Morality, Religion & Philosophy: June 2009 Archives

Lots of outrage over a firefighter who killed his two dogs to save on boarding costs:

A Columbus firefighter admits that he took his two dogs to the basement, tied them up and blasted them with a rifle so he and a girlfriend could vacation without paying to board the animals. ...

He was convicted of "needlessly killing ... a companion animal" on Dec. 3, according to the charges filed 10 minutes before the hearing in Municipal Court. One dog was shot six times in the head.

Santuomo, who did not give a statement in court, will spend 90 days in jail, pay $4,500 to cover the cost of his investigation and serve five years' probation, Judge Harland H. Hale ruled.

"This is a travesty and abhorrent behavior to those in this community who work to save the lives of animals," said Jodi Buckman, executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society.

And yet killing unborn babies for the sake of convenience is a "right". The people who evince the most outrage over animal abuse tend to be the most vociferous supporters of abortion.

Mike Rosen-Molina talks about using social networking systems for online evangelism.

There are many websites that try to harness Internet connections for missionary work, explaining how churches could use online video and Twitter feeds to catch web surfers' attention. Andrea Useem's Congregational Resources explains and demystifies social networking for religious leaders, while Carlos Whittaker blogs about his faith and social media at Ragamuffinsoul. Sites like these emphasize that one big obstacle to Internet evangelism is that the Internet is, at heart, a pull medium -- meaning it's often more difficult to reach a reluctant audience using the web than it is using older media such as television or radio. So while static webpages might be good for drawing in people already curious about a religion's tenants, actually getting the attention of someone who wasn't... that was a little more tricky without coming across as spam. That is, until the advent of social media, and its accompanying ability to build relationships online.

"Creating a web site is perhaps the most basic way to use the Internet for evangelism," agreed Rev. Michael White, a United Methodist pastor and author of Digital Evangelism: You Can Do It, Too!. He noted that newer social networking sites offered more opportunities for outreach because they could better enable conversation than a static page.

"People of faith can use such social media as Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. to reach out both to 'seekers' (those looking for more information about religious faith) and believers alike to share the tenets of their faith, encourage deepening one's religious faith, answering questions of doubt, and much more," he said.

Lots more at the link.

(HT: SO.)

I'm fairly ambivalent about Ann Coulter, but she often has the pithiest pointy elbows on my side. Here she is on the killing of abortionist George Tiller:

I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?

Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one.

Someone please enlighten me as to why she's wrong, but Tiller was right.

Future Pundit Randall Parker -- who often has some very interesting links and perspectives -- misses the boat with his analysis of a study about church attendance and virginity. First the study results:

His team's survey found that 13.9 per cent of men and 8.9 per cent of women said they have never had sex.

Men and women who attended church at least once a week were respectively 5 and 3.9 times more likely to be virgins than those who attended church less often. Virgins of both sexes were slightly less likely to have swigged a beer in the last year, compared to non-virgins. And women with college degrees were 5.4 times more likely to be virgins than women who never got their Bachelor's.

From this, Parker concludes:

I see this as a sign that church attendance and intelligence are both being selected against.

But of course sexual promiscuity is very different from actually having children. According to this Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from 2008, people of pretty much every religion have a lot more children (and have them younger) than atheists and agnostics (see page 68 for a table).

Furthermore, Parker's impression of churchgoers seems to be somewhat warped:

Note the higher incidence of virginity among church-attending men than among church-attending women. I had a girlfriend who attended church (unlike myself) who complained to me that too many of the guys at church were basically pussies. Not masculine enough for her.

Presumably his girlfriend was not attending a Baptist church.

When you're overwhelmed by sorrow and depression it is tempting to think that no one understands how you're feeling, least of all God -- who claims to love you.

Here are two passages about Jesus that set me straight. The first is from Isaiah and is speaking about Jesus prophetically.

Isaiah 53:2-5

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus was a man of great sorrows who experienced constant rejection by the people who were closest to him (and he still experiences this now). One of those times was in the Garden of Gethsemane:

Matthew 26:36-46

36Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. 41"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

42He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

43When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

45Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Yes, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, but don't overlook the behavior of his other disciples that night. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," Jesus told them. "Stay here and keep watch with me," he asked. But instead they fell asleep. Not once, but twice.

Jesus knows sorrow and depression. He knows abandonment. He knows what it's like for no one to understand.

When you're alone and lonely, overwhelmed with grief, to the point of death, meditate on these passages and absorb them into your soul. You can find solace, and even gain a measure of understanding for the suffering Jesus went through for you.

Here's a terrible reminder of why we need the Second Amendment.

Governments tend to kill far more of their own people than wars ever do.

Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century.