Pre-Ceremonial Sex

My latest paper, expertly covering the arguments on pre-ceremonial sex, is now up at http://www.nd.edu/~pbrown6/Ceremony.html I have a new bio and resume up, too, so that's cool.

Threats

Three little things to brighten your Sunday:

The "war on terrorism"/"war on terrorists" - "Remember, the bad guys are totally committed — and they are not tired." Worth reading if only this is Tom Freidman writing, not Bill O'Reilly.

The Aging of America - This chart updates every couple seconds showing the distribution by age over time of our nation's population. And yet we shouldn't worry about the solvency of social security.

"Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" - "Basically, God exists and watches over human life, which was created by God. God wants people to be nice, as it says in the bible and in most world religions. God does not have to be involved in our lives except to solve our problems and make us happy. Good people will be even happier in heaven after they die. The religious beliefs of American teens tend to be -- as a whole, across all traditions -- that simple. It’s something Jews and Catholics and Protestants of all stripes seem to have in common. It is instrumentalist. "This God is not demanding," say the authors. "He actually can’t be, because his job is to solve our problems and make people feel good." (from "The Revealer".)

Hello world

This is mainly to be used as a repository for my own benefit to store links, articles, facts, trains of thought, and whatever philosophical, societal, cultural, or political tirades I feel the need to express at the time. 

For example, this article by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT, published a couple days before Christmas, comes to the same conclusion from a Progressive standpoint that I could have intuited for years: Namely, that liberals are ready to talk a big game about government taking your money away to fund charity and social programs precisely because they are so loathe to give up any of their own wealth voluntarily. "Bleeding Heart Tightwads."

Also, I have consistently regarded Dinesh D'Souza as one of my personal favorite writers to pay attention to, and this 2006 article from the San Francisco Chronicle is a pretty good introduction to one of his major themes. "God Knows Why Faith Is Thriving." 

I saw "It's a Wonderful Life" today for the first time, and really liked it, particularly the note at the end: "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

Also, while listening to the homily in Mass, I liked my tangent of thinking of God as a limit concept, and offered the poor analogy of a light being refracted in infinitesimally many ways through the manifestations of grace. More work to be done here.

Enjoy future posts, everyone, and Merry Christmas.