by By Jessica Chasmar –
New York City schools are offering young girls a full menu of birth control options, free of parental counsel, thanks to an unpublicized project by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.
School nurses handed out 12,721 doses of the Plan B One-Step “morning-after” pill in 2011-12, up from 10,720 in 2010-11 and 5,039 in 2009-10, the New York Post reports.
Mona Davids, president of the NYC Parents Union, was stunned by the report. [Read more…]
by Fr. Nikita Grigoriev –
Evolution [also known as macro-evolution] is a philosophical idea and must only be accepted purely on [blind] faith. Evolution is not a science and is not based on a single fact or observation or on any scientific process. It is based on the entirely false idea of Malthus about the perpetual universal shortage of food, and on the completely false idea of Lamarck concerning the inheritance of physical changes by a new generation from a previous generation. These two pillars on which the fantasy of evolution was originally built, in and of themselves, are likewise, in no way scientific, but are purely abstract and philosophical.
Adaptation is often confused with evolution. Adaptation is a fact and it’s quite real. Evolution is a myth and does not exist in reality at all, only in fantasy. There is a fine line separating them. Adaptation is when an individual or a species collectively changes to adapt to their environment. Such changes can be subtle or very striking. [Read more…]
by Daren Jonescu –
On the subject of public schools, some conservatives and libertarians are inclined to speak as though they cannot wait another moment to spring into action — and then act as though they need the hand of God to point the way ahead before they do what we all know in our hearts must be done. This is not meant as harsh criticism. These good people embody an innate human flaw defined for all time in one of our greatest archetypes: they are Hamlet.
At a moment as historically important as this one, two all-too-human dangers lie in wait for those who understand the seriousness of the situation. The first is that they should undermine their own cause with reckless outbursts and the resulting disarray. The second is that they should cocoon themselves against the clear imperative to act by lamenting the lack of a perfect plan. [Read more…]
by William F. Jasper –
It should come as no surprise that the Communist Party USA is on board with President Obama’s plan to attack Americans’ right to keep and bear arms as a means to “end gun violence.” A cardinal feature of communist regimes, like all dictatorships, is the prohibition of private ownership of arms, creating a monopoly of force in the hands of the State.
In a January 18 article, People’s World, an official publication of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), declared that “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.” [Read more…]
by Joel J. Miller –
When it comes to the question of social justice, there is more at play than the needs of the poor. Charity requires not only a recipient but also a giver, and that increases the issue’s moral complexity.
From the earliest days of the church, care for the poor was central. It’s there in the New Testament writings, in Christ’s own words even. It’s there in the Didache, which directs Christians to spend time with the lowly (3.9) and give their firstfruits to the poor (13.4). And great pastors and preachers like Basil the Great spoke often and forcefully on the matter.
“How many precepts you ignore, since your ears are plugged with avarice!” said Basil in one sermon, adding, “if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need” (I Will Tear Down My Barns 6, 7). [Read more…]
by Tom Trinko –
A group of Christians have just filed a lawsuit to have a statue of Nietzsche on Federal land near a Montana ski slope removed because they found a single person who says she’s offended.
The vast majority of conservatives, including Christians, would find that lawsuit to be bizarre. Of course Christians, being tolerant, have done no such thing. Atheists, however, have sued to have a statue of Jesus on Federal land near to a ski slope, placed there at the request of WWII veterans back in 1955, removed. At first the litigants, a bigoted group of haters who have no tolerance for the personal beliefs of others, didn’t bother to produce anyone who was in fact bothered by the statue. When forced to, the bigots managed to dig up one person who was bothered.
Some might question the use of “bigoted haters” to describe an organization which exists to drive the free speech expression of religious people off public property. However given that many atheists who support anti-Christian crusades also believe it’s fine for the government to fund “Piss Christ”, a crucifix in a jar of the “artists” urine, and a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary covered in cow dung it’s clear that these atheist extremists do not believe in the free speech rights of Christians; [Read more…]
by Eric Metaxas –
If you’ve read The Chronicles of Narnia, you know they are loaded with Christian themes and symbols. That’s why many assume that C. S. Lewis wrote them in order to send some kind of Christian message.
But Lewis himself insisted otherwise. The tales, he said, started as a series of pictures that came into his mind and set his imagination working. The result was not sermons, but stories—beautiful stories loved by believers and non-believers alike for decades.
There’s a lesson in here for all of us. Conservative Christians today often feel alienated from the larger society, and for good reason. The vast majority of the stories that permeate our culture are told by people whose worldview is diametrically opposed to ours. We can hardly watch a TV show or read a magazine without seeing ourselves portrayed as villains, and our cultural opponents held up as the epitome of righteousness. [Read more…]
by Janice Shaw Crouse –
The best-kept secret in America today is the precipitous drop in the quality of college since the Left seized power in higher education. Every year, various magazines publish a list of rankings for American undergraduate institutions. Forbes assures parents that “Every school with a Forbes grade meets a high standard.” U.S. News and World Reportassures its readers that they consider a wide variety of factors in measuring a college’s effectiveness. While American colleges were once great institutions of learning, those who know higher education today recognize that “high standards” of quality are casualties in the war against traditionalism and American values. Where religion and love of country and family were once revered, radical Leftist ideology now prevails. Traditional values have been replaced by moral relativism, anti-establishment teachings, and the breakdown of the family.
The radicalization of colleges did not happen overnight. What we have now is a product of past indifference and disinclination to do anything to reverse the spread of Leftist trends. [Read more…]
From the moment Americans learned of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last Friday, the entire left — editorialists, columnists, broadcasters, politicians — used the occasion to promote one idea: gun control.
For the left, the primary reason for just about all American gun murders is the availability of guns.
I have no interest in debating gun control here. I only wish to ask the left one question: We have a massive system of drug control laws. Yet, the left is the first to argue that the war on drugs has been a failure. And whether or not one deems it a failure, the war on drugs surely hasn’t prevented tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers, from obtaining drugs illegally. Why, then, does the left believe that a war on guns would be any more effective than the war on drugs? [Read more…]
by Deacon Keith Fournier –
Two years before becoming Pope, Karol Cardinal Wotyla spoke to the U.S. Bishops. His observation was republished in the Wall Street Journal on November 9, 1978:
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine providence. It is a trial which the whole Church must take up.”
And take it up we have. However, there is much, much more to do. The ground has shifted and the struggle is intensifying. Our cultural mission lies at the heart of what it means for us as Christians to be leaven, light, salt and the soul of the world. This is no time to retreat from culture, we must work for its conversion. What is needed are men and women of Christian courage. [Read more…]