Religious Left?- Frank Pastore

"
I believe people are supporting organizations like the National Council of Churches and other groups on the religious Left, without knowing – in clear terms – what these groups believe. Beneath their soaring and winsome rhetoric lies poli-cies and positions that betray their professed compassion. They sound so sensitive, caring, and empathetic, but the poli-cies they support – if implemented – would be the proverbial “medicine worse than the disease.” Their solutions would only make matters worse. It is my contention that if people actually knew the views of these groups and the conse-quences of their policies they would withdraw their support.

See how many of these position statements listed below representative of the religious Left that you agree with.

On Theology

1. God is morally neutral with regards to religion – it’s the act of faith, not the object of faith, that counts. There are no false religions – all religions have some truth. Jesus is not the “only way” to heaven. The Bible is neither inerrant nor infallible, it is filled with many errors and must be properly interpreted by experts.

2. Man is not depraved, there is no original sin; man is innately good, it is society that is evil. To improve the world, it is better to create good social institutions than to waste time trying to create good men.

3. God grades on a curve, there is no Hell. Everybody goes to heaven, eventually, if there is an afterlife.

4. Terms like “good” and “evil” are offensive, polarizing, and non-productive. They should never be used to describe in-dividuals, groups, societies, governments, nations, or religions.

5. Since objective truth is unknowable, public policy cannot be deduced from theology. Theology can only be formed inductively from policy preferences. (E.g., Homosexuality is no longer a sin in our faith community.)
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(full article)

1 year!

So I've had a job interview and some thesis deadlines in the past week...no time for posting...but the blog had it's 1 year anniversary...Thanks to all the readers!

Enough Jibber-Jabber...I demand a crazy scheme!!

crazy schemes...

"
On the one hand, such folks do have a point inasmuch as any global modification to the environment that went wrong would be a cure worse than the disease. On the other hand, it seems increasingly unlikely that a global agreement on emissions caps will be enacted anytime soon. The IPCC report claims that there is a high likelihood that Earth's climate has already moved past the point of no return and that sea levels will continue rising for millennia. Simultaneously, billions of people in China and India are arriving at the First World banquet table: according to the International Energy Agency, in two years China will pass the United States as the largest source of carbon emissions. "The political impossibility of what I call the prohibitionist agenda--that is, carbon prohibitionism--brings a kind of hallucinogenic quality to the global-warming discussion," says Benford. "No economist I know believes that global carbon emissions can be restrained within a century to even the level we have now. Every economist knows that the timescale for changing energy infrastructure is at least half a century to a century, just because of replacement costs. Economists are scientists too, and ignoring them isn't just blind: it's perverse."

Benford has a proposal that possesses the advantages of being both one of the simplest planet-cooling technologies so far suggested and being initially testable in a local context. He suggests suspension of tiny, harmless particles (sized at one-third of a micron) at about 80,000 feet up in the stratosphere. These particles could be composed of diatomaceous earth. "That's silicon dioxide, which is chemically inert, cheap as earth, and readily crushable to the size we want," Benford says. This could initially be tested, he says, over the Arctic, where warming is already considerable and where few human beings live. Arctic atmospheric circulation patterns would mostly confine the deployed particles around the North Pole. An initial experiment could occur north of 70 degrees latitude, over the Arctic Sea and outside national boundaries. "The fact that such an experiment is reversible is just as important as the fact that it's regional," says Benford.
"
-Technology Review

Congrats Coach!

“I tell you what, I’m proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American coach to win this,” Dungy said. “It means an awful lot to our country. But again, more than anything, I said it before, Lovie Smith and I, not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches showing you can win doing it the Lord’s way. We’re more proud of that.”
-Tony Dungy, Head Coach of the Indianapolis Colts

As a Tampa native and huge Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, I owe a lot to Coach Dungy for building our absolutely embarassing team into a contender back in the late '90s. Coach Dungy is a true Christian who ran our team with real dignity and integrity. So much of the credit to our 2002 Super Bowl victory goes to him. We all were cheering for him to win on Sunday, and I can't think of a person more deserving of being able to lift the Lombardi Trophy up in triumph!
-Steve

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan!!!

Honestly, Ronald Reagan is my favorite American president and on my list of men I admire most. God bless Him!

If you can....

Dinesh D'souza will be on C-Span's Book TV today (Sunday) at noon. For those of us who'll probably still be at Church then, his talk will be re-airing at midnight. His new book has generated A LOT of controversy so it may be worthwhile checking it out. Even conservatives are disputing his central thesis. HotAirTV's Robert Spencer alludes to it in his latest podcast. We Indian Christians don't have many voices here in America, so Dinesh D'souza is a unique personality for us to latch on to.

Check it out here!

Sorry...

Sorry I haven't been posting as recently as I'd like. This is my last semester (hopefully) here at Rutgers doing my Masters and I've been frantically trying to finish my thesis as well as find gainful employment somewhere. I'm still a coffee-powered rambling thought-smith but I've been a tad bit inundated with the "real world" as of late. I'll try harder with this along with my website in the coming semester.

-Steve

Truth or Consistency

“The ordinary man . . . has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them.”
-GK Chesterton (my new (old) favorite author!)

Mere Comments...

Atheistic Dogma?

Part One

Part Two