Townhall.com | by Dennis Prager | Feb. 23, 2010

One of the major differences between the right and the left concerns the question of authority: To whom do we owe obedience and who is the ultimate moral authority?

For the right, the primary moral authority is God (or, for secular conservatives, Judeo-Christian values), followed by parents. Of course, government must also play a role, but it is ultimately accountable to God and it should do nothing to undermine parental authority.

For the left, the state and its government are the supreme authorities, while parental and divine authority are seen as impediments to state authority. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | by Pamela Geller | Feb. 27, 2010

A girl flees from her home in fear for her life — and law enforcement goes after the people who helped her. That’s the situation in the Rifqa Bary case. The Columbus Dispatch reported this about Rifqa’s friend Brian Williams: “An Ohio minister accused of driving a teenage runaway to a bus station last year has retained a lawyer as police say they’re investigating whether anyone broke the law in helping the Christian convert leave home for Florida.”

And why did she flee to Florida? Because, she says, when her devout Muslim father found out she had become a Christian, he said to her, “I will kill you.” And with Islam’s death penalty for apostates, she had to take that seriously. But Rifqa’s father is not in danger of being prosecuted. Brian Williams is. Continue Reading »

Catholic Online | Sonja Corbitt | Feb. 16, 2010

To claim that by opposing the gay agenda the Church is acting in an unloving manner is patently untrue.

It is considered negligent to allow or actively support action, drug abuse for example, that you know is both dangerous and destructive. Imagine being accused of bigotry after forbidding such action in one of your children. Yet Church opposition of the homosexual agenda draws angry criticism from those who claim her stance on homosexuality is based solely on religious bigotry against homosexuals. Continue Reading »

BreakPoint | by Gary Scott Smith | Feb. 23, 2010

One of today’s most contentious culture wars is over the religious commitments of our nation’s founders.

Were most of them orthodox Christians, deists, or agnostics? Scholarly books, college classes, radio talk shows, and blogs all debate this issue, and the Texas Board of Education recently joined the fray. Because of Texas’ large number of students, its huge educational fund, and its statewide curriculum guidelines, this board strongly influences what textbooks are published in the United States. Last month the board reviewed the state’s social studies curriculum, and its conservative Christian members injected more analysis of religion into the guidelines, including assessment of whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation and how Christian were the founders. Continue Reading »

Townhall | by Walter E. Williams | Feb. 24, 2010

Private industry and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars in the name of saving our planet from manmade global warming. Academic institutions, think tanks and schools have altered their curricula and agenda to accommodate what was seen as the global warming “consensus.”

Mounting evidence suggests that claims of manmade global warming might turn out to be the greatest hoax in mankind’s history. Immune and hostile to the evidence, President Barack Obama’s administration and most of the U.S. Congress sides with Climate Czar Carol Browner, who says, “I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real.” Continue Reading »

AOI | Fr. Johannes Jacobse | Feb. 21, 2010

On this day we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the commemoration of the defeat of the heresy of iconoclasm. The word “heresy,” as we know, means “false teaching” and the false teaching that was finally vanquished was iconoclasm.

“Iconclast” comes from the Greek work that means “icon-breaker.” The iconoclasts were those who smashed the icons because they believed that the Orthodox faithful, in venerating icons, were breaking the first commandment that says, “Thou shalt not make unto yourself any graven image.”

Of course the objection ran deeper than that. Look at it closely and you see that the false teaching – the heresy – of iconclasm taught something else too. It taught that Jesus Christ never really existed. The second person of the Trinity, the Word (capital W) of the Father never really became flesh and dwelt among us. Continue Reading »

Townhall | by Mike Adams | Jan. 25, 2010

What kind of education are we providing when professors are teaching courses aimed at indoctrination into atheism? And what are we to do about it? [...]

I think a new definition of the liberal is in order: A liberal is someone who only wants to be free from the consequences of freedom. This tendency to seek freedom from the consequences of one’s free choices is seen in a lot of areas of liberal policy making. Here are some of the more obvious areas: Continue Reading »

Pajamas Media | by Victor Davis Hanson | Feb. 17, 2010

Imagine a politician announcing: we are going to raise the Social Security age to 66. We are going to freeze and cut spending until we balance the budget within three years, and then with surpluses pay down the debt within 6 years. We are going to build 100 new nuclear power plants and open up the country and its shores to oil and gas production. We are going to cut back all federal entitlements and subsidies by 20% immediately. We are going to ensure enough water for agriculture. We are … Continue Reading »

NCRegister.com | by Matthew Archbold | Feb. 18, 2010

Everyone talks about equality. But equality only exists in the eyes of God and is, after all, a rather Christian concept. We are all loved by God and in that is our worth. Ironically, many politicians are marginalizing religion from the public sphere in the name of equality. And many see the major obstacle to this enforced equality as Christianity.

Right now, homosexual advocates are marching under the banner of equality. And advancing quite well thank you very much. In fact, just this week the Archdiocese of Washington fell victim to the cause of enforced equality. Continue Reading »

DocZero.org | Feb. 18, 2010

Who is the worst killer in the long, ugly history of war and extermination? Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? Not even close. A single book called Silent Spring killed far more people than all those fiends put together.

Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency held extensive hearings after the uproar produced by this book… and these hearings concluded that DDT should not be banned.

A few months after the hearings ended, EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus over-ruled his own agency and banned DDT anyway, in what he later admitted was a “political” decision. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | by Robert Huff | Feb. 18, 2010

I have recently come to the conclusion that leftists reveal their innermost thoughts when attacking those with whom they disagree. For example, in President Obama’s recently televised meeting with Republicans, he chastised critics who believe his policies are part of some “Bolshevik plot. Continue Reading »

Acton | by Ray Nothstine | Feb. 2, 2010

The violent persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt is becoming harder for the free world to ignore. This is true thanks to thousands of Copts who recently expressed their decades of frustration and anguish in street protests across the globe. One moving example took place in West Los Angeles, Calif., last month. With American flags in hand, over a thousand Copts peacefully demonstrated. One boy simply said, “It is very dangerous in Egypt that is why we need America to help us.” Continue Reading »

AOI | by Fr. Johannes Jacobse | Feb. 16, 2010

LONDON (AP) — Several prominent Anglican British bishops are urging Christians to keep their carbon consumption in check this Lent. The 40-day period of penitence before Easter typically sees observant Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians give up meat, alcohol or chocolates Continue Reading »

ChrisBanescu.com | by Chris Banescu | Feb. 16, 2010

Yet another travesty is unfolding before our eyes in these United States of America. While tens of millions of Americans continue to struggle through difficult economic conditions, with hundreds of thousands more losing their jobs every month, tens of thousands more losing their homes and their businesses, and millions more facing salary cuts and pay freezes, government employees are prospering and getting rewarded financially more than ever.

As the economy struggles, incomes fall, and business bankruptcies and mortgage default rates remain at all time highs, the federal government spending is booming and its employees are enjoying increased hiring and higher salaries. Continue Reading »

Laura Ingraham | by Raymond Arroyo | Feb. 1, 2010

Without so much as a press release, Embryonic Stem Cell research is being slowly defunded by the State of California. Remember Proposition 71, the California initiative that pledged $3 billion dollars of public funds to this dubious research? Back in 2004 voters in that state bet that embryonic stem cells held the key to untold cures and therapies.

Six years later, after destroying innumerable embryos and devaluing human life, they have nothing to show for their investment. Only adult stem cell research has shown any promise. By reprogramming adult stem cells, researchers have produced astounding results; curing everything from type 1 diabetes to spinal cord injuries. Continue Reading »