#159,963

As I write this, 164,043 individuals have signed the "Manhattan Declaration". I was signer #159,963.

The signers of this declaration call on all Americans to join in defending certain fundamental truths regarding justice and the common good. These fundamental truths are listed as -
1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Naturally, some in the so-called "gay community" are unhappy with this document.
A blog in the Village Voice says the declaration "calls for staunch opposition to things like abortion, gay marriage, and other satatanic [sic] liberal agendas."
I'm not quite sure what the "other satatanic liberal agendas" are that the blogger is referring to.

Surprisingly, some Evangelicals do not support the declaration on the grounds that the Gospels are not mentioned often enough in the document.

Not being a U.S. Congressman, I read the declaration before signing it. I would ask Christians and Atheists alike to read the document and explain to me what is in the Manhattan Declaration that any rational person would object to.
You can read and download the document here.

You can sign the Manhattan Declaration by going here.

Happy Thanksgiving !!

Remember this photo when you're enjoying your pumpkin pie.

Photo swiped from LarryD.


Happy Thanksgiving.

Sarah Palin's Turkey in the Interview Video Redux.

Sarah Palin is in the news now thanks to the tremendous response to her book, Going Rogue.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I thought it would be appropriate to post the Sarah Palin Turkey getting slaughtered video from last year. Going to Youtube, I found the uncensored version.

Enjoy.

Answering Oleuanna.

Over the weekend, I received quite a few emails from blogcatalog that this or that blogger had invited me to become "friends"........ OK, sure, why not?

Naturally, then, a portion of the weekend was spent looking at the work of these bloggers. As it turned out, being adventurous, I looked at a few blogs belonging to folks who had visited the ones I was reading.

That was how I came across a blogger called Oleuanna and her blog of the same name. In her profile, she lists Scotland as her home. In describing herself, she writes, "There really isn't enough boxes..." [sic]
Her interests include "Laughing,shouting,politics,poetry,art,revolucion,Sancerre,human rights,no ism,or ist,in sight!,anti politics,anti religion,damn veggie,lover of the Gaia".

I read a few of her posts, but the one that caught my interest was the one entitled Make your deities case here !!
At the beginning of that post, she writes,"As I can’t write a serious piece on anyones god and lacking one myself, I thought it would be easier to throw it out for discussion".
Most of that post deals with her disdain for Catholicism stemming from her first hand experiences with the Church and Her teachings.

I'm not going to address her opinion of the Catholic Church. Most of her comments on the Church come from her personal life; I have no way of knowing what actually happened to her in childhood.

I am willing, however, to address the last bit of that post- where she asks;
"So just out of curiosity if you do or don’t support a deity I still would be interested in your opinion. What is a God?"
She goes on to list eight attributes that God might possess [ Omnipotent - Omnibenevolent -Omniscient - The Creator - The Sustainer - Perfectly Free - Eternally Existing - A Personal God ] and asks that we "choose one or more and describe why you think this."

I found the idea of placing my thoughts on the subject in a comment box too limiting. I need the space of my own blog to answer her.

I would say that God does indeed possess the eight attributes she listed; but God is much, much more than these eight. I could go on and list eight or eighty more - however, in doing so, I could not begin to give an accurate and full description of God.

God is beyond our comprehension. Our words can only limit the glory that God is.

All of us seek God.....and God has provided means for us to reach Him. The problem is on our end. We are incapable of understanding fully what He is trying to say to us. There are more than a few religions that are useful in our struggle. From my perspective, none do this better than the Roman Catholic Church.
It is only within the Church that we can received God's most precious gift to us - the body and blood of Christ present in the Eucharist.
Also within the Church are countless elements that can help us to follow the way God has provided. A few examples of these elements include (but are not limited to) Confession, Lent, the Rosary and daily prayer.

Still, many religions contain some elements of salvation embedded in their teachings and as someone once said to me, "Being a something is better than being a nothing".

From what I've read on her blog, I doubt that I could ever change Oleuanna's view of God. As she put it, she "graduated and went on to have a great life afterwards, mainly involving that of higher education, drinking sex and drugs a plenty."
No, this isn't an attempt to change her mind. She asked for other opinions and this is mine.

Shut the @#$%$#@ Up.

Meet Rev. Will Bowen. He's the "lead minister" of the One Community Spiritual Center in Kansas City, MO.

I know it isn't right to judge a book by it's cover, but I'd say, from the photo, Rev. Bowen seems to be a likable, easy-going sort. From what I gather, the good Reverend has only two complaints.
The first one being, he's all too often mistaken for Gavin MacLeod of Love Boat fame;
and secondly, he thinks you all gripe and whine and complain too much.

That's right.....you heard me; all you want to do is sit around and grouse, bellyache, moan and grumble.

Reverend Bowen became so dissatisfied with so much dissatisfaction that he developed a program and website called Shut your bleedin' pie-hole dot org to promote his views on positive thinking.

OK, I made up the part about the name....it's really a complaint free world .org

He idea involves wearing this purple Complaint Free bracelet - which you can get free from his website - . Whenever you get a bit miffed and start complaining, then golly gee willikers, you remove the purple bracelet from one wrist and put it on the other.

The theory is, that it takes 21 days to form a new habit and moving this bracelet back and forth for 21 days will get you looking at things in a whole new way.

Will it work?

According to the website, "the average person who really gives this their best effort usually takes 4-10 months to go 21 consecutive days without complaining."

Bowen claims to have given away more than six million purple bracelets; as a matter of fact, he claims that Maya Angelou received the 6 millionth one.

One of the oddest things I discovered about all of this is that acomplaintfreeworld.biz has a complaint department of sorts.

Any item purchased from them is eligible for a refund if you aren't satisfied.
If it's taken longer than 4 weeks to get your item, just send them an email and complain about it.
And the bracelets are made of silicone rubber - no latex is used in the manufacturing process.....so you'll have no complaints about that if you happen to be allergic.

So, go ahead. Get your purple bracelet and shut your bleedin' pie-hole.

Latma Video on Ft. Hood Massacre.

When it comes to biting satire - particularly when it pertains to the problem of Muslim terrorism - no one bites harder than Caroline Glick and her Hebrew language website, www.latma.co.il.

Recently, the website took a jab at the "politically correct" response to Palestinian terrorist Malik Nadal Hasan's horrible rampage at Fort Hood.
The video is in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Pre-K in our Future.

J.P. will start pre-k next Fall. We went to the open house at the Catholic school in our little town.

Of course, my wife and I really want our son (and any future children) to attend a parochial school. I dread the thought of him spending time in public school.

On more than one occasion, I've heard a representative of the school tell us before Mass that, with the help available from the Archdiocese, no child will be denied admission to the school because the parents can't afford the tuition.

I filled out and mailed the application this morning to enroll him there in Fall 2010.
We'll see what happens.