More Total Depravity

This girl exemplifies what’s wrong with people when they curve totally in on themselves.

A South Side teenage mother who authorities said no longer wanted a baby because she couldn’t go to parties was held on $600,000 bond Wednesday on charges that she drowned her 5-month-old daughter in a bathtub earlier this month. Rozlynn Rodgers, 19, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the April 4 death of her daughter, Makalah, at their home in the 7800 block of South Ingleside Avenue. She later told authorities she drowned the child because she no longer wanted to be a mother, officials said.

Appalling. She couldn’t party any more so she killed an innocent child that she brought into the world because she’s a partier… Sickening depravity. There’ll be no partying in hell. Wonder what she’ll think of that.

Um, Why?

The exhumed body of Padre Pio, a saint considered a miracle worker by his devotees, attracted thousands of pilgrims on Thursday when it went on display 40 years after his death, reports Reuters.

I don’t get it. Those Catholics baffle me. You will all be very, very glad to know that when I’m dead and gone there will be no such idolatry. There’ll not be a grave or a body to exhume or anything of the sort because I’ve already signed off on both organ donation and whole body donation (to the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology’s Body Farm). I’m hoping they come up with some clever method of letting me decompose. And don’t worry- everyone in my family already knows about it. I figure if I can’t be of much use alive, maybe I can be dead. What more could anyone ask for?

And, my act of kindness will ensure that Chris Heard and Jim Davila and the hoards of others who loathe me and wish I’d never been born, will not have to come to the grave to leave flowers.

If You Don’t Hear Much From Me Tomorrow Evening…

It’s because I’ve gone to see this. I’ve been waiting for it since I first heard of it and now I finally have the chance. Yeah…. This will, naturally, cause a horrific slowdown and I don’t imagine I’ll be able to post more than 5 or 6 times total tomorrow… But don’t despair- I won’t be sleeping any tomorrow night so I’ll make up for it. Just so you know (since I knew you’d worry)…

The Wright / Ehrman Smackdown

Via NT Wrong’s Blog. I shan’t comment, as I don’t think either of them have an edge on the other (and they are debating a question which shall never be satisfactorily answered). Such debates, really, remind me of the ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’ nonsense so popular in philosophical theology in the Middle Ages. The simple fact is, suffering is sometimes explainable (like when alcoholics get liver disease) and sometimes not (like when poor folk in New Orleans get drowned along with the misbehaving miscreants).

[I guess I did comment after all... Oh well, what are you gonna' do?]

Nick Norelli: The Moveable Nu

Nick’s miffed that I rotated him off the blogroll. Alas, Nick, if you read Greek you’d know of the existence of something called the ‘moveable nu’. ‘Nu’ is the equivalent of the English letter ‘N’, and hence, ‘N’ick, you are my blogroll’s own personal moveable ‘nu’. So, there you have it. That’s why you move on and off the roll (and it’s not blog role- for you folk out there who insist on using ‘role’ in place of ‘roll’.)

Why Not, If They Pay For It?

Why is it ok for folk to support puppies and kitties on their license plates and no one even utters a word of question but the second religion becomes the theme all heck breaks loose? It is irrational. If folk are willing to pay for personalized plates, as long as they aren’t profane, they should be allowed to have them. In fact it wouldn’t bother me for a half a second if there were Jewish plates and Muslim plates and Buddhist plates. America, land of the free, right?

The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.” Rep. Edward Bullard, the plate’s sponsor, said people who “believe in their college or university” or “believe in their football team” already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with “something they believe in,” he said.

Absolutely right. And it seems to me that the only reason to raise a ruckus isn’t because one believes in Separation of Church and State but because one believes in the suppression of religious expression in all its forms.

The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it “sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state” and, second, gives the “appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

And that’s idiotic. It sends no such message any more than it sends the message that the government of Florida supports any one of a hundred ’causes’ touted on plates already.

And then this bit…

“It’s not a road I want to go down. I don’t want to see the Star of David next. I don’t want to see a Torah next. None of that stuff is appropriate to me,” said Skidmore, a Democrat who voted against the plate in committee. “I just believe that.”

Which too is idiotic. Why doesn’t she want to see a star of David? Is she opposed to the free expression of religion? Apparently so.

Is It Right To Do Wrong When It Saves Children?

This is really one of those ethical questions that are quite difficult to solve. Is it right to do wrong to save children’s lives?

Here’s the scenario: children are married off to old men in a fundamentalist cult out in west Texas and a woman in Colorado calls the police, pretending to be a 16 year old victim, to report the crime. The police respond in force and children are removed from a dangerous environment.

The phone calls that triggered a massive raid on a polygamist compound in west Texas — in which a quavering girl’s voice described being forcibly married at 15 — have been linked to a Colorado woman with a history of making false claims of sexual abuse, according to an affidavit filed in Colorado Springs.

Was her lie justifiable? Some would say no. And on the face of it, deception is not exactly the best way to bring about good. If the ends justify the means, after all, then at the end of the day anything goes. But there is an odd little bit in the Hebrew Bible which may offer some theological guidance:

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.” (Ex 1).

Did they really deliver before the midwives arrived or did the midwives mislead Pharoah in order to save the children’s lives? It’s not a difficult question to answer- they lied to save lives. “But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live.” In other words, the babies were born and the midwives didn’t murder them and then they lied to Pharoah to cover it up.

The theological point, then, seems that if it comes to saving a life or telling the truth, it’s better to save a life than tell the truth. True enough, this issue seldom arises. Nevertheless, when it does, we have to exalt life above truth. Lying is the lesser of two evils in comparison to allowing someone to be harmed or even killed.