By It’s Fruit

The abortion and gay issues may be coming to a head. They first have to hit rock bottom before the Truth comes around and exposes the falsehoods. After sin is exposed to the light, it can be purged.

I think with the candid admissions below, it’s the time in history when respective policies may turn around in democratic or semi-democratic countries. My wife is not too sure. She thinks the worst is yet to come. We’ll see.

The admissions come from Camille Paglia and Simon Fanshawe, respectively. (See LifeSiteNews.com)

The woman who is pro-abortion as a choice (PAAAC) is an atheist and libertarian who admits that “Abortion is Murder” but is nonetheless justified. “I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body.” She says later that “[abortion] results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.” This clearly contradicts her position: since each individual has a right to control his or her own body, or to have life, the ”concrete individual” must be free to live.

The man who is gay says that the "Gay Lifestyle a 'Sewer' of Casual Degrading Sex, Drug Abuse and Misery”. In other words, the gay lifestyle makes human persons into animals: it degrades their human dignity in a truly concrete way. I would argue even “sexually committed gay relationships” do this since they contain the same humanly degrading sex as those that are not committed.

From the two people, I see that the fruit of both positions is death: infanticide (actually it’s back now in, of course, the Netherlands) and the annihilation of society into the ways of the sexually active gay person (by having no children and being self-destructive and degrading) are only a step away.

Live Music MP3's

Below are two of my (composed) motets that I recorded for a competition. Enjoy and let me know if you want a copy of the sheet music (or any other music of mine).

Tantum Dic Verbo



Mt 8:8

Domine, non sum dignus,
ut intres sub tectum meum:
sed tantum dic verbo
et sanabitur anima mea.

Lord, I am not worthy
that Thou shouldest enter under my roof:
but only say the word,
and my soul shall be healed.


Justorum Animae



Wisdom 3:1-2a,3b

Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt,
et non taget illos tormentum malitiae:
visi sunt oculis insipientium mori:
illi autem sunt in pace.

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and the torment of malice shall not touch them:
in the sight of the unwise they seemed to die,
but they are in peace.

© 2008 Musique de McClain
© 2008 Wondering Zygote Emeritus

Open Letter on "A Vote for Sarah Palin"

The following is a response to this inquiry:

A Vote for Sarah Palin
Posted by Joseph Bottum on September 3, 2008, 12:27 PM

Has everyone read “A Vote for Sarah Palin,” the Daily Article here at First Things this morning? I’m not sure what to make of the nomination and would be interested in your thoughts. Email us here [ft@firstthings.com].

The response is here:

The nomination of Sarah Palin brings one word to mind: courage. No wonder you and other people are “not sure what to make of the nomination” since the observation of apparent courage prompts the observer to interpret the action as real courage or real stupidity. The interpretation may take a short term or long term to develop. In the nomination of Sarah Palin, it will probably take the outcome of the election to tell if it was a courageous or stupid act.

I suggest that the nomination was a truly courageous act for two main reasons. First, it showed that if Senator McCain becomes President, he will be able to make decisions with courage, determination, and with the nation’s interest at heart. He showed that even though safe choices can be made without the threat of reprisals, such as picking an obvious person such as Governor Romney or Mayor Giuliani to be Vice President, there are better choices to be made that will probably be looked upon as foolish by the self-labeled experts.

Second, he chose a running mate that personifies courage. Governor Palin carried to term a down-syndrome baby who, statistically, most other people would kill by abortion. She showed her courage by bucking most of society in making the right decision not to destroy her son. She demonstrated courage by supporting her daughter in making the right decision to bring her child and grandson to term. How many other woman and mothers would give in to fear and abort all their unexpected children?

It will only be a short few weeks before all of us know if President or Senator McCain made a courageous or stupid decision in choosing Governor Sarah Palin for the next Vice President of the United States of America.

My Music

If your interested in hearing some of my composed a cappella music performed live (I did it for a competition), ask me here for the password, and why you would like to hear it. The link is here.

Paradoxical Truth

For me, one of the proofs for the Truths of Christianity is its paradoxical nature. What I mean is that what seems to be apparent is actually not true. For example, in order to gain happiness for ourselves, we must deliver happiness to others and deny ourselves. If we try to make ourselves happy by indulging ourselves, we can never grasp happiness. It is only in giving that we receive. In order to live, we must die, etc.

This makes most sense to me for two reasons. Since no one had fully known the truth about God, the origin of our happiness, until the revelation and incarnation of Christ, paradoxes must have existed that keep humanity from the full Truth. Buddha said that escaping from physical reality was necessary to reach nirvana, but he was not correct. We must be redeemed in our bodies to be connected to the Communion of Saints at the resurrection.

Second, intellectuals have a great difficulty in grasping the Truth of the gospel because of their logical hang-ups. Why would someone become lowly to be exalted? It is the unwanted and destitute that see the illogicalness of life and embrace the paradoxical Truth of the Gospel for hope.

“He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”

Living In Sin

Today is the Memorial of the Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist. Saint John told King Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your (Mark 6:17-29) brother’s wife.” King Herod knew that he was sinning, but he kept on doing it. His unlawful wife Herodias wanted to kill John, and she finally had her way by her daughter’s seductive dance.

John knew that he would eventually be killed, but he told the truth about Herod living in sin.

I personally know people, some very well, that personally used the phrase “living in sin” regarding living together before marriage. At least one of their parents, usually the mother, told them that it was wrong to live together before marriage since it was almost inevitable that there would be sexual relations between the couple. While the other parent, usually the father, did not really have an opinion on the matter. Yet, they did it anyway.

Just the other day, in my own car, someone acknowledged that they were “living in sin”, but it was the practical thing to do. About a year before that, someone jokingly said that, “Yup, I’m living in sin!” In fact, most couples that I know lived together before getting married. (I also know many that did not.)

What did I say? Nothing. Am I afraid to tell them that they’re wrong? I guess so.

When you get down to it, we’re all living in sin. However, what’s the main difference? One set acknowledges their sin and repents, the other set perhaps – if at all – acknowledges their sin and does not repent. Am I being holier than thou? I think I'm not holy and need God's forgiveness, not brush off my sin as nothing.

There is difference, though, between King Herod and those “living in sin” nowadays. King Herod knew God’s law and directly disobeyed it. Today, people do not really know right and wrong. In saying or joking that they “live in sin”, they really do not acknowledge that it is a sin to live together before marriage (or take another wife/concubine while still being married to another; I know these people too). The moral standard they use is similar to Obama’s: it’s a sin to be “out of alignment with [their own personal] values”. Therefore, if they think living together does not cause a moral dilemma, go for it. If religious, old-fashioned people say living together is a sin, they’re not in line with my values, and I can ignore them while still mocking them for their impropriety towards my feelings and disregard for my values.

In the end they’ll realize that old-fashioned people are right. More people than not divorce if they lived together beforehand. More abusive relationships develop after marriage if they lived together before. If contraceptives are used, the wife is seen more as an object than one that is to be loved and cherished. Families fall apart and society suffers from lack of foundation.

I will try to say something in the future if “living in sin” comes up. I guess I just fear getting my head put on a platter. I must try to “be not afraid”.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us!
John Paul the Great, pray for us!

Self-Control in the USA

Last week on Bill Moyers Journal, Andrew Bacevich talked some sense about why the United States is no longer the world leader it once was. Our overspending into dept and our oil dependence - including that of the government and individual citizens - will sink this ship ever more deeper.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I would be one of the first to confess that - I think that we have misunderstood and underestimated President Carter. He was the one President of our time who recognized, I think, the challenges awaiting us if we refused to get our house in order.

BILL MOYERS: You're the only author I have read, since I read Jimmy Carter, who gives so much time to the President's speech on July 15th, 1979. Why does that speech speak to you so strongly?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, this is the so-called Malaise Speech, even though he never used the word "malaise" in the text to the address. It's a very powerful speech, I think, because President Carter says in that speech, oil, our dependence on oil, poses a looming threat to the country. If we act now, we may be able to fix this problem. If we don't act now, we're headed down a path in which not only will we become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, but we will have opted for a false model of freedom. A freedom of materialism, a freedom of self-indulgence, a freedom of collective recklessness. And what the President was saying at the time was, we need to think about what we mean by freedom. We need to choose a definition of freedom which is anchored in truth, and the way to manifest that choice, is by addressing our energy problem.

He had a profound understanding of the dilemma facing the country in the post Vietnam period. And of course, he was completely hooted, derided, disregarded.

BILL MOYERS: And he lost the election. You in fact say-

ANDREW BACEVICH: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: -this speech killed any chance he had of winning reelection. Why? Because the American people didn't want to settle for less?

ANDREW BACEVICH: They absolutely did not. And indeed, the election of 1980 was the great expression of that, because in 1980, we have a candidate, perhaps the most skillful politician of our time, Ronald Reagan, who says that, "Doom-sayers, gloom-sayers, don't listen to them. The country's best days are ahead of us."

BILL MOYERS: Morning in America.

ANDREW BACEVICH: It's Morning in America. And you don't have to sacrifice, you can have more, all we need to do is get government out of the way, and drill more holes for oil, because the President led us to believe the supply of oil was infinite.

BILL MOYERS: You describe Ronald Reagan as the "modern prophet of profligacy. The politician who gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption."

The above quote made me think of someone who died this month: Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He had some real insight into this question.

Below is my comment on Moyers' blog.

Mr. Bacevich is absolutely right on mostly everything he said.

I wonder if looking at Alexander Solzhenitsyn would help the discussion.

From two journals:

"Obviously, the demands of freedom and higher obligation are paradoxical. They seem as different as pride and humility, and there is no political solution in the real world which can reconcile them. They can be reconciled only in a world where freedom is used solely for self-limitation in service to the highest good—a condition that Solzhenitsyn sometimes compares wishfully to a new historical stage that would be as different from today as the change that occurred from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and Enlightenment."
First Things

"For example, describing the Western worldview as “rationalistic humanism,” Solzhenitsyn decried the loss of “our concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility.” Man has become “the master of this world . . . who bears no evil within himself,” he announced. “So all the defects of life” are attributed to “wrong social systems.”"
CE

I would be interested in how Mr. Bacevich would relate religion to the current state of US affairs.

Note that both President Carter and Solzhenitsyn came to their conclusions by Way of Christianity, by faith and reason. Without the guidance of Almighty God for self control, we'll all end up in a sunken ship in a stormy sea. As we forget about God, deny His existence and Divine Providence, and ignore His Will in our lives, we will sink deeper and deeper into the Enemy's grip.

Everyone bless God, no exceptions.

Dawkins Dreaming

The next arguments that Dawkins refutes are that God must exist because he created Beethoven (pp. 86-87) and Mozart and that God must exit because one has a personal experience with the divine (pp. 87-92). The former argument is one that seems to be out of place. Why should one argue that God exists because He created historical figures? Why shouldn’t they say that God exists because I am standing here (or writing here) because God made me in some sort of fashion (natural selection is only an intermediary explanation as will be argued later) rather than not at all? Nevertheless, why not thank God that He created Shakespeare and Haydn?

Furthermore, it is notable that we should time-remotely thank the historical figures that had the initiative to become such figures. These famous people came on the scene because they had the free will to take their opportunities or to perhaps leave them to someone else in another place and time.

According to Dawkins, “personal ‘experience’” of the divine must be delusional. However, what is his basis for judgment? Perhaps Dawkins is delusional in that he either does not have personal experiences with the divine or that he does not recognize the divine he encounters? Even if no one has encounters with the divine, how can we encounter each other if something did not create matter from nothing?

On pages 91-92, he sites the apparition at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 to 70,000 pilgrims in which it is reported that they saw the “sun ‘tear itself from the heavens and come crashing down upon the multitude’.” He says that this couldn’t have happened because there was no physical destruction of anything, including the Earth at Fatima.

He sites David Hume as saying, “’No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.’” Doesn’t Dawkins understand that this miracle is not about the physical regeneration of a removed lung, or the changing of the Eucharistic host into physical flesh? It’s a vision that tens of thousands of people witnessed at the same time. One cannot logically refute a vision with an intact planet.