Catholic McCain Voters Are Going To Hell!

There’s been a lot of vituperation going on about whether anyone who is Roman Catholic who voted for Barack Obama is going to hell. The answer is “NO!” but, Catholic McCain voters ARE going to hell!

How do I know this? Take a look at the facts:

The Catholic Church has five “non-negotiable issues” regarding its teachings on the sanctity of life. It is a mortal sin to support abortion (McCain does in cases of rape and incest), embryonic stem cell research (McCain does [see second debate!], and has twice voted for expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research), to define marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman (McCain voted against a proposed US Constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between am man and a woman). The other two are cloning and euthanasia. I don’t know what McCain says about euthanasia but, the stem cell research may use cloning so he’s wrong on that, too!

So, McCain is wrong on 4 out of 5 “non-negotiable issues” regarding the sanctity of life as pronounced by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. But, that’s not all!

The Catholic Church has condemned torture saying torture “violates the Fifth Commandment” and is “intrinsically evil.” John McCain voted to allow the CIA to use torture on terror suspects, making torture a policy of the US for the first time in history!

McCain is also on the wrong side of the Catholic Church on the Iraq War, the death …

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Charming. Just…charming…

This is a charming little story. Priest dumps all over his parishioners. Now, I was never a Catholic, but I once considered marrying a Catholic girl and went through some of the obligatory classes at her church.  We got to the part about promising to raise the children Catholic and…

Continue ReadingCharming. Just…charming…

Gay Marriage

I wrote this originally in 2004, upon the passage of an antigay measure in Missouri.  With the passage of Prop 8 in California, I thought it would be worth reposting here.

You may have heard. Missouri has become the first state in the union to establish a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. More will follow, of course, but it’s something to be the first.

I live here. This is my state.

Shame on us.

This was not, however, unexpected. Did anyone actually believe Americans, especially in the middle of the country, are ready, en masse, to embrace such a substantial change in attitude toward an institution that extends back to the murkiness of prehistory?

Prehistory. Genesis notwithstanding, I make that claim based on the fact that we have no documentary evidence that at a given moment Marriage was invented. It’s something homo sapiens brought with it into the historical period, which is really only that part of time in which we have had writing. Writing that survived, to be more specific. For all we know there may be a cache of stone tablets or whatever yet undiscovered extending that time backward reliably by a century or millennia or more. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the historical era has lasted (reliably) for ten thousand years. We can quibble over certain dates, but we’ve got evidence suggesting that humans have lived in organized social groups for at least that long, which suggests that we’ve been doing so for a …

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Atheists and believers can get along: Here’s Exhibit A

I’m not claiming that non-believers and believers always get along, but I do know that they can get along.  I know this for many reasons.  Here’s my newest evidence:  Last night I spoke about my lack of religious beliefs from the front of a packed church, during the religious service.

How this could possibly be true?  Here’s a bit of background. I previously wrote about a church in my neighborhood called The Journey.  (here’s the website of The Journey).

journey sign
After I wrote that post, Darrin Patrick, Pastor of The Journey, posted a comment at DI inviting me join him for lunch.  We’ve had two lunches now, and we’ve traded quite a few e-mails and phone calls. I now considered Darrin to be a friend.  We have many interests in common.  He’s also an intelligent, curious, sensitive church leader who is an exquisite reader of people and who has an undying commitment to funnel the energy of his congregation toward improving his community. Like most friends, Darrin and I have differences of opinion on topics we consider to be important. Like all friends of mine, however, we both realize that we have far more in common than those things on which we disagree.

About two months ago, Darrin asked whether he could interview me on videotape and then play portions of my interview for his congregation. I agreed and I sat for an interview of almost an hour, talking about Dangerous Intersection, my family, my concerns about my community, …

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