‘Who Are You Sleeping With?’ My Conversation with Timothy Keller

First, this belittles my doubts in the first place.

via ‘Who Are You Sleeping With?’ My Conversation with Timothy Keller.

 

The root of the outrage of some of the commenters on this article.

I wonder if they ever examine the place of the doubts in their life?  Why should their doubts be elevated?  Why should others give their doubts great deference?

Well certainly nobody should steamroller and be rude, at the same time, ya know, maybe, just maybe, there is nothing all that unique or special about your doubts. Maybe someone in the 2000+ year history of Christianity has considered the matter before now. It’s possible … perhaps you should look into that?  Instead of waiting for someone to be sufficiently sensitive to just how special you are?

 

As a young adult agnostic (at best), I certainly had my “doubts” … because I had not been converted yet. I thought I was the bees knees of modern thought, but the fact was, I just wanted to be king of my own castle.

Chinas Fake Alcohol

Counterfeit alcohol is not only dangerous — it’s also harmful to businesses, which are already contending with China’s complicated and often corrupt economic system.

“It’s a nightmare. It’s an absolute nightmare,” says Charlie, a veteran bartender in China who works at The Stumble Inn in Sanlitun, who declined to give his last name. “The fake booze hurts. If you poured it in your car, it would probably work. I’ve siphoned petrol out of a car before, and it was a more pleasant taste. But it’s a roaring trade. It’s a 10-kaui mojito, and people are cheap.”

via Chinas Fake Alcohol | National Review Online.

Dang, scary stuff.

I think in an environment like that, I would probably just, you know, not drink alcohol.

Ontogeny Ripostes Ontology

Now for our hypothetical virus. The Hinkle virus is so fast-spreading that it soon infects every person alive, but it is largely benign. It has no effect on men, and only two effects on women: 1. it is passed on to any children they have, and 2. any children they conceive after infection will be born homosexual.

The Hinkle virus would seem to fit its namesake’s criterion that it does no harm to any individual human person. We have established as a condition of the experiment–and we trust that in the real world Hinkle agrees–that it is not harmful to a woman to give birth to a homosexual child, nor is it harmful to a child to be born homosexual. And since the virus affects the sexual orientation only of the yet-unborn, it should not disrupt any existing heterosexual relationship.

Yet it should be obvious that the Hinkle virus would threaten humanity by dramatically reducing the incentive to reproduce.

via Best of the Web Today: Ontogeny Ripostes Ontology – WSJ.com.

Chief White House Calligrapher Gets Paid $96,725 Per Year

In all, the White House appears to employ 3 calligraphers for a yearly total of $277,050.

Despite sequestration, there’s been no announcement of the White House scaling back on calligraphers.

via Chief White House Calligrapher Gets Paid $96,725 Per Year | The Weekly Standard.

Bill Keller, et al, openly confess that “error has no rights”

Now, once again, journalists do not have to agree with the views of bigots like the pope, the Rev. Billy Graham, the archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama, but — as a matter of journalism ethics — it would be good to accurately report their views and arguments.

via Bill Keller, et al, openly confess that “error has no rights”.

A Serpent Impaled

It would be an easy mistake to think that the devil wants us all to become ethical relativists. But this is like thinking that the kidnapper wants the child to have some candy.

via A Serpent Impaled.

Key witness in Modiin Illit rape case: I made it up

The ongoing police investigation into the alleged rape of a 5-year-old girl in the haredi town of Modiin Illit has taken an unexpected turn. On Wednesday evening, lawyers for the preschool superintendent being questioned in the case handed Judea and Samaria District police investigators a statement in which the woman retracted her testimony, saying that she had made it up, and apologizing.

via Israel Hayom | Key witness in Modiin Illit rape case: I made it up.

Wow. Made it up.

 

The woman says she made up the story in order to shake up the system, but never thought it would reach such monstrous proportions or that police would investigate it so intensively. She also said that when she was 16 she had been sexual assaulted but had never received proper treatment. She said she wanted to help the many children who had experienced sexual assault but did not get the treatment they need.

If there are so many, then why did she have to make one up?

Also of interest – clearly we have here at least a media culture ready and eager to believe this kind of story.

NAACP Threatens to Sue Black Pro-Life Leader

Bomberger has written for several years about the NAACPs pro-abortion actions, satirically referring to the organization as the “National Association for the Abortion of Colored People.”

“It is ironic that a black man is being sued by the nations oldest civil rights group for exercising his most basic civil right — the freedom of speech,” said Bomberger. “This threat of legal action from the NAACP is nothing more than a multi-million dollar organizations attempt to bully someone who’s simply telling the truth. Our inner-cities are crumbling, two-parent married families barely exist, 72.3 percent of our children are born into homes without fathers, and the NAACP wants to silence me for pointing out its support of abortion.”

via NAACP Threatens to Sue Black Pro-Life Leader – Christian Newswire.

The Debt Deniers’ Fantasy

It’s not quite on a par with 9/11 truthers or Obama birthers, but recently a number of liberal commentators have descended into the fever swamps of denialism by rejecting the most basic facts about our debt and deficit. Mind you, they are not arguing about the best policies to reduce the debt — tax hikes vs. spending cuts — but actually denying that the problem exists at all.

Paul Krugman, for example, pronounces the debt problem “mostly solved.” Matt Yglesias of Slate asks, “What sovereign debt crisis? There certainly isn’t one in the United States.” Bruce Bartlett, every liberal economist’s favorite former conservative, adds that “our long-term budget situation is not nearly as severe as even many budget experts believe.”

via The Debt Deniers’ Fantasy – Michael Tanner – National Review Online.

Human Wrongs and the Long War Against Christianity

But let that pass. For me, this episode was a test of the tolerance of the new rulers of our society. Having, in the name of tolerance, secured major changes in the laws and customs of the nation, would they then show tolerance to their defeated opponents? No, they wouldn’t  Nothing would do except total acceptance of their beliefs. And this is what we repeatedly find. Christian conservatives are lured into conflicts where they can be classified as ‘phobes’ or as suffering from some other pathology, and are then punished for it.

via Human Wrongs and the Long War Against Christianity – Mail Online – Peter Hitchens blog.