“Nearly seven-in-ten Americans (68%) believe that angels and demons are active in the world.”
Category: Religion
Just askin’
74% of Americans believe in an afterlife and heaven (“a place where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded”).
59% believe in hell (“where people who have led bad lives and die without repenting are eternally punished”).
So what do the 15% who believe the good are rewarded, but don’t believe in hell, think happens to the bad guys?
Rest in Peace
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home!
I give you my revised list of the two commandments:
Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie and Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin’ pocket. I wouldn’t mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment:
Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.
George Carlin, 1937-2008
Finally, a solution to my Sweeties gift-giving
Note: Website has audio.
Christian License Plate Law Approved
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R) yesterday allowed legislation authorizing a Christian-themed specialty license plate to become law without his signature. This means that the state Department of Motor Vehicles may issue a controversial new “I Believe” plate that displays a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.
Line most likely to draw lightning from the heavens
Commenting on a potato with a growth inside in the shape of a cross, a skeptic at Bad Astronomy Blog remarked:
“Now, a sweet potato might be more convincing. After all, like He Himself said, ‘I yam that I yam’.”
Pretty good line of the day
“If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.'”
Bill Maher via Crooks and Liars.
Crazy Muslim or crazy Christian?
I’ll let this play out before I render judgment on this issue, but it really puts Obama’s smear merchants in a bind — do they push false rumors that he’s a secret Muslim bent on delivering America to Al Qaida, or is he a member of an intolerant and radical black Christian church?
Let’s hope it’s a case of two negatives being a positive.
Though some (including a frequent commenter here at NMK) are capable of holding contradictory thoughts.
More Americans changing religious denominations
A sweeping new study of religious affiliation in the United States finds a country in which Protestants are becoming a minority, Catholicism is becoming heavily Hispanic, and the number of people who say they are not affiliated with any religion is growing.
The study, which is the most comprehensive such examination in at least a half century, finds the United States to be in a period of unprecedented religious fluidity, in which 44 percent of American adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all.
The Boston Globe had this brief report. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted the study.
Lourdes
It began 150 years ago today.
Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844, the first child of an extremely poor miller in the town of Lourdes in southern France. The family was living in the basement of a dilapidated building when on February 11, 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette in a cave above the banks of the Gave River near Lourdes. Bernadette, 14 years old, was known as a virtuous girl though a dull student who had not even made her first Holy Communion. In poor health, she had suffered from asthma from an early age.
There were 18 appearances in all, the final one occurring on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16. Although Bernadette’s initial reports provoked skepticism, her daily visions of “the Lady” brought great crowds of the curious. The Lady, Bernadette explained, had instructed her to have a chapel built on the spot of the visions. There the people were to come to wash in and drink of the water of the spring that had welled up from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig.
According to Bernadette, the Lady of her visions was a girl of 16 or 17 who wore a white robe with a blue sash. Yellow roses covered her feet, a large rosary was on her right arm. In the vision on March 25 she told Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It was only when the words were explained to her that Bernadette came to realize who the Lady was.
Few visions have ever undergone the scrutiny that these appearances of the Immaculate Virgin were subject to. Lourdes became one of the most popular Marian shrines in the world, attracting millions of visitors. Miracles were reported at the shrine and in the waters of the spring. After thorough investigation Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862.
Bernadette Soubirous died, a nun, at age 35. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1933.
One wonders exactly what “scrutiny” means in this case.
24-year-old Jennifer Jones won the best actress Oscar for playing the 14-year-old French girl in the 1943 film Song of Bernadette.
Religion, almost as geographically based as time zones
Strange Maps has a interesting map that has U.S. counties color-coded to show the leading religious denomination for each county. Worth a glance.
Standards
I don’t like living in a war-mongering, arrogant, debtor nation. But I really don’t like living in a nation where ignorant people like this run for president and receive votes.
“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”
El día de Reyes
La celebración en la cual los niños reciben los juguetes no es sino hasta el 6 de enero, “el día de Reyes” o Los Reyes Magos. Fueron los Reyes Magos quienes le llevaron los regalos al Niño Jesús, por consiguiente, son ellos quienes traen los regalos a los niños y a las niñas que se han portado bien. Los niños ponen sus zapatos cerca de la ventana para que los Reyes Magos le pongan el regalo en su zapato. Si el regalo es más grande que el zapato, entonces lo ponen al lado. Varios niños reciben un par de zapatos (calzado) nuevo como regalo.
El día Reyes se celebra con una merienda que consiste de chocolate caliente y la Rosca de Reyes La merienda se lleva a cabo entre las 5 y las 7 de la tarde y no es una comida pesada, sino algo así como lo equivalente al “High Tea”.
La Rosca de Reyes es un pan en forma de guirnalda que está hecha con muchos huevos y es muy grande, está cubierta con frutas cristalizadas y azúcar encima, pero adentro hay una figurita de cerámica que representa al Niño Jesús. La persona a la que le toque la pieza del pan con la figurita, tiene que ser el Padrino o la Madrina del Niño Jesus en el Día de la Candelaria, el dos de Febrero.
Epiphany
Today is the Epiphany, one of the three major Christian celebrations along with Christmas and Easter. The Epiphany is celebrated by most Christians on January 6 to commemorate the presentation of the infant Jesus to the Magi or three wise men.
The celebration of the Epiphany began in the Eastern Church and included Christ’s birth. However, by the 4th century, the various calendar reforms had moved the birth of Christ to December 25, and the church in Rome began celebrating January 6 as Epiphany.
Epiphany is derived from the Greek epiphaneia and means manifestation or to appear. In a religious context, the term describes the appearance of a divine being in a visible or revelatory manifestation.
In Latin America, today is Día de los Santos Reyes, the day to exchange Christmas presents to coincide with the arrival of the three gift-bearing kings or wisemen.
Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi
The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1445
Samuel H. Kress Collection
National Gallery of Art
On the twelfth day of Christmas
Though advertisers and merchants would have us believe that the Christmas season begins at Thanksgiving (or possibly Halloween), liturgically it begins on Christmas Eve and extends until Twelfth Night, the eve of the Epiphany.
The Twelve Days of Christmas are Christmas through January 5th. Tonight is Twelfth night.
Best Christmas line of the day, so far
“Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.”
— Bart Simpson
Thanks to The Sonoran Son.
La Virgen de Guadalupe
Today is the 476th anniversary of the appearance of La Virgen de Guadalupe on the cloak of Juan Diego.
Interesting stuff
Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumes
Weighing In, Shula Has Heavy Words.
NewMexiKen still thinks the NFL should have taken the win from the Patriots if they had wanted to end this Spygate stuff.
Uh oh, God has the same baseball issues Hillary and Rudy have
Hillary grew up with the Cubs but said she was a Yankees fan while running for Senator in New York. Rudy loves the Yankees but says he’s rooting for the New Hampshire Red Sox in the Series.
Well, it seems God has the same problem.
The Colorado Rockies and Boston Red Sox will play for the World Series starting Wednesday night. Colorado and Boston aren’t just the best teams in baseball—they’re also perhaps the two most faith-based organizations in the game. The Colorado Rockies’ emphasis on Christianity was first reported by USA Today in 2006 and has recently received more coverage. In recent years, the Red Sox have also had an abundance of evangelical Christians in their clubhouse, including Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, and Jason Varitek.
Happy Holidays to you too, Tom
Functional Ambivalent opens the holiday season with a rant about the annual Christmas culture war.
Best line of the day, so far
“Texas passes state law allowing prayer in schools. Kansas expected to ordain its teachers in response.”
(Here’s the background on the Texas law from the Houston Chronicle.)
Truckling to the Bible-bangers
Charles Pierce thinks maybe Senator Clinton is “truckling to the Bible-bangers, publicly haranguing us with [her] ‘faith journeys.'”
The “values voters” have been marinating in their own faith-based fear, faith-based bigotry, and solipsistic Personal Lords And Saviors for so long that it’s going to take a decade of deprogramming before they get within shouting distance of normal. They will vote the other way, if they ever vote the other way, because their personal economics get so dire, or because enough of their children get thrown away in a petulant president’s ongoing tantrum of a war, that no amount of eschatological dumbshow can distract them any longer. In other words, they will take political action as political actors. Period. All the prayerful filigree will fall away, and blessed human self-interest will once again rule the day. Until that great gettin’-up mornin’, the primary religious political power in this country comes from the Right, and that’s not going to change any time soon. Jesus Christ, Hillary. (You should pardon the expression.) These people are nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake. Why not just take a couple of million from the Scientologists and be done with it?
Pierce adds, “[I]f Senator Clinton is completely sincere in her attachment to this particular big ship of fools, I wouldn’t vote for her if she were running against a ticket of George Steinbrenner and Ann Coulter. However, if she’s just using this as a cynical political ploy, she’s my gal.”
Here’s his link for background from Mother Jones: Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics.
Best line of the day, so far
“China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission.”
Whacko in Waco
Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.
…But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”
The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.
At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury.
The event took place last year. I’m certain they’re better informed in Waco now.
TBIF
Thank the Bible it’s Friday. I mean, years, seasons, lunar months, the day are all the result of creation, but the seven day week is a biblical invention, no? 1
You might get a laugh or two from the History Of The Internet.
Interesting. god v. satan (one image).
“So you think you know the McDonald’s menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald’s international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.” McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World.
The kid looks to be about 8. Kleiner Kerl spiel Gitarre (Led Zeppelin).
And last (yeah!), a silly little quiz from Car Talk.
1 No one seems to know where, when or why the 7-day week originated. Most theorize it represents the seven visible (to the human eye) objects in the sky that aren’t stars (the sun, the moon and five classical planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The seven-day week seems to have originated in more than one culture.