False Religions

Nothing curdles my blood quicker than Catholics who play patty-cake with false relgions.

Let's cut the issue down to the bone: False religions don't get you to Heaven. It doesn't matter how many "grains of truth" they have. If an adherent of one does get to Heaven (by the Grace of God), it's despite his attachment to one of these spiritual lies and not due to it.

Indeed, the general objection of gentle and tolerant people is that God is too merciful to damn a person who has never had access to Truth, or in some twist of strangulated logic, a fair chance at the acceptance of that Truth that they have in fact heard.

But to be outside the Sacraments is to be outside all of the salves and medications God gives us for our souls. So, if we pardon those ignorant of Christ of said ignorance, we must still contend with the truth that they will die with the stain of Original Sin and all those mortal sins they may have accumulated. If a man of some pagan or incorrect monotheistic stripe had an adulterous affair 40 years ago, and knew it was wrong when he did it, unless he gets himself cleansed, he dies with it.

You or I could go to Confession. This poor sod can't, even with repentance, outside the Church.

When a Catholic buttresses one of these wayward children in their error, even in the slightest way, even under the umbrella of social nicety, that Catholic is doing the work of the Deceiver.

Imagine St. Peter making nice-nice with worshippers of Bacchus, seeing in their drunken sex orgies "a glimpse of the joy only The Lord provides," and telling them such in a flatulent and compromising encyclical.

Did God Himself come down from Heaven and subject himself to torture and death so that we could choose from 31 Flavors of Religion? Did countless European missionaries die because they thought the American Indians were A-OK with their blood cults and nature worship? You may as well spit on a picture of St. Isaac Jogues as encourage a false religion.

Of course in the Brave New Jacobin World we have freedom of religion, insofar as Sing-Sing isn't crammed full of Roundheads or Huguenots or Nonconformists. But pity to the poor Catholic in Hades, millstone hung around his neck and shackled next to the sad pagan whose freedom of religion he encouraged.

Brownie, 2000-2006, R.I.P.

Had to put Brownie the guinea pig down Thursday, April 27, 2006. She was 6.5 years old, not a bad run for the little critters. She was also known as "The Brownster," or "The Brownmeister."

Our second pig, and the second one to go. She was beautiful - stripes of white and shades of tan and brown. Truly one of God's small marvels. She was also meek and we spent much time ensuring her cagemates never ate her food before she did.

A person who has no experience with guineas typically regards them as mindless childhood pets, and compares them to hamsters, who have little real awareness of people. Guineas purr when you pet them, jump in place when they're happy, need lots of attention or become visibly depressed, need a sizable pen (not a storebought cage), and have a language that they use to communicate with people. Brownie would put her nose on the door of her pen if she wanted to come out, or bite the bars near her water bottle if she wanted to be fed, or sit near the front of her pen and squeal lightly if she wanted attention.

And every time a plastic bag rustled in the house, she'd squeal like crazy, just assuming that it was a sack of carrots or green peppers that was being opened for her benefit.

Brownie was a fighter. She'd has a few serious illnesses in her life, and almost died several times, but pulled through in each occasion. But it seems that this last three weeks, her digestive system just gave out. The vet concurred, and believed that she probably had renal or liver failure as well, simply from age. Brownie was in such pain, she wouldn't walk for hours - her back legs would fall asleep since she was lying on them all day. But when I would come home from work, she'd drag herself on two legs up to the front of the pen for food and attention.

As a well-informed Catholic, the suffering and death of animals in some ways affects me much more deeply than that of humans. When people suffer, there are spiritual rewards. When animals suffer, it earns them no grace, there is only pain. My departed loved ones either go to the joy of Eternal Life, or to the deserved torments of Damnation. Thinking optimistically, I will get to see them again, in Heaven, perfected and in perfect joy with God. When pets die, there is only death for them. They live on only in happy memories.

Her cagemate is more affected than we are, though. Guineas are social creatures, like humans, and need attention to be happy. Without Brownie, he mopes around, eats when he gets around to it instead of with his former impetuous gusto, and won't come out to play.

She was put to rest in her favorite fleece snuggling blanket, and then interred in the box we brought her home from the store in.

Thank You Lord, for Your small gifts, for the little critters that bring some extra joy to this Valley of Tears, and who in their short time reflect a portion of the beauty of Your Creation.

Goodbye Brownie, I'll always love you!

April tids and bits

Spiffy article over at Traditio in Radice about how deeply flawed American society and governance are.

I dissent only on the contention that a private or government U.S. interest planned the collapse of the Twin Towers. While putting nothing past Hudge & Gudge, as it were, "Haraldsson's Razor" states that all things being equal, Islam is to blame.

***

On a related note, a joke:

Two Middle Eastern terrorists who just snuck into the country walk into a coffee shop. They get their drinks and find a dark table in the back.

The first one starts making conversation in Arabic, but the other shushes him, and says, "We're in America now. Speak Spanish."

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The first time I heard "Protestant" used in a derogatory way: Around the age of 12 or so, I was in a book store with my parents. There was a book entitled, "God Wants You to be Rich." Pointing this out to my father, he replied, "Probably written by a Protestant." (True story.)

***

Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway to fight HIV/AIDS. Toothy grins must be the latest method of Safer Sex. If so, that is her specialty thus maybe we will finally win the fight against AIDS.

I'd hate to see a Royal do something useful, like, say, put an end to Bible burning in Norway.

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Click here to donate to The Minuteman Project. Help them build a wall on private land to stop the Southern Invasion.

Once that's done, check back next year to donate to the wall I'm going to build around my house.

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Always end on a high note. Random Rodney Dangerfield: "Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?"

T&A News: New monument in D.C.

WASHINTON - The bold new addition to the Capital Mall celebrates many of the federal government's current goals:

1: Division of the U.S. into as many different linguistic groups as possible.

2: Promoting sensitivity toward and appreciation for Middle Eastern cultures.

3: Cramming the entire human race into one place (here), instead of them being spread about willy-nilly.

When asked about the logic of this new project, President George W. Bush was quoted as saying, "Je suis ein sweinhund, mi amigo."

Quiz for the armchair generals

The wackadoo pictured left wants to build nukes and push the West into a cataclysmic holy war.

A: The West has no babies, no vision, and no coherent religion or ideology to hold it together.
B: The West has enough "citizens" who share his religion and political philosophy to cause serious trouble.
C: He and his cohorts are sitting on 2/3 of the world's oil supply.
D: When he moves on Israel, as he's promised, the U.S. will jump in immediately (rightly or wrongly).
E: Russia has been a quasi-ally of his nation for years.

Any realistic suggestions? Does the U.S.:

1: Start a war, pre-emptively, like Iraq.
2: Join a war, after we or Israel take a nuke to a major city.
3: Attempt a 1980's-style junta by arming rebels and/or assasinations.
4: Engage in diplomacy.

Your answer must be within the realm of possibility, and therefore not include any of the following elements:

I: Civilization-wide Rosary praying to Our Lady of Victory.
II: Reimposition of the Crusader States or the Eastern Roman Empire.
III: Any urge for self-preservation from Europe (or the Vatican).

Happy Easter!

Have a happy and spiritually profitable Easter.

***

Also, sorry for turning on comment moderation. Didn't realize I did. It's off now - so please comment insanely to your heart's content, with my blessing.

Having a bad day?

Sing this. Out loud, or else it won't work. The more people who hear you, and the more inappropriate it is, the better you'll feel.

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me tonight.

I feel charming,
Oh, so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel!
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real.

See the pretty girl in that mirror there:
Who can that attractive girl be?
Such a pretty face,
Such a pretty dress,
Such a pretty smile,
Such a pretty me!

I feel stunning
And entrancing,
Feel like running and dancing for joy,
For I'm loved
By a pretty wonderful boy!

Feel free to change the gender nouns if you're more comfortable that way. But you'll probably have a hard time rhyming the last stanza if you do.

No king, no immigrants

With all the leftist Catholic piffle ruffling about that immigration restrictions were unknown during The Catholic Era (which isn't entirely true), it behooves us to remember the main difference between then and now:

• The Catholic Era was run by monarchs, we live in democratic regimes.

Thus, the subjects used to be guaranteed leadership that spoke not only the indigenous languages but also Latin; had to be Catholic else they would lose claim to the throne; was bred for hundreds of years for the job of kingship; and could make just about any decision they wanted without bowing to public pressure.

So a king can effectively rule over different tribes on the same plot of land, and said barbarians for the most part realize that they are under the thumb of the king. But in a democracy, the more tribes there are, and the less any one of them dominates, the more factionalism there will be for government loot and cultural dominance. Neighbor will be against neighbor and discord will spread throughout the land.

Read your Aristotle, people!

Since we know that Democracy and Socialism are Blood Brothers - where goes one goes the other - economic libertarianism will never triumph for long in a democratic state. Thus there will always be state largesse to be handed out to favored parties, and the greater the spread of citizen demographics, the greater the conflict.

Imagine a state where the two principle exports are copper and iron. Both are failing to due outside competition. The government decides it has the money to subsidize one of these. Immediately, copper workers and iron workers become hostile parties. Now imagine that there are two national languages in this example nation ... say Tagalog and Finnish. The government already has limited funds, do they print official documents and teach school in one language or the other, or both? Of course, our nation here has two religions ... Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. The Hindus don't like the smell of burning cow from the Zoroastrian's barbecues, and the Zoroastrians don't like the smell of buring live widows from the Hindu funeral processions.

And as you'd expect, the feminists have made inroads here.

So now we have two competing industries, times two competing language groups times two competing religions, times two competing sexes. Now the body politic is factionalized into no less than sixteen groups that bear varying levels of hostility towards eachother.

In a democracy, you can't keep this bottled up. Democracy in fact promotes this kind of frothing greed and jostling for power. Even if the law says one thing (I.E.: no widow immolation, or voting ballots in Finnish), a faction can still fight to get it's attorney general elected, whereby the law will not be enforced, or get judges appointed to quash the law by fiat - which only angers and emboldens the competition further.

So if good liberal Catholics want to support a heterogeneous democratic society, they have to expect the nonsense that comes with it: beer barrell smashing, race riots, red paint thrown at fast food patrons, church bombings, bra burnings, cross burnings, and other forms of belligerence towards one's fellow man that haven't been dreamed up yet.

T&A News: HHJPII added to Trinity

CATHOLIC BLOGOSPHERE: Here in this quaint village of several hundred, reigning prelates have taken the year anniversary of the passing of Pope John Paul II's passing to infallibly define him as part of the Godhead.

"We, the Most Holy Roman Blogosphere, officially affirm, define, and declare that Pope John Paul II is the Fourth Person of the Trinity," the encyclical, Ioannes Paulos Caritas Est, says, and further, "let he who blogs otherwise be held anathema."

Court publications, such as Crisis, immediately welcomed this pronouncement, noting that this should not shake the faith of conservative Catholics. The US Bishops' Conference released a statement to be circulated in diocesan newspapers: " ... that there should be four persons in the Trinity should cause no scandal, as there were five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy ... such are the mysteries of Douglas Adams, or, umm, our Faith."

More progressive thinkers are not as pleased with the news. Bishop Fox of Rochester has said that while the last pope was a great man, he was more likely an Avatar of Kali, or perhaps the 67th reincarnation of the little-known Pierogi Lama, so beloved by Polish Buddhists.

Orthodox Patriarch Alexy of Moscow immediately blogged to denounce the definition as "another attempt to glorify the Roman See at the expense of the other patriarchs."

Unfortunately, no analysis has been forthcoming from the Traditional Catholic blogosphere, who are currently enmeshed in a divisive battle over whether Sanctus Bells should be flared or tapered.

Migration motivation

Say a man, after buying lunch at the local pizzeria, has ten bucks left over. As is typical of these places, there's a tip jar, a college fund jar for the owner's daughter, a jar for the local soup kitchen or food bank, and the area's animal shelter might even be selling mints for a donation.

Our generous fellow decides that in the spirit of Lent he'll deposit money in all four. If he divvies it up and gives $2.50 to each, is he giving wisely? What should be his priority?

• the soup kitchen, then
• the animal shelter, then
• the tip jar, then
  
• the college fund.

The reasoning here is that poor humans are more important than poor animals, suffering animals are of a greater priority than a small gratuity for service, and tipping liberally is more important than a college fund for a presumably able-bodied young person (who probably has a good work ethic by virtue of being the child of a small business owner).

Thus, if we are to consider immigration policy an issue of charity (although national security and integrity are more fundamental, let's leave them be for now), to whom are our limited resources better directed?

Let's use the number 10 just to match our previous example. If we have economic and cultural room for 10 immigrants, whom do we take? South American poor? Chinese free speech advocates? Or Arabs and others suffering for Christ?

The answer should be self-evident. He in mortal danger because of God deserves our top priority, then the fellow who may be shipped off to a work camp for political reasons, then he who suffers bodily because of an indifferent and corrupt home nation.

So, if we are to take charity cases within our borders, we start with those whose problems come from man's highest nature, spirit, to his next highest, rational or intellectual, to his lowest, physical.

We may also take note that typically, the higher the nature that is oppressed, the greater the penalty from the offending state. Christian converts under Mohammed's thumb are usually killed, political dissenters may be killed but just as likely jailed or put to hard labor, and the poor will live in squalor ... but with their loved ones, and their heads still attached.

Want to live here? Earn it

Much hullaballoo recently about immigration.

Setting aside business greed for cheap labor, low Anglo population growth due to abortion, the open secret that Mexico wants the Southwest back, and the inability of a heterogeneous democracy to make clear decisions, we are left with the problem of modern notions of citizenship.

As previously outlined in this space, at this point, "United States of America" is simply the fourth line on a person's address, little more. Very few of any ideology believe that legal status should involve substance: religion, language, etc. Thus the bottom line that anyone who happens to be here is by rights American.

We could discuss why a religiously and linguistically homogeneous society is more desirable (and safer), but these arguments should be familiar to anyone who frequents the blogosphere.

With a largely unremovable block of 12 million illegal immigrants and the lack of will to do anything about it, perhaps we should consider a multi-tiered approach to citizenship. For example, we could have guest status, residency, and citizenship.

Guests would retain the rights of the average foreign tourist or green card carrier. A guest could file for residency for their children, who upon turning 18 would be given residency. Residents would retain all the priviledges of citizens, without the ability to vote, hold public office, or otherwise take part in public life. After maybe three generations, and proving English literacy (and Catholicism, if we could muster the public to support this), the resident could become a citizen, which they could pass on to their heirs.

Would you hand the keys of your house over to someone you just met, or take the counsel of the newest hire when making decisions for a family business?

From Deuteronomy:

3 The Ammonite and the Moabite, even after the tenth generation shall not enter into the church of the Lord for ever ... 7 Thou shalt not abhor the Edomite, because he is thy brother: nor the Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. 8 They that are born of them, in the third generation shall enter into the church of the Lord.

We could, in the spirit of New Covenant charity, allow even Ammonites and Moabites to become U.S. citizens, eventually.

The point here is that some peoples are friends and cousins, some can become so, and others are just too alien to acculturate, or not good for the mix. And those that do join us need to prove their commitment.