You Thought You Were Only Shopping

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
by Chuck Colson –
Did you know that shopping online could be considered a homophobic activity? Neither did I.

Imagine that your laptop finally gives up the ghost. You have several options: You can drive to the store and buy a new one, or you can shop online.

If you choose the latter, you have another option: You can buy it from an online retailer, or you can connect to a retailer via a portal. Why? Because some portals, like CGBG, split its share of the profits with a charity of your choice.

It’s as close as shopping gets to “win-win” in our consumerist culture.

That is, of course, until someone objects to the charities who are receiving a share of the profits. And you won’t be surprised at who is making the objections.

Among the charities CGBG shares its profits with are the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. In July, a petition asking Microsoft to stop doing business with CGBG hit the Web. The organizer, “Stuart Wilber, a 73-year-old gay man in Seattle,” in the words of the New York Times, says that he was “astonished” that people could buy Microsoft products through CGBG. [Read more…]

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Gay Agenda is a Serious Threat to Religious Freedom

gay agenda threat to religious liberty by Kevin J. Jones –
Legalizing ‘gay marriage’ is having major repercussions for religious freedom.

Once a state recognizes same-sex partnerships as marriages or the equivalent, then naturally the argument is made that in family life classes in schools this has to be taught to be a valid partnership. Religious parents who do not want their children to be “indoctrinated in beliefs contrary to their own” are “out of luck,” said George, who founded the Manhattan Declaration project to defend religious liberty. …

Legalizing “gay marriage” is having major repercussions for religious freedom, according to observers of the latest developments. Princeton law professor Robert P. George cited the words of American Jewish Committee lawyer Marc Stern, who in 2006 said the conflict between religious liberty and same-sex marriage would be “a train wreck.” [Read more…]

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Mugged by Mythology, Liberals Believe the Darnedest Things

Liberal Myths Obama by Jeff Bergner –
Sometimes talking with liberals is perplexing. You never know what claim they will make next or what name they will call you. Take David Axelrod’s response to Standard & Poor’s recent credit action: He calls it the “Tea Party downgrade.” Amazingly, he blames the United States’ loss of its AAA bond rating on the one group that has sounded the alarm about our fiscal crisis. How did the president’s leading adviser come up with a label so detached from reality?

Comforting as it would be to dismiss this as a one-off comment, Axelrod’s words spring from the mental universe of liberalism. It is a vast sphere of assumptions that are found nowhere else. In an effort to promote the civility of debate that is so much in demand these days, here is a compendium of the myths underlying some of the strange things liberals say.

Myth #1: Conservatives are outside the American mainstream. Conservatives can’t be mainstream because it is liberals who speak for the American people. [Read more…]

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When the Wood Is Dry

Cross Christ healing prayer by Daniel Boerman –
The gospel is all about healing and salvation and deliverance. It promises deliverance from sin and the judgment of God. It releases us from guilt and futility and frees us to live a meaningful life in the service of God. And it holds out the promise of a new life in the presence of God after this present life of struggle is over.

But what happens when this Good News seems to pass us by and leave us unchanged? For a period of several years, the gospel seemed to leave me out in the cold as surely as a marooned traveler stranded in a North Dakota blizzard. I struggled with confusion and depression and doubt.

During this period, I constantly prayed for some healing or deliverance. But nothing happened. I had the impression that God was sitting on the sidelines watching my struggle with some interest but also detachment. I questioned my faith and my status with God. It seemed that God wanted me to work out this problem on my own. The healing and grace of the gospel seemed to pass me by. [Read more…]

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This is Your Brain on Atheism

Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman –
The ranks of celebrity atheists lionized by the major media is now being joined by a psychiatrist and journalist who have jointly written the book “Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith.” The two authors claim, in short, that God is nothing more than a figment of our biologically-determined imaginations.

In a recent article about the book, J. Anderson Thomson, a University of Virginia psychiatrist, and “medical writer” Clare Aukofer repeat stale clichés from the repertoire of 19th century German atheism, dressed up as modern “science.” They begin by citing the inane lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” in which he claims that the socialist paradise he envisions will bring “peace” with “no heaven…no hell below us…and no religion too.”

“No religion,” the authors rhapsodize. “What was Lennon summoning? For starters, a world without ‘divine’ messengers, like Osama bin Laden, sparking violence. A world where mistakes, like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to ‘God’s will.’ Where politicians no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable. Where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense.” [Read more…]

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Fr. Gregory: Aren’t Taxes Immoral?

Taxes are Immoral by Fr. Gregory Jensen –
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Does the government have a moral right to levy and collect taxes on its citizenry? Or is taxation merely a legalized form of governmental robbery?

While I’ve now and then heard people argue that taxation has no moral basis, I must confess that I find this assertion deeply troubling. As a matter of prudence, not everything which is immoral can, or should, be illegal. There are a variety of reasons for this chief among them is that as a practical matter the enforcement of a law can sometime cause more harm than good.

For example, the worship of God is a moral obligation both in the Scriptures and under at least some theories of natural law (see Romans 1). However as a prudential matter, a law that required people to worship God would invariably lead to social unrest. [Read more…]

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Why Young Americans Can’t Think Morally

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –
Last week, David Brooks of The New York Times wrote a column on an academic study concerning the nearly complete lack of a moral vocabulary among most American young people. Below are some excerpts from Brooks’ summary of the study of Americans aged 18 to 23. (It was led by “the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith.”)

“Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing …

“When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all …

“Moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner …

“The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste … [Read more…]

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Taxi Cab Conservatism

Taxi Conservatismby Michael Bayewitch –
I was just recently in Washington D.C. and had an amazing conversation with a taxi driver on the way to the airport. After pointing out some of the many historical sites on the way out of town, the conversation took a surprising turn. She started to complain about people that do not work and live off of welfare and other government assistance programs; virtually all their lives.

To paraphrase, she made the following assertion: “It is a shame. I know many people, even my own family members, that have never held a job. I have one relative that is 31 years old and only held a job temporarily once. They do not feel a need to work because the government takes care of them.”

“Even worse” she explained, “it is becoming a generational thing. [Read more…]

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The ‘Gospel’ of Tolerance: You Must Approve

Tolerance Chesterton GK by Jennifer Hartline –
Judge not me nor anything I say, do, or want, lest ye be judged intolerant

The Gospel of Tolerance really only has one rule: thou shalt tolerate any action, belief, lifestyle, agenda, and person except the person who believes a certain lifestyle, action or agenda is wrong and has the gall to say so out loud. The real goal here is not acceptance but submission. It’s not enough to “get along” or tolerate quietly. You must approve. You don’t dare disapprove publicly. Those who don’t tow the line will be punished. …

Stacy Trasancos is one gutsy Catholic.  Last week she wrote a little blog post about how she’s getting tired of wondering “what in tarnation we’re going to encounter” every time she and her kids leave the house.  Two men ogling each other at the pool?  Two women engaged in public displays of affection in the park?  These are scenes she’d rather her young children not be exposed to every time they go out in public, but it’s become impossible to avoid in her community. [Read more…]

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Yoshida: The Crisis of Socialism

Socialism slavery tyranny communismby Adam Yoshida –
One should not make the mistake of thinking that the pathetic floundering of the Obama administration and the imminent doom of Europe’s spendthrift welfare states spells the end of global socialism. Socialism has rarely attempted to make any claim to being a more efficient or economically creative system. Instead, it has always touted “fairness” and “equality” as its primary virtues. Any and all failures of the system are being — and will be — attributed to its opponents: the “greedy” rich, the distastefully aspirational segment of the middle class, and a “working” class blind to its “interests” as hallucinated by Manhattan-based academics.

Most of its supporters will never be able to confess the defects inherent in their creed, even if the alternative is to embrace extreme and previously unthinkable measures. The crisis of socialism is, like the crisis of communism that preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall over two decades ago, an hour of maximum danger for freedom. [Read more…]

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