Free Republic

Perhaps the Pope was referring to this passage:

The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right.[202] This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public”.[203] A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and authoritarianism. The respect due to the agnostic or non-believing minority should not be arbitrarily imposed in a way that silences the convictions of the believing majority or ignores the wealth of religious traditions. In the long run, this would feed resentment rather than tolerance and peace.

Lots of things about this we don’t know, but regardless, we should mourn his loss. We need more men like him. May he rest in peace.

Sorry for the omission. I also forgot to include the zombies. In any event, no one shoud come here. Ever.

Idaho’s a terrible place...Northern part is too cold in the winter. Southern part is too hot in the summer. Eastern part is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Plus it’s near the Yellowstone super volcano. Takes forever to get anywhere. Not enough water in the south, too many mosquitos in the north, locals are unfriendy redneck hillbillies (think “Deliverance”) or heavily armed pot growers or poachers or gangbangers, the crime rate is high,and the air smells like cow manure, chemical fertilizer or a pulp mill. The C d’A area is one big refugee camp for Californians and the Southwest part is a desert. In parts of the state, the wind never stops blowing. It’s like a blow dryer in the summer, and in the winter like driving with the windows open in the middle of January. One college football team plays in a warehouse, the other on a blue rug and the other... what do they call that school in eastern Idaho? Can’t remember, but they play inside because it’s too freaking cold to be outside. The best college in the state was named after a grocery store. And the governor calls himself “Butch.”

If I was you I’d stay away.

In CS Lewis’ essay, “The Danger of National Repentance”, he addresses the danger inherent in intellectuals offering to repent for the sins of others (I think this is different than an appointed spokesman apologizing for what the body he represents has done, but that’s another issue. Here we seem to have something more like the situation Lewis addressed). Lewis pointed out that repentance presupposes condemnation. He wisely observed that the “first and fatal flaw” of efforts by some to repent for the sins of others is “the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing - but first of denouncing - the sins of others.” He went on to suggests that the communal sins for which people should repent are those of their own age and class.

Wise words.

(Are you sure the people who taught you are Scripture believers?)

I’m pretty sure they all were, and they were Protestants for whom I have a lot of respect and love. Although I believe they misinterpreted Scripture in some respects, at least some of them did not make the mistake of proclaiming that anyone who did not agree with their interpretation didn’t believe in the Bible to begin with.

If the Scriptures are as authoritatve as you say, shouldn’t there be a divinely-inspsired table of contents somewhere that says what books are supposed to be in the Bible? Where did the BIble come from to begin with? Who decided what books are supposed to be in it? Particularly, as to the New Testament? You may argue that the NT has a lot of references to Scripture, and Jesus or Paul said this or that about the Scriptures, but they could have been referring only to the Jewish Scriptures since the NT itself didn’t exist yet. So where does the Bible say what books are supposed to be in it?

(Are you sure the people who taught you are Scripture believers?)

I’m pretty sure they all were, and they were Protestants for whom I have a lot of respect and love. Although I believe they misinterpreted Scripture in some respects, at least some of them did not make the mistake of proclaiming that anyone who did not agree with their interpretation didn’t believe in the Bible to begin with.

If the Scriptures are as authoritatve as you say, shouldn’t there be a divinely-inspsired table of contents somewhere that says what books are supposed to be in the Bible? Where did the BIble come from to begin with? Who decided what books are supposed to be in it? Particularly, as to the New Testament? You may argue that the NT has a lot of references to Scripture, and Jesus or Paul said this or that about the Scriptures, but they could have been referring only to the Jewish Scriptures since the NT itself didn’t exist yet. So where does the Bible say what books are supposed to be in it?

When you say you trust only the Scriptures, don’t you really mean that you trust only your interpretation of them?

That’s what I was thinking.

Any word on how much he’s being paid to betray his former employer?

Since when did having a teaching certificate prove you could teach? The schools are full of horrible - but certified- teachers. That’s why we remember the few good teachers we had - they stand out in comparison to so many others. And any of us who went to college remember those great teachers we had who seemed to open up a new world of possibilities for us and nurtured an interest and perhaps even a love of some subject. They didn’t have teaching degrees or certificates.

Many of us have known people who were excellent teachers, but aren’t professional teachers per se, like the good trainers you see occaisionally at work, or the mentor you had or the friend who could explain alegbra to you when you could not understand it.

My family is full of teachers and I have friends who teach or are in school adminstration. But I am very skeptical that someone can be taught how to teach in a school of education. I wonder if teaching might be a talent that you either have or don’t have, that can be developed perhaps but not created via instruction. The several education classes I took in college were taught by instructors who themselves were poor teachers and seemed not particularly interested in learning themselves. The latter is a trait I have noticed in many teachers - they are not particularly interested in learing and frequently do little or no reading.

My wife has an MA in education and taught for years, but she’d agree that homeschooling, especially during elementary and middle school years, is far superior to a school-based education both in terms of academics and socialization. We homeschooled our kids through elementary school, and with a couple,through middle school as well.

Of course, like anything else, what comes out is related to what goes in. Most home-schooled kids I know, including my own, turned out pretty well socially and academically - especially in reading. I credit that to the fact that my wife and I were their primary role models,and not their peers (as would have been the case if they had not been homeschooled) and because they did not spend endless hours of drudgery in the confines of classrooms.

We’re on the same page. I can’t disagree with what you’re saying. I think “domestic partnerships,” for example, are an attempt to redefine marriage. I don’t think govt. policy should support any non-marital equivalent of marriage. But I also think that judges are ill-equiped to make decisions about who we are as human beings and how we should live as a society.

If you go to the website and read the comments, there is a good one, something like: “If the Archibishop had been there, there would have been at least one ass in the stable.”

If these folks really believe there are too many people for this wonderful world, they should do their 40 or 50 years, commit suicide and let someone else enjoy it for a while. But, not surprisingly, none of them want to do that. Instead, they’ll want to hang around forever using up resources well past their own ability to make any useful contribution. It’s not the case that they think there are too many people in the world...it’s that they think there are too many OTHER people.

Miller beer sucks anyway. No pun intended.

The author’s bio at the web site for the Prometheus Institute reads thusly:

Justin graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine in 2004. Justin serves as the Deputy Editor of the Prometheus Insitute and has been on the staff since the Institute’s inception. Justin is an expert in internet research and development, and plans to graduate with an M.B.A. from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine in 2009. His interests include swimming, meditating, and low stakes games of Hi/Lo Crazy Pineapple at the Bicycle Casino.

The author has been out of college a whopping three years, has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from UC Irvine. And how exactly does this qualify him to critique the President’s intellectual credentials or on any foriegn policy matters?

I read somewhere that Iran has basically no capacity to refine gasoline, even though they have all that oil...If they close the Strait of Hormuz, we close off their supply of gas. We pay more for gas, their economy collapses. Anyone have a thought on whether this is accurate?

"It is impossible to overstate the importance -- not just to Britain but to the global struggle against Islamist extremism -- of properly understanding and publicly challenging this moral, intellectual and philosophical inversion, which translates aggressor into victim and vice versa."

I think there is something to this, not only regarding Islam, but also the "immigration" issue and a host of other problems we face. As a society, we have lost or are losing the ability to make moral and intellectual distinctions. Much of the talk in the media about these issues, and even among educated people, sounds downright Orwellian.

Actually, I think that a federal judge thinks that he is God. On the other hand, I wonder why the parents here felt that they could not follow the law in good conscience. If the state demands that your kid have a basic knowledge of math or grammar, I don't think that kind of thing burdens anyone's religious beliefs in a way that would be unconstitutional and its something most parents could accomplish with their kids,with a little work. If we're talking about indoctrination that undermines a family's religious beliefs, that's a different thing. If the argument is "God told me that only I am responsible for my kid's education, and I can ignore any standards set by the state," that won't get far or engender much sympathy.

Better fire the school president and suspend the entire student body for the rest of the year.