In the latest issues of Newsweek, there's an article about what atheist scientists have contributed to society. Some were described as absolutely confident that there's no God, others as being skeptical but openmindedly agnostic. What they seemed to have in common was that, like me, they take the Bible as literally as their own textbooks.

Of course.

I mean, I don't take their science books literally, just the Bible. They put an awful lot of faith in their tentative findings, and the way they frame their arguments, it's obvious they never did more to engage the Faith than read a few tracts by our brethren who have more zeal than actual Bible study under their belts.

I mean, those tracts are pithy but they're not the Bible. I suspect these scientists were so busy trying to disprove God that they had to rely on the predigested work of other, full-time atheists (like most biologists and astronomers, but I mean the ones who don't pretend to offer anything else of concrete value to society, although these scientists do often try to make less concrete contributions in nonscientific arenas, which makes me think atheism really is a religion rather than just a lack of one) to come up with any arguments that actually related to the text of the Bible.

You really can't do that kind of thing. You need to read the Bible for itself. It's not that hard. God may have allowed the appearance of multiple layers in the Scriptures to the extent that he utilized the writing styles of the humans he compelled to write the Old Testament and such--I used to do such things in English class just to seem clever--but the only important message to get out of the Bible, the one God really intended, is the topmost and plainest one. Even if one passage doesn't seem to fit other passages, but more subtle ones do. Those submerged ones are just there to "confound the learned." We'll just have to wait for a more gifted pastor to come along and propose a reconciling theory, and we're free to throw in with him or not.

But taking the Bible literally? I guess they're smart enough to realize that only those of us who insist on a direct interpretation (If you can call "adhering to the basic and obvious meaning of the words" an "interpretation") pose any kind of threat to their position. I'd say it's an intellectual threat but they're really challenging God on this. There's no intellect involved as far as I'm concerned; just them running around in circles, and me only pointing at the Word.

Living apart together

Sociologists, they say, are stumped when it comes to explaining where this "new" quasi-marriage phenomenon is getting its head of steam. They suspect it's fear of divorce or a reluctance to "give wholly of oneself" or some such. Far be it from me to criticize the people who think they know better--nah, it's not that far from me--but I have some ideas.

In case you're not up to speed, "LAT" is where a couple acts like a couple, pooling some finances, even not seeing other people, but maintaining separate domiciles.

First, I think it's just a new spin on the old common law marriage. Once upon a time, if people just started living together, after a while folks assumed they were married. One good thing that's come out of the commercialization of our culture is the fact that there are different kinds of partnerships, and it doesn't have to be a traditional, or at least live-in, marriage, to be legit. If two people can live together, even start a family, and not share anything except what they've literally brought to the house, why not the other way around? If two people of the same sex can marry--the laws will catch up soon enough--and any two married people can not have kids, then the whole "starting a family" isn't actually important.

Subsequently, I think it's a natural outgrowth of committed relationships that would be on the cusp of shifting into the common-law-marriage gear. Two people spend a lot of time together, start seeing other people a little less often, maybe start spending the night both at one place or the other more often...after a while it should become clear that there's some potential for long-term commitment. We do need our space, though, sometimes. It takes a while to really cement things, especially in this day and age when we've finally come to appreciate how important self-actualization and autonomy are.

It makes sense to start by "welding" finances before going on to more personal things. Sure, lifestyle is pretty personal, but by this time in a relationship, that bridge is already built. Why not continue with something that's less emotion laden, albeit still important? If you start fighting then, you can still go "back to your corners" to let cooler heads prevail. People get so clouded by romance, or they willfully blind themselves with principles about lasting marriage, and they go in and it's all shock and misery and toil. They have enough work to do during the day! Let them stay on the permanent-boyfriend/girlfriend track and take things past there one step at a time. If a relationship's meant to last for a while, then there's no rush.

The diabolical shoes were a giveaway

I saw a preview for a movie today that made me smile a little. It's called "The Devil Wears Prada." It's ostensibly about a difficult woman who runs a fashion magazine, but I couldn't help thinking of the little ears all over that pricked up when news that the pope wears Prada too. I hope other people make the connection. Hopefully with more subtle associations like this one. It doesn't take much to get a little truth about Babylon-Rome and its "emperor" under people's radar to give them a nudge towards a grassroots effort to push popery to the side and out of this country.

Just Look at him. I'm not superstitious like them but I think those red shoes are a red flag to us. They obviously don't go with that robe thing or his hat. An organization that big and powerful doesn't make little mistakes like this one. Well, it's not so little a mistake, I think. I think it was the Spirit who motivated him to get such indulgently expensive shows (isn't indulgence a sin?) to remind us in the modern world how misled he is, and to get ones that were red, to remind us of the color of the flames that will be licking at his soul for eternity, and of the skin of the one who rules down there.

I shouldn't be so angry, but to smugly think he can get away with such posh accessories because the world's too dumb is just typical and I'm annoyed with it. I'm not interested in seeing anything catholic at all. Even look at my name. I was named for my grandmother, who never took a sacrament a Sunday in her life, but she was Italian, and that's too close to home. Ever since I found my Lord after high school, I've gone by Jean just to distance myself.

Maybe I'll see this movie twice.

My self is God's gift to myself

The Curt Jester has some less than supportive things to say about people he clearly can't relate to. It was a rude enough shock for Joseph Nadeau to have the compassionate and accepting Church, which he did not expect in the first place, snatched away like a rug from beneath his feet. Expecting him to settle, now, for a Church that forgives any sinner so long as he's straight is just rubbing salt in the wound.

From the Jester's combox:

Why is it so difficult to see the difference in the Church's teaching on homosexual orientation and homosexual practices?

Haven't you seen that gay shepherd movie? They weren't really cowboys; let's not fool ourselves because of some big hats. Our orientation must be obeyed. To do otherwise I'd call blasphemy, if I used such words. Whatever we are, it's normal for me, normal for you. Nadeau pointed out in the Jester's source article that neither science nor psychology consider homosexuality to be "disordered," which sounds a lot like the "sinful nature" they used to talk about at the church my parents dragged me to when I was still talking to them.

Think of that beautiful deaf lesbian couple. They found a deaf sperm donor so they could have a deaf child together--wonderfully, a daughter, completely deaf in one ear and 90% in the other, if I remember correctly. They understand. They've taken something they had little control over and are making a lifestyle of it, celebrating who they are. Embracing it. So the little girl can't hear; her parents' critics are wondering what price she'll have to pay in never enjoying music. A small price, I say, for being the product of such visionaries. Whatever god made us, made us the way we are so we can express everything good about us in all our different ways. We don't always get to choose what we champion, but we do have to do it.

We can't expect someone in this day and age to refrain from expressing something as fundamentally definitive of our identity, our personhood, as homosexuality. It's the people who want to stop us, put is in a box in the attic, who are being pathological. Maybe they have to express themselves in restrictive and narrow ways, I have to leave room for them there, but they can't be allowed to spread, and they shouldn't be listened to or heard, or everything we want to bring to the table is threatened.

My self is God's gift to my self

The Curt Jester has some less than supportive things to say about people he clearly can't relate to. It was a rude enough shock for Joseph Nadeau to have the compassionate and accepting Church, which he did not expect in the first place, snatched away like a rug from beneath his feet. Expecting him to settle, now, for a Church that forgives any sinner so long as he's straight is just rubbing salt in the wound.

From the Jester's combox:

Why is it so difficult to see the difference in the Church's teaching on homosexual orientation and homosexual practices?

Haven't you seen that gay shepherd movie? They weren't really cowboys; let's not fool ourselves because of some big hats. Our orientation must be obeyed. To do otherwise I'd call blasphemy, if I used such words. Whatever we are, it's normal for me, normal for you. Nadeau pointed out in the Jester's source article that neither science nor psychology consider homosexuality to be "disordered," which sounds a lot like the "sinful nature" they used to talk about at the church my parents dragged me to when I was still talking to them.

Think of that beautiful deaf lesbian couple. They found a deaf sperm donor so they could have a deaf child together--wonderfully, a daughter, completely deaf in one ear and 90% in the other, if I remember correctly. They understand. They've taken something they had little control over and are making a lifestyle of it, celebrating who they are. Embracing it. So the little girl can't hear; her parents' critics are wondering what price she'll have to pay in never enjoying music. A small price, I say, for being the product of such visionaries. Whatever god made us, made us the way we are so we can express everything good about us in all our different ways. We don't always get to choose what we champion, but we do have to do it.

We can't expect someone in this day and age to refrain from expressing something as fundamentally definitive of our identity, our personhood, as homosexuality. It's the people who want to stop us, put is in a box in the attic, who are being pathological. Maybe they have to express themselves in restrictive and narrow ways, I have to leave room for them there, but they can't be allowed to spread, and they shouldn't be listened to or heard, or everything we want to bring to the table is threatened.