasinah Saeed, who wears an Islamic face veil, ordered chicken sandwiches at a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) restaurant in Lincoln Park on Dix Road on the afternoon of July 1. ... After taking bites, and finding out there was bacon, he told the cashier: "What is this? Why did you guys put this in my food?" ... The attorney handling the cases, Moughni, said there needs to be changes in how restaurants are handling food. ... Moughni filed a similar lawsuit in May against a Little Caesars Pizza in Dearborn that advertised halal pepperoni pizza, which Moughni said wasn't halal and contained pork. An attorney for Little Caesars has said the lawsuit should be dismissed and is without merit.

Intolerance and fanaticism are the necessary accompaniments of the religious sentiment, but also of the revolutionary

Gustave Le Bon, here:

A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the complete submission of his will, and the whole-souled ardour of fanaticism at the service of a cause or an individual who becomes the goal and guide of his thoughts and actions. Intolerance and fanaticism are the necessary accompaniments of the religious sentiment. They are inevitably displayed by those who believe themselves in the possession of the secret of earthly or eternal happiness. These two characteristics are to be found in all men grouped together when they are inspired by a conviction of any kind. The Jacobins of the Reign of Terror were at bottom as religious as the Catholics of the Inquisition, and their cruel ardour proceeded from the same source.

Nietzsche's anti-intellectual response to his own gaslighting: Become what you are

"Werde, der Du bist", but tellingly minus the learning:

γένοι' οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών -- Pindar, Pythian 2.72.

Gaslighting your own son

From The New York Times, January 24, 1999, here:

The bare-bones account of Nietzsche's life begins not so much with his birth in 1844 as with the death of his father five years later. Carl Nietzsche was a Lutheran pastor who died of ''softening of the brain,'' which sounds very like a dementia caused by the syphilitic infection that killed his son. Responding to his mother's urgings, Nietzsche became a child prodigy, and he also began to suffer from the nightmares and headaches that plagued him all his life.

What brought him to the state of ardent discipleship in which he met Wagner in 1868 is obscure. He had known about Wagner from his teens, but had disliked the music even while he admired the mythic themes of operas like ''Tristan und Isolde'' and tried himself to write an opera based on Nordic legends. It is clearer what he admired once he had become intoxicated: Wagner promised to re-create for the Germans the cultural climate in which the classical Greek world had created the tragedies of Aeschylus. It was this that ''The Birth of Tragedy'' spelled out in 1872 to its astonished readers.

The origin of "The Greatest Gaslighting Story Ever Told"

The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and his inheritance. Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the LORD is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them. And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw. The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him. For the LORD thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever.

-- Deuteronomy 18:1ff.

And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried:

-- Deuteronomy 21:5

Neither a ram, a lamb, or a man: If there is no sacrifice, there will be nothing for the parasites to eat at dinner

And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him. -- Leviticus 19:22

And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin. And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. -- Leviticus 5:6f.

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. -- John 1:29

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; -- Hebrews 10:12

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. -- Psalm 51:14ff.

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. -- Hosea 6:6

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. -- Matthew 9:13

But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. -- Matthew 12:7

News reports about allegorical interpretation notwithstanding, the importance of Fortunatianus of Aquileia's commentary lies elsewhere

Fortunatianus' formerly lost commentary on the Gospels, discussed here by a translator in the project, will be important not primarily for its contributions to allegorical interpretation, but more for its witness to the so-called Western text of the Gospels.

The allegorical stuff is just all headline BS, designed to raise the profile for an audience no longer educated enough to appreciate the real significance.

The so-called "Vetus Latina" represents the Latin of the New Testament before Jerome got a hold of it, and Fortunatianus' commentary's "Old Latin" readings, as distinct from other text types which have been associated with Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, should do much to improve our understanding of the Western text heretofore typically associated with the Greek and Latin Codex Bezae.

Joel Osteen in Houston is having quite the little PR problem

From the story here:

“Do you think Joel Osteen realizes he is basically the innkeeper in the Christmas story right now,” one Twitter user quipped. “Joel Osteen doesn’t want all those wet, homeless Houstonians destroying the upholstery in his fake Christian grift church scheme,” chimed in another.

Pensacola Christian College terminates General Lee statue sentry

The hysteria spreads.

I guess this means no date either, huh?

The atheist Revilo P. Oliver, one of the formative ideologues of modern white nationalism

Author of "Marxmanship in Dallas"

If he were only here to hear that. I think he would have replied that the ideology was all the Christians', the Jews', etc.

From the discussion, here:

There are some white nationalist groups that specifically speak out against religion, especially Christianity, as being harmful to the white race. Each of these groups articulates that position differently. Revilo Oliver, one of the formative ideologues of modern white nationalism, was deeply atheist in his views, as is Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance. William Pierce, the founder of the National Alliance (a white nationalist group), felt Christianity was an alien ideology and he wanted to promote “cosmotheism” — the idea that the races are “evolving” and the white race will eventually become like gods. Ben Klassen, founder of the Church of the Creator, was doing the same. He determined his ideology — called “Creativity,” a pantheistic religion with the white race at the center — should be the white man’s religion. And Richard Spencer (president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank) is anti-religious. But it is difficult to give a straight answer to what anti-religious white nationalists believe because what I see is a very fluid, changing dynamic.

The New Abstinence: Wait Until 8th Grade

"Parents Sign Pledge To Wait Until 8th Grade To Give Kids Smartphones"

If God had meant us to be united as the ideal way of living, he would not have confounded our language

And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And Jehovah said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city.

-- Genesis 11:5ff.

The ideal of unity in John and Paul is of a different inspiration entirely.

Peace through violence: Christianity has made the ground fertile for the ideas of antifa

CNN has since deleted "peace through violence" after discovering its "mistake"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

-- Ephesians 2:14ff.

I guess HuffPo thinks the Jewish cabal running Trump can get down to business now

Racism angers Jesus Racist, Ethnic Nationalist God-King of the Jews?

Ideologue Russell Moore thinks so, puttin' on his blinders, in WaPo predictably:

"[T]he picture we get of Jesus in the Gospels is how relatively calm he is. ... Jesus spoke gently with those on the outside of the people of God. ... The religious leaders and those keeping the worship of God from the nations had something in common: Both were seeking to keep people away from the kingdom of God, people they didn’t feel were worthy of it. ... [E]thnic nationalism is not just a deviant social movement. It is the same old idolatry of the flesh, the human being seeking to deify his own flesh and blood as God." 

If only it were that simple.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

-- Matthew 10:5ff.

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 15:24

Don't give what is sacred to dogs. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

-- Matthew 7:6

But he answered and said [to the woman of Canaan], It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:26

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them . . ..

-- Matthew 6:7f.

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

-- John 10:33

The ideology of a terrible simplifier, the Editor in Chief of Christianity Today, would have meant tens of millions more dead in World War Two

Here in "The Use of Nuclear Weapons Is Inherently Evil":

[W]e stand in that stream of Christians who find no justification for the use of nuclear weapons. Under no circumstances would the use of nuclear arms be justified. Our reasons hinge on the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” and the indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons. Simply put, they end up killing a great many more civilians than combatants, and therefore, their use violates one cardinal principle of just war: proportionality. Sadly, every war will entail the death of civilians, but as one summary of just war theory put it, “The violence in a just war must be proportional to the casualties suffered.” Thus, “innocent civilians must never be the target of war; soldiers always avoid killing civilians.” ...

This is not the place to argue the fine points, but it is the place to reiterate that we stand in that stream of Christians who find no justification for the use of nuclear weapons. This is not a politically radical view. Some of the most conservative of Christians and politicians, including evangelist Billy Graham, have also concluded that nuclear weapons are inherently evil or, to not put too fine a point on it, “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization” (Ronald Reagan).


This is, as the kids say these days, a hot mess.

It begs the question of innocence for one thing, which God has found little of in the world, and cares as little for. Just last week a famous anti-nuclear weapons advocate, a survivor of Hiroshima, admitted she and her classmates were being trained as decoders for the Japanese army, in preparation for the expected American invasion.

The Bible is full of instances of the indiscriminate killing of innocents, civilian populations targeted for destruction by none other than Yahweh himself. The possession of the promised land was predicated on this very idea:

And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.

 

-- Deuteronomy 7:16.

It was murder on a grand scale, mass murder.

Perhaps the most famous of these stories is about how Saul was actually removed from being king, to be replaced by David the ancestor of Jesus, precisely because he disobeyed God by NOT destroying the Amalekites utterly: 

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ... And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

 

-- 1 Samuel 15:3, 8f.

Evangelicals often explain away such evidence by appealing to dispensational theology, which provides a convenient way of making self-contradictory evidence from the Bible of null effect. That was a different dispensation they will say, this is now. There is bad relativism, and then there is divine relativism. And yet they insist "He changeth not".

Well, things mundane haven't changed much, either. American Evangelicals are content to imagine God still blesses America despite a slaughter of over 60 million innocents through abortion since 1973, right under their noses. But somehow we're supposed to get exercised over the possibility that Donald Trump might fry up millions of North Koreans. If proportionality mattered, the death of every man, woman and child in North Korea today wouldn't add up to 45% of the slaughter that's occurred right here in the land of the free, the home of the brave.

Many Evangelicals being Democrats over the years voted for this abortion status quo. Are we supposed to believe that was not politically radical, just because that's the way it was? Ronald Reagan said something sweeping about nuclear weapons, so just because he said it it's not radical? The is-is-ought fallacy never had it so good.

Citing Ronald Reagan as an authority for your position isn't always a good idea, but it is telling.

Ronald Reagan couldn't imagine that signing abortion legislation in California when he was governor would lead to an explosion of abortions from the hundreds to an average of over 100,000 by the time he left office. Just as he couldn't imagine that his defense build up to defeat Soviet communism wouldn't be paid for after all by spending cuts. Instead it was paid for by borrowing, becoming part of the national debt of $20 trillion which we cannot repay. Just as he couldn't imagine his immigration amnesty would act like a magnet for an explosion of illegal immigration into the United States. Just as he couldn't imagine that signing EMTALA requiring hospitals to treat all comers would eventually lead to Obamacare.

Ronald Reagan couldn't imagine a lot of things.

The reason for this is because Ronald Reagan was an ideologue, specifically a libertarian ideologue. Not a dangerous ideologue like Lenin, but an ideologue nonetheless. That's what made Reagan the enemy of communism, because communism is a rival ideology. That was a good thing, because we all agree it's better to have a produce department brimming with variety instead of one which sells everything in theory but has only cucumbers.

But ideologues often get carried away by the primacy of their principles, which come to act like blinders on their eyes, rendering them incapable of seeing things they might need to see. The ideologue becomes like a pack horse which goes down the road, undistracted from pursuing its single, certain purpose. It can see nothing but what lies ahead, forgetting what lies behind, pressing onward toward its simple calling. This is fine, until the driver falls asleep, or the cargo comes loose and falls away.

It shouldn't surprise us that Ronald Reagan's views on nuclear weapons became ideological, or that Christians of a certain sort would be attracted to those views, but those views are blind. The use of the atomic bomb in World War Two not only ended the war, but dramatically lowered the number of expected casualties from a conventional assault on Japan, on both sides. Tens of millions did not die who would have. Not only that, the fact that America developed the bomb before the Germans could meant the US homeland was spared the fate we inflicted on Japan.

Not developing the bomb in order to save America from moral culpability for killing millions might well have destroyed millions in America. We will never know for sure.

But not using the bomb in order to save America from moral culpability definitely would have destroyed much more of America, and all of Japan.

Those millions who did not die would insist that things weren't so simple. And they still aren't.

Some say life is good, some say the fundamental problem

Such we find they are, as can controul

The servile actions of our wav'ring soul,

Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;

Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

-- Matthew Prior

ABC News "Analyst" Matthew Dowd has obviously risen to the level of his incompetence

Pace Kurt Andersen in The Atlantic, Democrats believe in loopy 2:1 over Republicans, and "independents" aren't far behind

Kurt Andersen in "How America Lost its Mind" contends that only one third of Americans are solidly reality-based and come mostly from the Democrat left, not the "loopy" GOP:

By my reckoning, the solidly reality-based are a minority, maybe a third of us but almost certainly fewer than half. ... Only a third strongly disbelieve in telepathy and ghosts. Two-thirds of Americans believe that “angels and demons are active in the world.” ... A quarter of Americans believe in witches. Remarkably, the same fraction, or maybe less, believes that the Bible consists mainly of legends and fables—the same proportion that believes U.S. officials were complicit in the 9/11 attacks. ... In the late 1960s and ’70s, the reality-based left more or less won: retreat from Vietnam, civil-rights and environmental-protection laws, increasing legal and cultural equality for women, legal abortion, Keynesian economics triumphant. ... [W]e’re splitting into two different cultures, we in reality-based America—whether the blue part or the smaller red part . . ..


Kurt has it exactly backwards (I'm shocked, shocked I tell you). It's your average Democrat or independent who is more likely to believe in loopy, not Republicans.

Democrats believe in reincarnation, yoga, astrology, spiritual energy and the evil eye 176 to 87 for Republicans in a Pew Research study from 2009, a ratio of 2:1. So-called independents aren't far behind at 163 to 87, for a ratio of 1.87:1.

And when it comes to being in touch with the dead, ghosts and fortune tellers, the story is similar. Democrats outstrip Republicans 163 to 81, also a ratio of 2:1. Independents beat Republicans 143 to 81, for a ratio of 1.76:1.

Apart from the greater prevalence of wacky beliefs among Democrats and independents generally, the results indicate that the much-vaunted independents are much more like the Democrats than they care to admit.

If someone really wanted to understand what accounts for America's turn toward the insane, go there.

I compiled the data above from the Pew findings, found here.

Naive American charismatics fantasize about taking over the Seven Mountains while China plans to dominate everything by 2025

"Plans like Made in China 2025 and their implementation are putting the two economies on a path of separation rather than integration in critical commercial areas."

-- The normally somnolent US Chamber of Commerce, here

Today's must-reading comes from the pen of Robert P. Seawright: "The Apocalypse is (Always) Nigh"

Here.

It's too long to do justice to here, so I'll simply say he's a keen observer of human nature and you won't want to miss his observations on apocalyptic religion and stock market crash prognostication.

Oh the times they are decayin'

 

 

Time sensibly all things impairs;

Our fathers have been worse than theirs,

And we than ours; next age will see

A race more profligate than we,

With all the pains we take,

have skill enough to be.

-- Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon

INC Christianity: Paulinism's Achilles' heel is disintegrating Protestantism into a Corinthian chaos of self-appointed profiteering prophets and apostles

And its locus is libertarian America, which worships at the altar of the unencumbered individual, fruitful ground for those who claim they are imitating the self-appointed apostle who was "not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but [directly] through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead" (Galatians 1:1).

From the story here:

These apostles are able to access a lot more money, because they are operating with a pay-for-service model, rather than relying on people’s donations and their goodwill. Congregations bend over backwards to keep people happy and keep the butts in the seats; people don’t have to pay unless they feel like it. But this is a completely different financial model, and it tends to generate much more money. ...

It’s all sort of self-appointed. Leaders in the [movement] would say that people are recognized as apostles because of the influence that they have—not only over your own congregation but over other leaders. But there’s definitely a good deal of self-appointing going on. Peter Wagner, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation movement, referred to himself as a “super apostle,” because he was influential with a bunch of other apostles. ...

[T]he INC movement is explicitly post-millennial. In their minds, God’s kingdom can come to earth before Christ returns—and, by the way, it will be in America. There is this interesting combination of America first, Americans as God’s chosen people, and a romantic vision of God working it out through the people he chooses. /end

You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. But I don't consider myself inferior in any way to these "super apostles" who teach such things. ... But I will continue doing what I have always done [paying my own way, not charging for the gospel]. This will undercut those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ.

-- 2 Corinthians 11:4f., 12f.

The bloody Canucks have been content for 14 months not to criminalize all forms of bestiality

If the heat doesn't drive you crazy, the cold will.

Story here.

Imprudent fervour is the fault common to both belief and unbelief

 

One would fancy that infidels would be exempt from that single fault, which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervours of religion; but so it is, that infidelity is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.

-- Joseph Addison's Spectator

The Arminian Roger Olson, hostile to Augustine, does not believe God is "infinite" and is therefore outside the catholic faith

 

 

 

Here, already from a young age, which ought to tell you something (enthusiasm dies hard):

I long ago rejected the notion that God is “infinite.” I rejected it when I first heard it articulated which was probably in some seminary class. I immediately thought that the concept itself was beyond comprehension (except perhaps in mathematics) and that attributing it to God led away from thinking of God as personal, present, involved, loving and able to be affected by us. With Brightman (who I only learned about later) I thought of that attribute of God in traditional theology as an inappropriate expansion of the concept of God brought into Christian thought through philosophy, not the Bible.

Compare the Athanasian Creed:

And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite [et unus immensus]. 

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Councils (composed in 359), thought it was a mark of safety to employ expansion in theology in order to avoid error (unlike Olson), and that the profusion of definitions appropriately mimics the boundlessness of God:

The infinite and boundless [infinitus et immensus] God cannot be made comprehensible by a few words of human speech. Brevity often misleads both learner and teacher, and a concentrated discourse either causes a subject not to be understood, or spoils the meaning of an argument where a thing is hinted at, and is not proved by full demonstration. The bishops fully understood this, and therefore have used for the purpose of teaching many definitions and a profusion of words that the ordinary understanding might find no difficulty, but that their hearers might be saturated with the truth thus differently expressed, and that in treating of divine things these adequate and manifold definitions might leave no room for danger or obscurity.

The reductionism of the Reformation is a contrary tendency.

And of course Samuel Johnson's synonym for enthusiast, fanatick, also perfectly describes Paul of Tarsus

 

"A man mad with wild notions of religion", and "struck with a superstitious frenzy":

It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

-- 2 Corinthians 12:1ff.

Samuel Johnson's definition of an enthusiast ably describes Paul of Tarsus

 

Samuel Johnson defined an enthusiast as "one who vainly imagines a private revelation", and "one who has a vain confidence of his intercourse with God".

 

Of course "the out" is in the words "vainly" and "vain".

 

As a Christian Johnson would never have admitted the emptiness of Paul's claims. Nevertheless Paul himself clearly boasted both of his revelation's thoroughly private and divine nature and of his immediacy with God, which means Paul put himself and his message beyond scrutiny. We have all met this type, and there is no arguing with them:

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

-- Galatians 1:1

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

-- Galatians 1:11f.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

-- Galatians 1:15f.

. . . and great was the fall of it

καὶ ἦν ἡ πτῶσις αὐτῆς μεγάλη

Soaring to worlds unknown

Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe, England

 

 

While I draw this fleeting breath,

When mine eyes shall close in death,

When I soar to worlds unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgement throne,

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.

-- Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady (1775)

Davis California imam calls for killing Jews just like Iranians do, Reza Aslan claims Islam in US "is vastly different from Islam in Iran"

Reza Aslan, here in Foreign Policy on July 24th:

"What we call Islam in the United States is vastly different from Islam in Iran . . .."

CBS Sacramento reported on the 25th what the Davis, CA imam said in a sermon, here:

"Ammar Shahin calls for the annihilation of Jews . . .. 'He spelled out what he wishes for every Muslim who follows the Quran and the Hadith to follow what the Hadith says which is …find the Jews hiding behind trees and stones and kill them,' said Sorele Brownstein."

Worlds unknown

Alpha and Beta Centauri

 

 

These great orbs thus radically bright,

Primitive founts, and origins of light,

Enliven worlds deny'd to human sight.

-- Matthew Prior (1664-1721)

30% of adult Americans own guns, 41% of white Evangelicals, more than any other religious group

I'll bet you gun-owing American Muslims didn't tell the truth in the survey.

From the story here, which tells you more statistics about guns and religion than you'll ever want to know:

The 41 percent of white evangelicals that own a gun surpasses the 33 percent of white mainliners, the 32 percent of the religiously unaffiliated (or “nones”), the 29 percent of black Protestants (two-thirds of whom identify as evangelical, according to Pew), and the 24 percent of Catholics who own one also. (By comparison, 30 percent of all American adults report owning a gun.)

Sending proxies to church has been thought of before

Seldom at church, 'twas such a busy life;

But duly sent his family and wife.

-- Alexander Pope, Epistle to Bathurst (1732)

Doomsday watch: And there shall be earthquakes in divers places

The ten-year trend for strong earthquakes globally is down, with 2017 oddly quieter to date:

The forty-year trend is up, but perhaps due to improved monitoring:

Souls wandering in the shades of night

Our souls, not yet prepar'd for upper light,

Till doomsday wander in the shades of night:

This only holiday of all the year,

We privileg'd in sunshine may appear.

-- John Dryden

Muslims must wash before prayer to be pure: This one in Italy washes his ass, mouth and face in that order all with the same hand

In front of God and everybody. But what do they do in private?

Coming to a neighborhood near you.

Here.

Martin Marty is puzzled why Christians fall for an atheist "philosophy" like libertarianism

Here.

Maybe the reason he is puzzled is because calling libertarianism a philosophy is an intellectual error.

There's precious little wisdom in libertarianism. It's an ideology, not unlike Christianity. It attracts the same kind of persons, i.e. persons who think ideologically or are predisposed to think ideologically, that is, in reductionist terms.

It shouldn't be surprising that some people on this spectrum are poached by a rival system.

There's nothing quite as comparable to a Jesus freak as a self-identified atheist.

More evidence religion is inherently violent: Hindu fundamentalists are killing more and more people suspected of eating cows, especially Muslims

Story here.

Here rather let me drudge . . .

 

 

Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread,

'Till vermin or the draff of servile food

Consume me, and oft invocated death

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.

-- John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671)

On the hypocrisy of Rod Dreher's friend, The New York Times' David Brooks

Seen here in the comments section:

The reason people loathe Brooks so much, and it’s a good reason, is his rank hypocrisy. He talks about values, yet most of his work has no research base and is easily skewered. After years of lecturing people about their immoral ways, he dumps his wife of 34 years and marries his research assistant. After forcing his first wife to convert to Judaism and change her name, he married his second wife without the requirement and is now saying she has made him rethink his “superficial” ideas about Christianity.

So you can absolutely bank on the fact that David Brooks has done everything he can with his considerable power to give his kids every advantage. But now, the putz is going to lecture his readers on the poor people.

He lies. He’s a hypocrite. He’s a moralizing vacuous jerk.

But hey, he’s your friend, so go ahead and defend him.

FOX News is having some fun at the expense of the Joos in the White House

A fanatical personality, Emmanuel Carrère, recognizes his radical self not so much in Jesus but in Paul

From James Wood's review of his book, here in The New Yorker:

There is a certain type of mind, he writes elsewhere in this book, that is attracted to radical doctrines. “The more opposed it is to common sense, the more that proves its truth. The harder it is to believe, the more deserving you are. Paul personified this type of mind—which could be called fanaticism. Luke, as I imagine him, didn’t.” 

While it seems almost a necessity for religious founders to be fanatics and radicals, madmen of sorts, the question remains why the rest of us follow them in the numbers that we do.

As scholars of religion have long posited since Rudolf Otto, this element of fascination could be constitutive of being religious, but more so of simply being human. It expresses itself in a range, from something as ordinary as when everyone slows down to gawk at the car crash on the side of the road to that rare individual who is driven to take vows of poverty and silence.

Where one falls on the spectrum is a subject of the examined life.

The soul ascends back the way it came, like Theseus' return from the convoluted lair of the Minotaur, guided by a thread

Ariadne giving a clew of thread to Theseus, by Pelagio Palagi

While, guided by some clew of heav'nly thread,
The perplex'd labyrinth we backward tread.

-- Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637-1685)

We say that learning's endless . . .

 

 

We say that learning's endless, and blame fate

For not allowing life a longer date,

He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,

He found them not so large as was his mind.

-- Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)

Their throat is an open sepulchre

"Oral Sex Spreading Untreatable 'Super Gonorrhea,' WHO Warns: An untreatable kind of gonorrhea is spreading from unprotected oral sex":

Transmitted to 78 million people annually, gonorrhea infects the genitals and rectum. It can also infect the throat, where antibiotic-resistant bacteria is likely to develop.

The WHO report says oral sex with men carrying the STI can add the bacteria to this environment and create what the agency calls a “super gonorrhea.”

Linda Sarsour is the face of American Islam: Don't assimilate, and practice Jihad by resisting Trump

Here.

Sarsour was a co-chair of The Women's March on Washington.

Martin Marty excels at conveying non-meaning

Here.

An excess of ambition is a kind of madness

If wild ambition in thy bosom reign,

Alas! thou boast'st thy sober sense in vain;

In these poor bedlamites thyself survey,

Thyself less innocently mad than they.

-- Thomas Fitzgerald (c. 1695-1752)

Pope Francis ousts conservative head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, who wasn't smiling in 2014 as the caption says, and probably isn't now, either.

Story here.