Just as any king can abdicate, Popes can vacate the Papal office. And just as with kings, such abdications are rare. How rare? The last time the leader of the Roman Catholic Church resigned his office was almost exactly 600 years ago in 1415, and that was to end the Western Schism and reunify the… Read More Yes, Popes Can Resign
Medieval Musings is the kind of blog that I would like to write, if it didn’t already exist. The Middle Ages continues to fascinate, both for its seeming atavistic structure (men who work, men who fight, men who pray!) and the constant, chaotic change. Western Civilization went from seeming collapse to being poised to take… Read More Arabia Before Islam at Medieval Musings
He spent decades shielding priestly molestors. He deserves no less. A Church expert said the “very unusual” punishment showed how seriously the US Catholic hierarchy was taking the case. “To tell a cardinal he can’t do confirmations, can’t do things in public, that’s extraordinary,” said Jesuit scholar the Reverend Thomas Reese, a Georgetown University fellow,… Read More Retired Cardinal “Stripped of Duties”
Alcohol? That’s a paddlin’. And by paddlin’ we mean 40 lashes with an electrical cable. I know a few Muslims here and there, and I once heard one tell me that the Koran only prescribes “becoming drunk” not the actual imbibing of spirits. But I suppose that’s another area open to interpretation. Which may be… Read More Sharia Law in Australia
The following piece of Facebook-aimed political wit is Zap Branagan, and I am Kif. That’s right. Read it again. Drink it in. Bask in it. Taste the rainbow. Where to begin? There’s so many things, not just wrong, but tiresome about this, that I wonder if it’s even worth the effort to rebuke. Surely if… Read More Arguing About Religion on Facebook and Other Follies of Man
Read all about it here (h/t: Insty). “Supernatural punishment across nations seems to predict lower crime rates,” Shariff said. “At this stage, we can only speculate about mechanisms, but it’s possible that people who don’t believe in the possibility of punishment in the afterlife feel like they can get away with unethical behavior. There is… Read More Belief in Hell Predicts Lower Crime Rates
I’m a theist, so I’ll answer them: Why is the physical universe so unimaginably large? Why should it not be? More to the point, isn’t the description “unimaginably large” relative only to humans (and their imagination)? And what’s the point? Under either a materialistic or theistic explanation, the question is irrelevant: ie, the Universe is as… Read More 20 Questions For Theists, Answered
Hilarity ensues. I base my theism on the following dictum: One of two things is true — either life is eternal, or death is eternal. If life is eternal, death does not matter. If death is eternal, life does not matter.
I am shocked. Shocked, I say. “They would not be able to discriminate against gay and lesbian or transgender individuals,” Dye said. “That type of protection parallels to what you find in race discrimination. If a church provides lodging or rents a facility they could not discriminate based on race. It’s along that kind of… Read More Forcing Churches to Have Gay Weddings
…and came from a long line of polygamists. Obama Sr. was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again. His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961. Why,… Read More Barak Obama Sr. Was a Polygamist…
Content Blues 