Over at Eastern Christian New Media, AOI Observer has been nominated as best blog in two categories: 1) Best Church News Blog (Best blog at keeping up with current events and providing insightful commentary), and 2) Best Group Blog (Premier blog worked on by a group of people). Actually, a lot of good blogs got nominated this year.
Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski and famed atheist Christopher Hitchens disputed the existence of a benevolent God in a recent debate now posted on the website of Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. Read full article.
George Patsourakos, occasional commentator on the AOI Observer, posted a commentary on his blog “Theology and Society” sure to elicit some strong responses. I agree with his overall conclusion (keep candidate endorsements away from the pulpit) but I disagree with his interpretation of the separation of church and state clause in the Constitution. What do you think?
This week former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said that religion in America has, by and large, become too involved in politics. He also warned of the dangers that could result if this trend continues.
For example, the fact that some pastors are now openly calling on their parishioners to vote a certain way is contrary to the established principle of separation of church and state in America.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words, Americans are free to worship as they please, and there must be no government interference insofar as their worshiping is concerned.
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Dostoevsky: When men stop believing in God, they will believe anything.
I was alerted by Nat Hentoff about an assertion made by Peter Singer–as reported in the Catholic Eye–at a Princeton conference around the abortion question, in which he claims that human beings don’t possess full moral status until after the age of two. I checked it out for myself. Yup. From my transcription of Panel II on 10/15/10 (press “Event Videos,” 20101015-panel two, to link to access streamed session):
Q (beginning at 1:25:22): When discussing at which point after birth we would give full moral status, you gave…a legal or public policy point about practicality… Forgetting the practical or public policy questions, if a person is a self aware individual and self awareness isn’t conferred by birth, and we use mirror tests to determine self awarness…at what point do you think an infant would pass the mirror test and therefore be self aware and be considered a person.
Singer (beginning at 1:27:18): … My understanding is that it is not until after the first birthday, so somewhere between the first and second, I think, that they typically recognize the image in the mirror as themselves…Really, I think this is a gradual matter. If you are not talking about public policy or the law, but you are talking about when you really have the same moral status, I think that does develop gradually. There are various things that you could say that are sufficient to give some moral status after a few months, maybe six months or something like that, and you get perhaps to full moral status, really, only after two years. But I don’t think that should be the public policy criteria.
An idea I need to develop:
The Gospel supplanted paganism in its various forms because through the preaching of it the Resurrected Christ is revealed, the One through whom death was destroyed, the One who broke the shackles of paganism — the prison of capricious fate and the cosmic despair that paganism was powerless to overcome. The resurrection of Christ breaks the bonds of the pagan world view by putting death to death. It was a historic, space-time event of universal power and cosmic significance that brought forward a new civilization from the exhausted ruins of the old one through the labor of those who heard and stood in that Gospel.
However, if the God of Abraham is rejected, no god exists to replace Him. Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. “Hear O Israel, the Lord you God is One God” meaning your God in not a god of the pagans, not another god in the pantheon of gods, not one of a multiplicity of gods. This means that the atheist rejection of God by necessity compels an embrace of death because he rejects the God who destroyed death. Nothing exists beyond Him.
Atheism, then, is not a return to paganism since that path has become a historical impossibility. It is, rather, a descent into the cold regions where life cannot exist and the end result must be a place where the suffering will become greater than the slavery to fate and despair known by the pre-Christian ancients. Historical necessity allows no other conclusion.
We are in a fight for our lives.