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29413. wonkers2 - 11/20/2008 3:24:44 AM I'm just one of those regular Christians 29414. jexster - 11/23/2008 4:46:53 AM Next Sunday, 23 Nov, the Bishop will make his visitation at High Mass.
Next Sunday, as part of his visitation, the Bishop will share his thoughts on peace and justice following Coffee Hour
Next Sunday being our Feast of Title and the Sunday Next Before Advent, a solemn Te Deum will be offered at the conclusion of High Mass.
Oh happy day! Bring oxygen
29415. jexster - 11/23/2008 4:53:47 AM Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum
sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world
: doth acknowledge thee;
The Father : of an infinite Majesty; 29416. jexster - 11/24/2008 4:22:08 AM Most excellent visitation with Confirmations and for the Confirmands
The Litany of the Saints! 29417. wonkers2 - 11/24/2008 5:31:17 PM Keep drinkin' that Koolaid! 29418. jexster - 12/1/2008 1:43:04 AM From the Wonkers Family Weddings Album
Solemn Procession of the Hindu Snake Goddess 29419. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/4/2008 12:35:42 AM 
29420. jexster - 12/4/2008 1:43:17 AM Gay or God's Plan?
NEW YORK – Theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province Wednesday, in a long-developing rift over the Bible that erupted when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop.
The announcement represents a new challenge to the already splintering, 77-million-member world Anglican fellowship and the authority of its spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
The new North American Anglican province includes four breakaway Episcopal dioceses, many individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada, and splinter groups that left the Anglican family years, or in one case, more than a century ago.
Its status within the Anglican Communion is unclear. It is unprecedented for a new Anglican national province to be created where two such national churches already exist. But traditionalists say the new group represents the true historic tradition of Anglican Christianity and is vital to counter what they consider policies that violate Scripture.
Bishop Robert Duncan, who leads the breakaway Diocese of Pittsburgh, is the proposed new leader of the new North American province, which says it has 100,000 members. In a phone interview from Wheaton, Ill., where leaders of the new group met, Duncan called Wednesday's announcement an "exciting and remarkable moment" for traditionalists.
Williams has been striving for years to find a compromise that would keep liberal and conservative Anglicans together, but unlike a pope, he lacks the power to force a resolution.
The Anglican Communion links 38 self-governing provinces that trace their roots to the missionary work of the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the U.S., while the Anglican Church in Canada represents the communion in that country.
Anglicans have been debating for decades over what members of their fellowship should believe. Tensions erupted in 2003 when Episcopalians consecrated New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his longtime male partner.
Around the same time, some Canadian Anglican leaders began authorizing blessing ceremonies for same-sex unions, saying biblical teachings on social justice required them to do so. The actions pushed the Anglican family to the brink of schism.
A London spokesman for the Anglican Communion did not respond to a request for comment.
Michael Pollesel, general security of the Anglican Church of Canada, said the new province leaders "really have no standing with the Anglican Communion at this point."
The Rev. Charles Robertson, adviser to the head of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, underscored that the U.S. and Canadian churches are "the recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America." He said the U.S. church welcomes people with different views. 29421. vonKreedon - 12/18/2008 1:19:03 AM Ace, in the course of railing against the alleged anti-Christianity of the Washington State Atheist Anti-Christmas monument in the Capitol, says this:
A message like "No Greater Virtue Than Reason; No Higher Power Than Truth" gets the message across, pretty much, that faith is bunk, yet without quite saying it.
That is an excellent and positive statement of faith. Seriously, that is a great Church of Man, Atheist creed. Being an Agnostic rather than Atheist, I can totally agree with this statement, but would need to add something along the lines of, "...But We Could Be Wrong."
29422. magoseph - 12/19/2008 1:24:53 PM 'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous-The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas. By Christopher Hitchens
The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.
I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:
Money's scarce
Times are hard
Here's your f******
Xmas card
(continued)
29423. vonKreedon - 1/27/2009 6:28:14 PM My family's TV watching tends towards shows with morally challenging premises/characters/situations. Our TiVO season passes are for House, Battle Star Galactica, and 24. We got into quite the discussion last night after watching 24. To recap the relevant part of the show:
- Brutal African warlord, with history of both genocide and kidnapping children for soldiers, has ousted the government of fictional African country. New US President is all hard assed about not allowing this genocidal madman to remain in power and moves to invade the country. BUT...
- Genocidal Madman (GM) has acquired a device that allows him to take control of all sorts of infrastructure in the US, ranging from air traffic control to nuclear power plants. He attempts to blackmail the PotUS to call off the invasion or many many US citizens will die. PotUS doesn't back down and two planes are crashed into each other with the loss of a couple hundred lives. PotUS still doesn't back down, so now GM is going to cause a chemical plant to blow and so kill tens of thousands in the Ohio town that contains the plant.
- Pretty much the entire Cabinet wants the PotUS to give in and save the tens of thousands of US lives, knowing that doing so means that hundreds of thousands of fictional African lives will be lost. The Sec. of State resigns over the PotUS's refusal to give in to the demands.
So, the discussion revolved around the PotUS's refusal to buckle. Does the PotUS have a greater responsibility to the tens of thousands of US lives vs. the hundreds of thousand of foreigner's lives? What about the long standing edict that, "We don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't submit our foreign policy to blackmail"? My wife and son both argue that the PotUS has taken an oath to protect and defend the US, so when push comes to shove throwing the Africans to the wolves is the ethical thing to do. I argued that the moral equation of tens of thousands vs. hundreds of thousands, plus our greater capacity to deal with the disaster, means that throwing the Africans to the wolves is cowardly and unethical.
Thoughts? 29424. anomie - 1/28/2009 3:50:24 AM That just sounds like an artificial set of circumstances. Maybe even a game theory scenario, and as a result it is of little interest in analyzing real world threats. Having said that, and after conjuring up a UN peacekeeping solution, I say let the Africans have their leader and let us keep Americans alive.
I am not an isolationist, and I'm all for helping countries with less fortunate circumstances and geography, but at some point, people, (and us too), will bear the consequences of their leadership and the kind of society they create. 29425. vonKreedon - 1/28/2009 5:16:01 AM Yeah, agree about the artificiality of the ethical problem. Given that I thought the discussion best placed in this thread rather than in American Politics or International.
You're agreeing with my wife and son that the PotUS's duty to protect and defend US life trumps any ethical duty to prevent genocide, correct? And further that the inhabitants of a country have the primary duty to stop genocide? Please do not read sarcasm into my questions, I want to be clear about what you're saying. And it's not like those positions are outside the norm, if they are what you are saying. 29426. arkymalarky - 1/28/2009 5:57:51 AM Helping the AU and countries like Liberia that have vulnerable new governments and new hope would do more over a longer term than military action. The president's oath is to the constitution, but as commander in chief of the world's most powerful democracy troops may have to be committed for humanitarian reasons, but it should be in cooperation with an alliance and have a clear set of goals. 29427. vonKreedon - 1/28/2009 6:14:30 AM So until there is a cooperative alliance the US should not intervene to prevent of put a stop to genocide? Let's for the sake of discussion say that the US has a multi-national alliance in place, but then terroists in alliance with the foreign Genocidal Maniac (GM) credibly threaten to kill thousands of US citizens if we don't back out of the alliance's military action? If we back out then everyone backs out and the genocide goes forward. Do we save the US citizens or stop the genocide? 29428. vonKreedon - 1/28/2009 6:15:28 AM Errata:
First line: of put=or put 29429. alistairconnor - 1/28/2009 10:20:48 AM Ha. It seems to me (not having seen the show) that the makers are making an implicit isolationist argument by creating a false dichotomy.
In the case as presented, the US should back the hell off. There is no absolute duty to intervene to save anyone; there are necessarily trade-offs. See St Augustine's doctrine of just war, it works pretty well for me.
The makers of the program, I imagine, are making the argument that the US shouldn't have intervened in Iraq because the cost to the US is too high (true, but that's not the only reason), and asking viewers to extrapolate to reach the conclusion that any foreign intervention is necessarily a bad thing.
This is a logical reaction, as a national mindset. I have been predicting for five years that the US would enter an isolationist phase as a result of Bush-era overreach. I believe Obama has the vision to overcome this error, but I'm not confident Americans will follow this vision. 29430. arkymalarky - 1/28/2009 4:00:54 PM I agree with Alistair that t's a false dichotomy. I also don't think Americans should ever react to threats or even American loss of lives (as in Mogadishu). They should act based on the totality of the circumstances.
And I disagree with Alistair about America. We're tired of being hated in the world. More amazing than having elected a black man is having elected a man whose middle name is Hussein who has direct experience through family and residence in the Muslim world. 29431. anomie - 1/28/2009 4:55:58 PM VK, if there is an alliance (of resources too) that includes most of Europe, other African countries, and a substantial part of Asia, I would opt for intervention if such intervention included a plan to rebuild the country in country or at least to prevent political despots returning to power.
As to American casualties, perhaps they would happen anyway if such a lunatic had the means, so the guy must be eventually disposed of one way or another. 29432. anomie - 1/28/2009 5:01:00 PM I would say the POTUS duty trumps the moral obligation to prevent "any" genocide or tragedy. But in the case you cite, yes. But then I don't see it as a question of duty so much as a question of pragmatism.
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