Whether or not a human fetus is a person, it is a human being.
The flat assertion that society has gained “an increasing awareness” of the dignity of the person is not only patently false, but it makes a mockery of the countless lives lost to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia every year. —Liam Gibson, “The abolition of the death penalty and human dignity”
If I am important enough to go to heaven, I am important enough to go to hell.
Michael Gilleland, Donec Gratus Eram: Rudyard Kipling
One accepts dogma, which is true; one judges pragma, which can be mistaken.
Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam
Dozens of times did Luther and Erasmus utter the self-same thoughts, but, whereas Erasmus exercised a titillating effect upon the minds of intellectuals, Luther’s words, thanks to his torrential impetus, immediately became a popular slogan, a call to arms, a formative demand, racing forth into the world like animated firebrands to kindle the consciences of men. —Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam
Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing. Sc. 87, Luke 23:34
This doesn’t mean it was ok what they did.
To better understand the present, read about the past.
There is much blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
Leave me. Sc. 31, Matthew 7:23, Luke 13:7, Sc. 78, Matthew 25:46.
Not all will be welcomed.
Spiral and Ember got a haircut.
“Disproportionate” by Victor Davis Hanson
“Disproportionate”. Can anyone recall a war won by proportionate measures?
When war is proportionate it more often turns into a Stalingrad—or perhaps an Ukraine—until one side finds a disproportionate response that will change endless stasis to victory.
World War II was not won by a proportionate response to Pearl Harbor. And what would be a proportionate response to the murder of a thousand civilians?
Under the logic of “proportionality,” ought the Israeli state then invade Gaza and likewise murder a thousand of its civilians? The whole concept of a “proportionate" response to an unprovoked massacre of women and children asleep in their homes and during a peace is absurd.
Main Street Diner, Valatie, NY
Mary Murphy told a story at Stories from the Stage.
Two elements give strength to the bonds that make a society. One is the force of habit in individuals; the other is the force of their collective faith – faith in the value, the rightness, the permanence of their particular civilization. —Barzun, “What are the Cracks in Our Civilization?
Why say good? One is good, who is God. If you want life keep the commandments. Sc. 71, Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19
Probably too much emphasis is placed on being good, and too little on obedience and love.
Ideas and realities: “For Isaac and his countrymen, and Jews anywhere, it’s an imminent reality.” —Patrick Kurp, ‘All Forms of Evil ’Neath the Sun’
When men and women rise from the dead they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will live like God’s angels in heaven. Sc. 78, Matthew 22:30
In heaven, husbands and wives are apparently uncoupled.