religion

Open Thread

Mark Noonan124 Comments

Seeing some video of Episcopal “priests” who are essentially denying not just the divinity of Christ, but His very existence. And I wonder: what is the point? Why even bother? If Jesus is not God – or if He never existed – what is the point of even talking about Him? I mean, other than to just insult the whole idea of Christianity? This is not heresy – it is apostasy. These people could go golf or something on a Sunday morning…going to Church to simply dump all over the very idea of Christ – aside from the risk to one’s soul – seems a gigantic waste of time.

But that is the Left – nothing but hatred. So much hatred that you even go out of your way to hate. There are fallen away Christians – including some who downright loath Christianity – but they don’t dwell on it. For whatever reason, they have rejected grace…and now they go about their lives doing things which please them. Not spending huge amount of time and resources expressing their hatred. But not our Left! Nope: once they hate something they need to let you know – at length – that they hate it.

Just weird. And sad. Pathetic. Kinda stupid.

Japan and the USA sign a rare earths agreement – more work towards cutting China out of the loop on it. Keep in mind that China nearly cornered the rare earths market; on purpose to hamstring us if it ever came down to a fight. American President after American President simply let it happen. Were they stupid? Bribed? Yes. Trump isn’t having any of that – he knows it is crucial and we have to get our own rare earths. This is MAGA – and this is true diplomacy. Working to build up America while also building up our true friends…not our so-called “allies” who routinely stab us in the back and, step by step, turn themselves into fascist tyrannies.

Women in Gaza are being traded for food and being forced to marry rapists. Of course some will blame Israel but I’ll just remind everyone that the Gazans sent rape/murder squads into Israel and every last thing that happens after that is 100% the moral responsibility of the Gazans. That is what sort of people they are – and now that they can’t kidnap, rape and pass around Jewish girls, they are doing it to their own. Completely hideous people. Like all people, they are capable of redemption – but as Gazans, they never will be. As long as they are there and being controlled by savages their chances of emerging into normal basic humanity are nil. I didn’t want Gaza placed under siege, forced to surrender and the population sent into exile to be cruel…it was to give Israel real peace and give the Gazans a real chance to stop being barbarians.

Flock cameras should be banned – here’s a story of a woman who was locked up for 86 hours due to Flock indicating she was involved in a car accident. She wasn’t. I get the idea of having cameras for security…but we’re also dealing with humans not just having the data, but refusing to think. That is, they take what the computer tells them as Gospel. You can’t do that – but people do because it is just easier. Can’t trust humanity with the power that Flock puts in their hands.

Polling says “Blue Tsunami”. But polling also shows Democrats winning more white voters in Texas than they have in a generation. In other words, the polls are lies. I don’t pay the least attention to them. I mean, come on! They’ve always overstated Democrat strength – and they’ve gotten worse. Response bias is where it starts – you and I don’t even answer when a pollster calls or texts. Democrats eagerly answer every last one, thinking that they are somehow Defending Our Democracy by so doing. We’re going to win in November.

2022 Election (and Some Other Stuff, so Kinda an Open Thread)

Mark Noonan31 Comments

In the 2010 midterms, the overall House popular vote was 52% Republican, 45% Democrat. That election netted the GOP 63 House seats. Of course, we were coming back from a pretty low number after our 2008 wipe out. But the main thing is that it was an R+7 year which, certainly since WWII, was unprecedented for the GOP.

So, what is happening in 2022? Well, if you listen to the MSM and the Experts (though Lord only knows why you’d do that), Joe Biden’s firm and decisive leadership has turned things around and the Senate is almost sure-Democrat while the House is a tossup. And, man, do they have poll after poll showing this…someone even released a poll showing the Democrat up by 3 in Ohio. We’re doomed!

Well, maybe not.

Someone actually took the time to find out what people are doing – as opposed to what someone else is saying about what they’re doing – and he found that as of this past Tuesday, the GOP portion of the primary vote has been running 6 points head of Democrat voting…so, R+6. Not quite at 2010 levels, but pretty darn close.

As I keep trying to explain to the hand-wringers and bed-wetters on social media, for there to be actual improvement for the Democrats something has to get better. And, sorry, but a drop in gas prices from stratospheric to way too high doesn’t cut the mustard. The bottom line is that as soon as Pudding Brain got installed into the White House, 2022 became a GOP year. What this means is that the House goes GOP (given the Democrats only have a half dozen seat advantage) and the Senate probably goes GOP (Democrats having a little better chance there because of the map). That was if things sort of cruised along with nothing bad happening. Remember what Biden was supposed to be about: shutting down the virus and returning to normalcy. This didn’t happen. Afghanistan happened. Ukraine happened (and I perceive the Ruling Class is getting ready to ditch Ukraine). Shortages happened. Inflation happened. A flood of illegal immigrants happened. All the while Joe Biden getting increasingly senile and unable to perform the basic tasks of the office. Not only did nothing get better, everything got worse – and Biden coming down with Covid just puts a pathetic exclamation point on the fail.

Can the Democrats overcome all that? If they can, then we’re doomed. It would mean that we’ve gone so far mindlessly Left that even abject Leftist failure doesn’t shake the people out of complacency. But I don’t think that is the case. Among many other things, I’m encouraged by Lake’s win of the GOP nomination in Arizona – every part of the Establishment was against her…and she went on to win every county in Arizona. Sure, its just on the GOP side, but we’ve been Expertly informed that Trump and Trumpist candidates are fading and that Roe has triggered a surge of moderate GOP voters who are determined to change the party’s course. Their evidence is Kansas where a badly crafted pro-life initiative was soundly defeated…and, yes, some of these Expert nimrods are asserting it means Kansas votes Democrat in November.

What I’m saying is: don’t worry. We’ll either win (cool) or lose (unlikely) but in neither case is there much any individual can do about it. Either America is sane enough to properly punish the Democrats (I think we are) or America is not. We find out in November.

The Other McCain notes that what is said cannot happen – gay pedophilia – does, indeed, happen. Rather twisted case: gay couple adopts child and then sexually abuses child. Does this mean that all gay people are molesters? Of course not – but as RSM points out, we’re not even allowed to talk about such things because the Ruling Class has decreed that gay people can’t be abusers. Gay people have been granted a plenary dispensation from ordinary human sin, you see? What is really crucial here is that because we allow ideology to blind us, we’re not able to make the distinctions necessary to ensure the best outcome. Rely on it, if a hetero couple seeks to adopt, they’ll be checked six ways to Sunday to make sure they aren’t abusers…but I am certain that if a gay couple is even looked at in that area, it is perfunctory…because nobody wants to be the official who vetoed a gay adoption. The kid winding up abused doesn’t risk a career, after all.

New study shows that being in space has a bad effect on bones. I guess it ends up being that a few weeks in space can age your bones by the equivalent of about a decade. This is entirely unsurprising to me: whether you believe we were created by God in a second or evolved over millions of years, the plain fact is that our bodies are designed to live on the surface of the Earth. We can’t even successfully go too deep into water or high into the sky without special equipment. And at least when we’re flying at 80,000 feet or diving to the bottom of the Marianas Trench we’re still within Earth’s gravity and magnetic field (which is our primary shield against solar radiation). Until we learn how to deal with low or no gravity and how to shield ourselves from solar radiation, the primary means of deep space exploration will have to be via unmanned vehicles…and for all the dreams of colonizing Mars, it is currently a suicide mission until these problems are solved.

A NYC bodega owner who was assaulted (and the DA initially wanted to charge him for defending himself) is moving back to the Dominican Republic because he no longer feels safe in the USA. This is Joe Biden’s America – and this is the result of deliberate and quite malicious policies on the part of the Democrats who want crime to be high in order to stress the system and convince us to go far Left as our escape from it.

How is religion in America doing? To the Ruling Class, it is dying and deservedly so. But, others say it is still doing ok. I take a slightly different view: Religion isn’t dying, but actual belief in Christianity is in rapid decline as even many professed Christians haven’t been taught who Christ is and what it means to be Christian. And this cuts across all denominations…mainline Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical. The Mainline Protestants seem to view Jesus as a swell guy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other. Catholics seem to think that it was all symbolic and you can pick and choose what parts to believe. Evangelicals seem to think Jesus is some sort of magic talisman against suffering and/or to bring personal wealth.

To be sure, among all types, there are those who deeply believe and understand what they believe…but my bet is that a majority of Christians if questioned right now wouldn’t even be able to assert that Jesus is God. And it is because they haven’t been taught. Christianity is not a religion for sissies – it is the only religion in the world hated for its beliefs (Jews are hated for cultural reasons: nobody really disputes Jewish theology); it asks a great deal of believers. And it requires an informed and active consent on a daily basis. It is a tough religion…and so, naturally, it has been watered down in the past century. But the hard nub is still there…and I do believe a springtime will come.