You Know When it's the Devil.

Pro Abortion Vegans.

The world having not ended and no Rapture, I did a little Google search to find a little news on Harold Camping hours after his predicted Apocalypse was supposed to have begun. That's when I came across a an article in The Atlantic which pointed out that, according to Camping, the "fantastically big" world-ending event would have been taking place on a time zone by time zone basis with the first signs occurring at the International dateline at 6:00 PM local time. Had Camping been correct, by the time I woke up at 8 this morning, my wife's relatives in Philippines would have vanished hours before.

The piece in The Atlantic lead me to another - Foodies vs. Darwin: How Meat Eaters Ignore Science

No need to go into too much detail on that article; we already know from the title where it's headed. I was interested, however, in some of the comments to the article which got me to thinking.......Why are so many Vegans "pro-choice" on the issue of abortion?

Another search led me to this rather convoluted piece of B.S. which attempted to show how being pro-abortion has nothing to do with the "principles of vegansim and nonviolence".

Moving on, I found on another website - What does being vegan have to do with abortion? The comments by many of the Vegans were enlightening:

"Well I’m a vegan and I’m pro-choice. I do not believe that anybody has the right to judge a woman’s decision to have an abortion, especially when they do not know her circumstances. A fetus is a fetus. It is inside the body. Having an abortion is just removing cells from a female’s uterus.
Animals are alive and are tortured and feel pain from day one. Even animals who have good lives don’t deserve to die for human purposes." and

"I think people see veganism as an appreciation of life (which it sort of is) and then carry that over to the abortion argument. I am vegan and pro-choice. Becoming vegan has given me a better understanding of why people are against abortion, but I still see foetuses and animals as two very different things.

Also, we kill animals because they’re tasty. Not because we need to, not because it’s traumatic or dangerous to keep them alive. I would be against abortion if women got them because they felt like eating their unborn child, but I am pro-choice because no one should be able to tell another person what to do with their body. A foetus is still part of a woman’s body, not its own independent life form. Effectively a foetus is just a parasite. To make abortion illegal would be to say to every woman on the planet that YOU know better than them, that they can’t be trusted to make their own decision, and their own wants or needs don’t matter in any way. This, in my opinion, goes against the very foundations of veganism."

So, here is the essence of the Vegan pro-choice philosophy - We must give up eating meat out of compassion for the animal and the good of Mother Earth, but that compassion doesn't apply to human beings."Effectively a foetus is just a parasite."

Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian.

The God Within Documentary.

In a disappointingly short, exclusive interview, physicist Stephen Hawking tells The Guardian,

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Not surprisingly, Hawking is like most modern scientists; an atheist. He is on record - in his book The Grand Design - as saying,

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

I've written on this before. If, as atheists believe, we are simply the product of chemistry and the laws of physics without need of a Creator, then the notions of right and wrong, morality and immorality are stood on their proverbial heads.

In a documentary that explains this view better than I can, Mike Adams (the Health Ranger) exposes the false philosophy underpinning most of modern science and by extension, atheism.

This link to naturalnews.tv will take you to part one of the documentary, The God Within. As I write this, part two has yet to come online. I will post the link to part two when it becomes available.

Casino Ejects Woman In Muslim Garb

From myfoxphilly.com we learn that Casino Ejects Woman In Muslim Garb.

"A Muslim woman says she was embarrassed when given a difficult choice at Caesars Atlantic City last weekend: take off the traditional face covering that only shows her eyes or leave the casino."

The woman,Tanya Grooms-Butler was sitting in a restaurant located inside a casino while her husband gamble. Security guards for the casino told Grooms-Butler that she could not remain in the casino while wearing the burka. In a statement later released by the casino, security is of great importance. Besides, the statement went on, no one under 21 is allowed in the casino and a burka hides the face and it cannot be determined if someone is of legal age if the entire face can't be seen.

Sounds reasonable to me.

I can't understand, however, why Grooms-Butler and her husband were in the casino in the first place. Obviously, they must be devout Muslims.....so devout that she wears a burka. I'm sure she and her husband are aware that gambling is forbidden in Islam. Perhaps she and her husband are cafeteria Muslims.

Casinos aren't in the business of enforcing the laws and tenets of any particular religion. The owners and management wouldn't - and shouldn't - ban someone from the casino because that person's religion forbids gambling. The casinos aren't interested in whether or not your religion of choice says gambling is a sin. No, they're only interested in separating you from your money.

I'd think that if Grooms-Butler and her husband were serious about Islam, they wouldn't step foot inside a casino.

It's none of my business, of course, but I wonder if the husband was drinking alcohol while he gambled. When you ignore one commandment of your faith, breaking a second one becomes relatively easy.

The article ends with this:
"Grooms-Butler says she was embarrassed and won't be going back."

Maybe she shouldn't have been there to begin with.

Robinson Bashes Republican. Yawn.

As one would expect, Washington Post opinion writer, Eugene Robinson had nothing good to say about the Republican presidential candidates who participated in a debate in Greenville, South Carolina recently. He compared the debate between Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Tim Pawlenty to the "the famous bar scene from 'Star Wars' ” writing, "......the dialogue sounded like a faltering attempt at interplanetary communication". No one could seriously believe that Robinson would look favorably on any GOP candidate.

An Obama supporter, Robinson believes that the recent killing of Osama bin Laden significantly improves Obama's odds of winning reelection in 2012.

He writes, "Indeed, the bounce in Obama’s poll numbers was immediate — and, for potential opponents, daunting".

Daunting? Evidently Robinson hasn't seen the recent Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll which gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9. That's minus 9.......negative nine. I guess if one compares that to Obama's Presidential Approval Index rating of -19 on April 27, then it is an improvement.

Finally, Robinson goes so far as to compare Obama to Clint Eastwood. Funny, being Eastwoodian is frowned upon if you're a Republican President, but for Robinson, it's a good thing for Obama.

On the NCR and bin Laden.

I'm not quite certain how they manage to do it on such a consistent basis, but as usual, the National Catholic Reporter has posted an article that absolutely goes against the way I view things.

With the article -Bin Laden Is Killed!- writer Michael Sean Winters wants us to know that "the fact of this evil man’s demise is cause to raise a glass no matter the circumstances, but truly evil men should not be allowed to die in their beds" and should be cause for celebration.

Winter writes, "I do not normally take delight in the death of a fellow human being. Nor do I support the death penalty. But, if there was one man on the planet whom it was important to kill, not to just let die, it was Osama bin Laden."

Sorry, Mr. Winter, that clearly is not Catholic teaching concerning the death penalty. You cannot celebrate the death of Bin Laden on the one hand then claim you are against the death penalty and do not delight in the death of a fellow human being on the other.

The reasoning behind the Church's teaching on capital punishment apply equally to those with whom we sympathize as well as with those whose crime we find especially heinous.

I've had this argument before.....the Church's argument against the death penalty hold for even obviously evil folks like Ted Bundy and Timothy Mcveigh. Osama bin Laden is no different simply because he is believed to have been responsible for the death of 3000 Americans. Like many of the Church's teachings, the teaching on capital punishment isn't always easy. The desire for revenge is ever present in the human heart.

Admitting "vengeance is not a healthy emotion, I know. Assassination is against the law, to be sure", Winter writes that it is "better to indulge [in sin] and go to confession". As one person committing on Winter's piece pointed out, George Tiller was responsible for more deaths than Osama, yet even Winter did not support Tiller's murder.

We've heard conflicting reports as to whether or not Bin Laden was armed with a weapon when he was killed. We've been told by White House press secretary Jay Carney that being unarmed doesn't mean Bin Laden did not put up resistance. Carney did not elaborate on this and I'm not sure what he means; I'm sure we'll never know exactly what transpired.

I realize that there are certain circumstances under which it would have been permissible to kill Osama bin Laden while still following Catholic teaching. Killing him as an act of revenge or because his death makes "things" more convenient doesn't cut it.

Vatican Gathering of Bloggers Hailed as a Success.

OK......Vatican gathering of bloggers hailed as a success.
I haven't kept up on all the bloggers who are attending - other than The Crescat.

But, hey, I may not have been invited to participate at the Vatican's blog fest; I have been busy, as this photo will show.

HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE DIRECTOR ON DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

VATICAN CITY, 2 MAY 2011 (VIS) - This morning the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., released the following declaration on the news regarding the death of Osama Bin Laden.

"Osama Bin Laden, as is known, claimed responsibility for grave acts that spread division and hate among the peoples, manipulating religion to that end. A Christian never takes pleasure from the fact of a man's death, but sees it as an opportunity to reflect on each person's responsibility, before God and humanity, and to hope and commit oneself to seeing that no event become another occasion to disseminate hate but rather to foster peace".