The thing about Haggard -that is EXACTLY how Elmer Gantry made his comeback. Exactly.

Has Haggard had his sex every day this week? Paging all male prostitutes?

And, re Matt, isn't the guy in the pulpit ultimately a salesman?

Just been reading coverage of the Mumbai massacre. It's sad how similar are the statements of Benedict and Zawahri. All exceptionalist religious doctrines, regardless of sect, encourage dehumanization of and violence against "nonbelievers." If you listened only to bigots like these, you'd think we had learned nothing since the Crusades. Sadly, we now have AK-47s instead of swords, and India and Pakistan are nuclear powers. There's probably no redemption for Zawahri, but Benedict is said to be an intelligent man. His religious philosophy belies that. He should apologize to his God.

"As Young sees it, 'congregational copulation'... sets a loving example for children."

God, I'm going to try not to imagine what this could mean...

jackson

TMI, Pastor Young. TMI.

Kentucky appears to be moving quickly into the Dominionist column:
"Under state law, God is Kentucky's first line of defense against terrorism."

See Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/since_kentucky_hasnt_been_subj.php)

"For that goal we forbid buying of Christmas and New Year's gifts as well as organising of Christmas and New Year's receptions..."

I did the same at my house! We're celebrating Kwanzaa instead. Then we'll continue that party right on through January 20th.

'congregational copulation'

And the Lord sayeth, you must also shareth film for YewToob.

Well, this is "news" I'm trying to make for myself, but here goes. It should be interesting to those who like interdisciplinary science/philosophy/religion speculation of the sort done very well by physicist Paul Davies. (His The Mind of God is the classic in the field.) First, note this is "philosophical theology" in which "god" is a place-holder for whatever might be fundamental, like a First Cause, and not necessarily a "personality" in any sense or that we can imagine:

First, many of you have heard of the "fine tuning" problem: why are the physical laws so life-friendly, including e.g. the fine-structure constant, the value of Lambda (off by factor of 10^120 from what we'd expect from first principles, but convenient for our being here) etc. Some thinkers, not that I blame them, figure maybe there are many many "other universes" with differing laws of physics, and we're in one of the lucky ones. Hmmmm... maybe.

My problems with many universes with differing constants: where does it end? How many different kinds of reality are allowed to "exist"? What and why underlies the Ãœber-laws" that determine the variation and scope of the other (more direct) "laws", and what circumscribes the scope of "possible existence"? Modal realists make the cogent critique, that it doesn't make sense at the highest level of abstraction for one "possible world" to "exist" and not other ones. (As I have said, it's like the number 23 made into brass numerals while all the other ones remain abstractions - why "23" and not "15" or indeed all numbers reified, or none at all?)

Indeed, they reject the very notion of "reification" as a genuine distinction at all. To them, every world in "Platonic reality" exists so as to avoid the violation of the grandest, existential principle of sufficient reason. Yes, that would mean cartoon type worlds and the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Look up on Wikipedia.)

Well, that seems the perfect solution to fine-tuning (and so says Max Tegmark), since then every possible universe that can even be described at all exists/doesn'treallyexist and we are in a lucky one.

But, I have a complaint which is also an argument for Goddidit: if every possible description is as real, then all the ones that involve irregular variations are as well. After all, "laws" are given after the fact if things are just "descriptions" with no inner virtus to "make" them so: if the forces follow 1/r^2, then we say pretentiously that they are "governed" by that law. But, it's the other way around: that's what things act like, so we are able to write that law. If they didn't act like that, then we couldn't.

The objection might be, we wouldn't have developed in a disorderly universe to start with. Sure, but Platonic descriptions include all the cases where things are orderly up to a point and then behave differently afterward (effectively, laws that change in all possible ways - which are part of Platonic reality too since we can say what would happen, however weird to us.)

Since the range of variations is more than the orderly continuations: even if the world had incredibly remained orderly enough to nurture our development, we have a vanishingly small Bayesian expectation of continuing in a world that remains orderly. That is given that "laws" in modal realism would be after the fact generalizations, not enforcements in any sense. Since we are in an orderly universe, that looks like "Goddidit" since some overarching "management" has to step into the Platonic mess.

tyrannogenius

The Winter Solstice this year occurs at 7:04am Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, December 21st.

At that time the Sun will be directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn, and at its lowest elevation of the year above the horizon as seen from the northern hemisphere.

In the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is the time of the longest night and shortest day of the year.

Even in the depths of darkness, while the coldest months of Winter are yet ahead, at the Solstice the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter, as the world turns again towards the light, and the rebirth of Spring.

For this reason, human cultures throughout the northern hemisphere have celebrated the Winter Solstice as a promise of hope and renewal since prehistoric times. Many religious holidays -- including Christmas -- have deep connections to the spiritual traditions surrounding the Winter Solstice.

The Winter Solstice is the reason for the season -- literally.

And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
-- John 1:5

> Pope Benedict XVI apparently isn't big on interfaith dialogue.
> According to Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily newspaper, the pope
> will argue in his soon-to-be-published book that "an interreligious dialogue
> in the strict sense of the word is not possible."

For 24 years, from 1991 until his ascendancy to the papacy in 2005, Joseph Ratzinger served as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

Yes, that inquisition.

So why, exactly, would anyone expect Pope Benedict to show any toleration of other denominations' views?

Sory, meant to write "from 1981 until his ascendancy to the papacy in 2005. . . ."

For those of us who are filthy queers or who are unmarried, well, we can just eat chocolate cake, according to the good Reverend.

I wonder if this whole daily congregational copulation thing involves contraception according to each couple's needs/desires or if this is just another scheme to make more white christian babies for the War Against Brown People.

Young must be kind of old if sex three nights in a row wiped him out. Perhaps the copulating with the congregation is doing him in.

Sorry, am I the only one who thinks this whole thing is kind of fucked? (Pardon the pun.) I don't want to hear about this guy's sex life. I don't want to hear about anyone's sex life, unless I'm reading Savage Love. The whole thing is just ... yuch.

It's especially odd since these the same people who're always screaming about sex on TV. Does this mean SoTV is all right provided the copulating couple is married? Does that offer extend to Massachusetts?

Why the outrage at the pope being honest? Most religions are exceptionalist and consider their way as the only way. Certainly Catholicism has been that way for centuries. Fundie sects certainly are overwhelmingly of the "join us or roast in hell" variety. Islam? Seems about the same in that regard. Monotheistic religion in general tends in that direction. Why should admitting it cause such a fuss? Maybe if more religious leaders were honest about their beliefs we'd see less religion as people were forced to face their inconvenient "Truth."

I'm a liberal Catholic who was worried when Ratzinger became Benedict. Frankly, I've been quite pleased with him.

If you would like a nuanced view of what he's saying, you might try the following from John Allen:

http://ncrcafe.org/node/2304

Takeaway line:

"To be clear, this is not a judgment on whether religions should be talking to each other, but rather what they should be talking about. In the pope’s mind, the point of inter-faith exchange is not to seek a lowest-common-denominator shared theology, but rather to find ways that cultures shaped by strong religious commitments can nevertheless live in mutual respect."

I love your blog. I'm disappointed with the willingness to take a brief quote as a totality. It makes me a bit more suspicious of your quotes that I tend to like. Please read folks who are religious, who are probably, in a way, speaking a language not your own, with a charitable view, or, at the least, with the humility that comes from not knowing all of what they're thinking. Thanks.

"congregational copulation"... uh, unless "congregational" has some alternate meaning I'm unaware of, he must mean group sex. Grapevine, Texas, eh?

Well, that's one way to avoid a shortage of altar boys.

Somehow I suspect that pastor Young is a young pastor.

If you've never seen Jesus Camp, by all means, check it out. the good Reverend Haggard makes a pre-scandal appearance. He advises a very young up and coming preacher "You're very good, but you need to work on your content. Reel them in with the baby face and worry about your content later." He wasn;t "caught" saying this on camera. He said it with a camera pointed in his face. and still people flock to these churches by the thousands and he doesn't even try to hide the fact that's he's a fraud.

P.T. Barnum is smiling wherever he is.

Breed, fundies! Because the world is SO short of people...

Mrs. Young tried to shake him awake, telling her husband, "Come on, it's the sex challenge." But Mr. Young murmured, "Let's just double up tomorrow," and went back to sleep.

Oh, man. She's gotta be a really bad lay.

Hey Steve, haven't you heard that if you gather TWIGs on the sabbath you'll be stoned to death, LOL?