CADRE Comments

First a hurricane, then I spent a good part of this past week fighting a virus. What next? Well, how about a rehash of a couple of 2011 posts I did on government entitlements? What with all the recent talk of "tax reform" and government aid for people in Texas, Puerto Rico, and right here in Florida (though not in my neck of the woods so much), it's still an issue on our doorsteps. And it's still a reminder that the church at large is not doing it's job, which is why the feds are doing it instead. There's a minor exception to the trend in things like MediShare. But last I looked into that, it was worthless for people who need such things as maintenance prescription drugs. I hope that has changed. ** Ruminations by various parties in the news over the current financial crisis have focused on the alleged importance of what are termed "entitlements" -- things like Social Security and Medicare. I have certain views on the practicality of such p...

I have for a long time now contended that most atheists had low self esteem. I found several sources that asserted it but with no empirical proof. The reason I thought it must be true is because they are always mocking and ridiculing religion and religious people. It stuck me that they were doing that to bolster their own egos. I have now found empirical evidence of this notion. There are several studies that claim to demonstrate that atheists have low self esteem. This is still not proof. There is a long way to go to prove the argument, and I'm sure that its not true of all atheists anyway. These studies are limited in many ways. but there are several of them and they do cover more than one culture. It's a good start on exploring a hypothesis. The main study I am examining here, however, is called " rejection of Christianity and Self Esteem. " I will refer to this study as RCSE. All the studies are done by the same group Emyr Williams, Leslie J Francis, Mandy Rob...

Here's a revisit to a post I made in 2011. I'd say not much has changed since then when it comes to this issue, though it sure gives a poke in the eye in light of the election of a President who has bragged opnely about treating women like sex objects. As a side note, the original website where "Shelly" had her stuff is still around, but it has not been updated since 2013. I also just now discovered that she holds to other wacky views like KJV Onlyism. *** A reader asked us to have a look at a Christian website essay on the virtues of modesty. As a prelude a few comments are necessary about what, Biblically, "modesty" would have meant. The main focus of the word would have been on excessive ornamentation for the sake of honor. In modern times the connotation has to do with, as is said, how much "skin" is shown. But given the nature of social interactions between men and women in the Biblical world -- the whole complex of arranged marri...

  Someone misinterpreted my thing on SN to think I was against miracles, I used to argue for them on carm all the time, I have several pages defending Lurdes miracles on Doxa  This article is a review of a journalism Clarice medical historians examining the evidence for Lourdes miracles, they do express the expectation that some day science will explain but they admit that at present it can;t. In an article entitled “The Lourdes Medical Cures Revisited” Bernard Francis, Ester M. Sternberg and Elizabeth Fee provide something closer to a scientific appraisal . [1]   They studied 411 patents cured in 1909-14 and thoroughly reviewed 25 cures acknowledged between 1927 and 1976. By “acknowledged” they mean cures that were officially declared “Miracles” by the church. “the Lourdes Phenomena extraordinary in many respects still awaits scientific explanation.” [2]  They took the 411 cures from the e...

I am presently reading a book by Professor Alan Dershowitz entitled Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, Remarkable Discovery, And The First Amendment In An Age Of Terrorism . In the book, Prof. Dershowitz details how he located a previously unknown letter written by the third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, in a specialty bookstore in New York, and how that letter gives insight about Pres. Jefferson's view on the reach of the First Amendment. Personally, I don’t recommend reading the book because too much of the book is either fluff (Chapter one is all about Prof. Dershowitz’s hobby as a collector) or Prof. Dershowitz’s effort to have a one-sided argument with a man who can’t respond (the final chapters are his “letter” back to Pres. Jefferson giving reasons for disagreeing with his views). Also, Prof. Dershowitz is, of course, somewhat of a typical New York liberal in his views, and consequently he takes a fairly heavy-handed, dismissive view of thinkers who believe that Am...

Mathias Joseph Scheeben The Supernatural was something very different than it is now. This is important because that original meaning, which Christian spiritually was predicated upon, is empirically provable and and can be shown to be real by simple scientific means. We have to understand the original concept, there are two thinkers who tried to restore the concept to it’s original form and we need to listen to what they tried to say. The first one was Matthias Joseph Scheeben (born, 1 March, 1835; died at Cologne, 21 July, 1888.) His major work was Nature and Grace.  [17]  Scheeben was a mystic who contemplated and studied divine grace and hypostatic union. He was also a greatly accomplished academic and was a fine scholar of scholastic theology. He studied at the Gregorian University at Rome and taught dogmatic theology at the Episcopal seminary at Cologne. Scheeben was the chief defender of the faith against rationalism in the nineteenth century. The generation after...