Item WWI ‘Peace Cross’ memorial ordered torn down due to ‘religious message,’ court rules
A 40-foot memorial dubbed the “Peace Cross,” erected in 1925 in honor of 49 men who lost their lives during World War I, must now be torn down, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.
The memorial, in Bladensburg, Maryland, was created by the American Legion and is shaped like a cross.
“Today’s decision sets dangerous precedent by completely ignoring history, and it threatens removal and destruction of veterans memorials across America,” First Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser said, according to Fox News.
“This memorial has stood in honor of local veterans for almost 100 years and is lawful under the First Amendment. To remove it would be a tremendous dishonor to the local men who gave their lives during The Great War,” Jones Day attorney Michael Carvin said. First Liberty Institute and the Jones Day law firm are representing the American Legion in this legal battle…
In 2014, the American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit contending that the cross-shaped memorial is unconstitutional.
The group’s foundation believes in “being good without a god.” In their lawsuit, they asked for the memorial to be demolished, altered or removed.
Non-religious pretending to be horrified, or, worse, actually being horrified, to see a cross? Pathetic. Being good without God is of course impossible; being good while disbelieving in Him can be done.
Freedom “from” religion guarantees that the State must become god. As proof of that, the next item.
Item China Insists on Control of Religion, Dimming Hope of Imminent Vatican Deal
China will not allow any foreign interference in religious affairs in the country, a senior official said on Tuesday, dousing expectations of an imminent deal with the Vatican over control of the Roman Catholic Church here.
“I think there is no religion in human society that is above the state,” the official, Chen Zongrong, said during a briefing on religious affairs in China, underscoring the government’s intention to maintain strict control over all religious organizations and their believers.
Zongrong has correctly spoken the communist view. But he didn’t speak the whole truth. It is true the State must be worshiped in the absence of God, but what Zongrong should have reminded readers was that the State is comprised of men. Therefore worship of the State is the worship of man. There is no more depressing religion than that. As the next item demonstrates.
Item We are witnessing St. John Paul II’s prophesy of an ‘anti-Church’: Catholic priest
St. John Paul II’s 1976 prophetic warning about the rise of an “anti-Church” that would preach an “anti-Gospel” is being fulfilled today by leaders within the Catholic Church, even at the highest levels, said a priest in a talk given at a Catholic conference today in Rome.
Fr. Linus Clovis of Family Life International said in his talk at the Rome Life Forum, organized by Voice of the Family, that the anti-Gospel of the anti-Church is often “indistinguishable from secular ideology, which has overturned both the natural law and the Ten Commandments.”
“This anti-Gospel, which seeks to elevate the individual’s will to consume, to pleasure and to power over the will of God, was rejected by Christ when tempted in the wilderness. Disguised as ‘human rights,’ it has reappeared, in all its luciferian hubris, to promulgate a narcissistic, hedonistic attitude that rejects any constraint except that imposed by man-made laws,” he said.
Fr Clovis is black, a priest “of color”, so that if you reject his words you are a racist.
Item ‘Women Might Get Raped If They Debate Men’, So This College Debate Tournament Banned Men
It’s unfair. It’s sexist. And women might get raped.
That’s why a “special [debate] tournament” held at the University of Vermont this past weekend banned men from competing, organizers and participants in the North American Women’s and Gender Minorities Debate Championship told the Associated Press.
Rather than admit the deep sexism inherent to their view, they claim that women “have to be that much better than men to overcome bias on the part of many judges” and “point to statistics that show they are less likely to reach the top echelons of the activity”:
“There is also a lot of sexual predation that happens in the debate community,” said UVM debate director Helen Morgan-Parmett.
“The tournament, I think, provides a safe space where people feel they are debating other women, and their bodies aren’t necessarily on display.”
It is logically possible women may be raped at a debate. It is logically possible the rapists will be Women’s Studies professors. Many things are logically possible. That doesn’t make them not asinine or likely.
Karl Marx had it correct:
“Atheism, as the denial of this unreality (that God created man), has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation…” (parenthetical phrase is mine)
Atheism is nothing more than a life structured around denying God. And atheists define themselves through this denial. Seems their hearts are convicted by their actions, which explains their ardent attacks against Truth.
If atheist truly believed God didn’t exist, they would approach the subject of God with indifference, just as I approach subjects I know are false.
“The atheist doth protest too much, methinks.”
Paul was the first to override the words recorded in the gospel which Jesus spoke about regarding the written law. Gospels also disagree on the accounts of what Jesus said about keeping the old Law. There were hundreds of commandments, too. I noted many medical, food related ones, they make a depressing read if you really think they all count and that they count over and above the commandments of Jesus, which were twofold. Both about love. These are not written laws for obvious reasons.
Love and Truth cannot be forced. No matter how many witches you pretend to find and burn.
The Catholic Church has agreed to the rights of every man to religious freedom, which meant interpretation of the faith. This was considered wrong and a deadly sin for hundreds of years. People were tortured and burned alive for hearsay. Had Jesus tapped them on the shoulder would they have crumbled into a heap?
Even Cardinals and Bishops of the Church can make mistakes.
As to the silly old Atheist argument, well you deserve each other!
Having known many atheists, Believers who do or do not attend church, there’s often no way of telling without directly asking and certainly it is true that if God exists, created everything then you can’t even be an axe wielding ‘p’ without God so the point about good is weak.
I just don’t go to those places and generally find it less striking given that there are Christian ‘activists’ who behave like the mob, still…old habits die hard.
Joy – your statements and arguments are so cunningly crafted that I cannot discern a point. Could you kindly rephrase so that a simpleton such as myself could be made to understand your intent?
Certainly, if you can explain the name McChuck?
I’ve written a full response to your question. Will post when you give me more information about you. Why you think what I write is carefully crafted and with intent.
Intent? Cunningly crafted? I don’t think so. It’s all quite clear. Perhaps you just disagree, or perhaps you are educing? “rendering”?
“Paul was the first to override the words recorded in the gospel which Jesus spoke about regarding the written law.“
Gospels also disagree on the accounts of what Jesus said about keeping the old Laws:
“I have come not to destroy the law but to uphold it.”
“It is not what a man puts in his mouth that makes him unclean but what comes from the heart.”
The commandments and laws of the Jewish tradition are many. “The Ten Commandments”. Read the Old Testament. Don’t take a word of mine. KJV. Is the one I listen to.
If you really think they all count and that they count over and above the commandments of Jesus, which were twofold…”
I presume you know what these are?
?“Love and Truth cannot be forced. No matter how many witches you pretend to find and burn.”
If you didn’t find any or burn any the statement isn’t for you.
Truth itself doesn’t need anything more than any other discussion or debate. Only radicles or fundamentalists find that they must resort to other methods! Stick in a gang to garner support for their views, Resort to underhand tactics, threats of harm and psychological abuses. I have certainly had my eyes opened since returning to this site. Have stated as much for a long time. Politics is not faith and shouldn’t be confused.
The Catholic Church has agreed to the rights of every man to religious freedom, which meant interpretation of the faith. “ This is clear. There are Catholics who don’t app[ear to realise that the Church has accepted the Anglican Church. Newcomers, mostly who don’t seem to know what the Catholic Church teaches. I have only the words of Catholics. If they don’t know what their own church teaches how can they speak of protestants or Anglicans?
“This was considered wrong and a deadly sin for hundreds of years. “ People were tortured and burned alive for heresy. *auto correction changed but both suffice.”
Had Jesus tapped them on the shoulder would they have crumbled into a heap?”
The torturers and burners? Did they know what they were doing really? Or were they simply using the faith as an excuse? *I wonder what they would do if they really believed God was watching? There have been many individuals and gangs over time who excused their behaviour as ‘God’s work’. Without a thought for, or an understanding of what they were doing, having handed their conscience over at the door because they are saying they are told that they can’t trust their conscience. Deadly.
“Even Cardinals and Bishops of the Church can make mistakes.” Simple enough. I understand if a Catholic disagrees because I’m informed this is a dogma of the church.
?“As to the silly old Atheist argument, well you deserve each other!” That would be the old chestnut playing with the words around existence and non existence, the ideas that Christians are by definition better and the one which claims that Christians are, insert whatever insult you like with all sorts of falsehood and sophistry. Worse than that, take the worst examples of fundamentalist Christians and activists, paid or unpaid, and match them with the worse kind of New Atheist who’s just a rebel without a cause.
Having known many atheists, Believers who do or do not attend church, there’s often no way of telling without directly asking and certainly it is true that if God exists, created everything then you can’t even be an axe wielding ‘p’ without God so the point about good is weak.” In other words good or atrocious makes no difference in that point.
The laws protect citizens from crimes and atrocities.
The point is that Given God’s omnipotence and his creation of everything, this entails the entire universe and everything that is in it. Even the ugliest parts. This is also not controversial. True, but not of importance to a non believer and a puzzle for the faithful who have to struggle with the problem of evil. It is the main reason people don’t believe in God, after all. No point dancing round it.
Unfortunately, now, more than before since internet and social media were rolled out, the religious maniacs, lunatics are back in action. Helping to light fires rather than enlighten anybody.
Of course I’m not saying that Paul was wrong since that was sorted out almost two thousands of years ago. There was disagreement between Peter and Paul who never even met Jesus.
Reading the gospels in one long marathon followed by Acts is striking. I remember thinking I didn’t really like Paul much but the one person who I listen to the most likes him and I’m supposed to like him! Couldn’t even say which quote or part of the letters transmitted this but it was my impression.
Recent lectures from Kieth ward did explain that Paul had some issues around women, which might explain why I found him a bit much in parts. This was two thousand years ago! Attitudes change. I would have ignored it on reading except there is a lot of true and feigned misogyny. Even if truth doesn’t alter. Attitudes certainly have.
Attitudes are informed from somewhere. I would say people are kinder to each other than they were in ancient times and this is a good thing. I would say it is because of Jesus’s message. Others will disagree strongly.
I don’t care much any more.