Boycott MSNBC

I'm done. This is it. I'm politically liberal, but I am sick and tired of people on my side-of-the-fence's pro-abortion rhetoric. Watch this:


I would ask her to listen to herself. She is judging a being, that she admits has the potential to someday be a person, based on how much a financial burden they are. So, to her, people are only worth how much they can produce? How much of a financial burden they are?

Let's expand this logic. There are there are over 1.5 million people living in long term care facilities in the US. They don't have jobs. Many of them are not mentally or physically capable of work. I'm sure it costs quite a bit to keep them all alive between the room and board and all the medications. Using her logic, why don't we kill them all?

There are 8.7 million Americans unable to work due to disabilities. If they are not a drain on their family's resources, they are clearly a drain on the government. Why don't we kill all of them too?

Oh, that's right. Because killing the disabled or the elderly is murder.

She says that the belief that the fertilized egg is a person is just that, a belief. So apparently science can tell us when life begins? Science cannot tell us definitively when life ends, how can science tell us when it begins? Life is the ultimate mystery. No one will ever be able to figure out exactly how it works. No one knows where it comes from or where it ends because newborn babies don't talk and, except for maybe that Jesus guy, no one has ever come back from the grave. This is purely the realm of philosophy and religion. Science cannot touch it, just like science cannot touch God.

Her junk science is judging, at the very least, a unique grouping of human cells to only be worth as much as it can be worth on the marketplace. It is putting a financial value on life. Regardless of your beliefs on when life begins, you must see the inherent immorality of such a judgement. It is morally repugnant to judge anyone, even a "potential human," based on their economic usefulness.

I know that life starts at conception, but even if I ignore that fact, Melissa Harris-Perry's logic is dangerous and deeply morally flawed.

I stopped watching CNN a while back because they had one "journalist" who had clearly forgotten how to do an appropriate interview. Now, between this and Toure, I will no longer be watching MSNBC. I only watch FOX NEWS sometimes for the humor; I can't believe rational, intelligent people actually believe some of the spin on that channel. So, I guess I'll start reading the newspaper?

Review: 'Push Girls' pushes boundries...

...but with self-respect.

Still airs every Monday at 10 pm with encore on Tuesday at 1 am and each episode is followed by a repeat of the week before

This new reality series on the Sundance Channel follows four friends as they deal with the trial and troubles of life in LA.

You aren't going to see tables being tossed or wonton sex on this reality show. I love this show and that is saying something because I rarely watch so-called 'reality' shows. But this is truly a reality show. Showing real life, warts and all.

Of course, they'd never do a reality show about a plain jane housewife like me. All four of these girls are beautiful. One of them has the ho-hum job of a graphic designer. The other three include a dancer and two models.

My favorite one is the dancer. Auti Angel is the eldest in the group and kind of plays the mother or eldest sister role. She supports the others and is there to (lovingly) smack them with reality when needed. She also seems to be the most street smart and experienced. She has a real zest for life and for getting what she wants out of it. But who am I kidding, they all do.

Auti!!!

One boundary that this show pushes is that one of the main people is gay. Not scandalizing or flaming or crazy, just gay. Because believe it or not, gay people are normal, too! Apparently this show was really her coming out moment. She is originally from a small town so she was a little worried about repercussions against her family, but as she says in an interview,"...at the end of the day, I have to be me..."(here)

The biggest boundary they push to the breaking point is this: all four of the women are in wheelchairs! Auti, Tiphany (lesbian and model) and Mia (graphic designer) are paraplegic and Angela (other model) is a quadriplegic with limited arm and finger use. All of them except for Mia were car accident victims. Mia was a victim of a health condition. I say "was victims" because it is clear they are not victims anymore.

Left to right: Mia, Auti, Angela and Tiphany

I admit, it did bug me that in the first two episodes they had to completely rehash all of their stories of how they became paralyzed. The second time they went through them, I wondered "why do we have to go through these again?" But I guess that was for people who haven't seen the series from the beginning because you can definitely say that these women don't dwell on their pasts.

'Push Girls' is an unprecedented look into the life of this community which is so often misunderstood and misrepresented. They talk frankly about their troubles, their thoughts and their feelings. They discuss a number of different issues specific to their unique challenges. For example, one episode features a very balanced and enlightening conversation on the use of stem cells. But they also discuss mundane subjects. Relationships and jobs are prominent themes.

They are very inspirational. I don't use a wheelchair and I come away from their show every week feeling like I can take over the world. Seeing these women follow their dreams and live their lives despite everything that life has thrown at them makes you believe anything is possible. I cannot imagine how encouraging it must be for someone who is in a wheelchair to see such an honest and frank look into these women's lives. 

These women are very brave in stepping out of the box and pushing against the norm to let their stories be heard. They put a human face on an experience that many of us can only imagine. They serve as an encouragement for people who are just now finding themselves unable to walk. They inspire us all to be better people and to follow our dreams.

For more info: http://www.sundancechannel.com/push-girls/

A Religious Person's Response to the Premiere Episode of "Curiosity"

In a special event Saturday night, all the channels under the "Discovery" umbrella showed the first episode of a new series "Curiosity." It seems as if the series is based on viewers submitting questions and they take an hour-long show to explore it. The first question is one of the ultimate questions, "Did God create the universe?" Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how you see it), they used the work of Stephen Hawking to delve into the issue at hand.

Being the religions nerd I am, as soon as I heard God, I had to DVR it. So I did, and I watched it yesterday. I gave myself a day for my thoughts to form into some sort of coherency and here it is:

There only continues to be a conflict between science and religion because the extremists on both sides insist there must be one. People who worship at the altar of science seem to have a compulsion to break down religion, to prove religion is false. Meanwhile, people who are obsessed with their religion seem to need to insult science whenever they can, to bash new discoveries and refuse to listen to new ideas. And then there are folks like me in the middle who just don't see what all the fuss is about. Science can't prove or disprove God. Religion can't nullify all scientific inquiry or discovery (although there needs to be a reservation for judgment when it comes to the morality of some scientific progress, but that's another topic).

In showing the "history" of the conflict between science and religion, Curiosity rehashed the old story of Galileo (which the Pope apologized for a few years back) and also mentioned Pope John XXI. According to Stephen Hawking, Pope John XXI met an ironic fate, denouncing science and then dying due to gravity and a crumbling building. I don't know where this accusation comes from. I can't find any reference to any denouncing of science by John XXI anywhere. John XXI was a physician. He asked for an extra room to have a quiet place to study medicine. How could a scientist denounce science?

In the last half hour of the program, we get to the nuts and bolts of Stephen Hawking's ideas. He points out that quantum mechanics shows that sub-atomic particles can and do appear out of nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously. Based on this, he postulates that the Big Bang could also appear out of nowhere. He shows that time did not exist prior to the Big Bang. God could not create the universe, according to him, because there was no time for God to exist in. I have two problems with this simple "proof" for the non-existence of a creator God.

1) It limits God. Is God really limited to the laws of nature? Is God really limited to our concept of time? I feel very uncomfortable saying "God can't do something." I don't even feel comfortable saying "God can't sin." In this "proof," Hawking seems to be running on the assumption that God is some sort of physical being that is ruled by all the laws that we are. I don't see God in such simplistic terms.

2) Where is nowhere? Okay, I admit, quantum mechanics does challenge our human assumption of cause-and-effect. We assume that everything has to come from somewhere, that everything has to have a cause. But I ask him, where is your imagination? Do you really hit a brick wall? Are you forced to say the universe comes from nowhere?

In the end, he says he is grateful for the time he gets to see the beauty of the universe. I ask, "Who are you saying 'thank you' to?"

I want to end this post with a story I've heard a million times:

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Robert Jastrow

Judas Iscariot as a literary device?

So, it's always dangerous to watch shows on the History channel that touch on religious topics. I know this very well. As a theology and world religions student, I've seen many specials on television that I could tear apart for inaccuracies and for simplifying things that can't be simplified. This particular special was about Masada. Judas' name came up because there is a theory that he was a member of the Sicarri rebels. The expert being interviewed argued that Judas' name had nothing to do with the Sicarri but his last name actually means "from the place," making his full name meaning "the Jew from the place." Now, I haven't heard this theory before. Looking at my textbooks, this idea doesn't come up. It's entirely possible that it's a case of a History Channel "expert" saying nonsense. However, this made me wonder, what if Judas is a literary device? Could this be true? What would it mean to me as a Catholic?

This idea is not a new one. Scripture scholars as of late have played with the idea for various reasons. They see that some of the earliest Biblical materials don't mention him (i.e. Paul and the disputed Q). They see some very good reasons to make a character like that up. The one reason that I find to be the most provocative is that Judas draws even more blame away from the Romans. The early Christian church was in a difficult position. They didn't want to emphasize that the Romans killed Jesus because they wanted to be in the Romans' good graces. Rome was already persecuting them, they didn't need to make more barriers between themselves and Rome. They were also very angry at the Jews who had recently kicked them out of the synagogues. So, what better way to deflect blame from the Romans than to blame the Jews for Jesus' death.

Now let's look at the story of Judas from that perspective:

Here we have a clearly Jewish disciple of Jesus who betrays his rabbi for money to the Jewish leadership who aren't painted in a very positive light either. This group turns Jesus over to the Roman leadership. The Roman leadership are not portrayed as the good guys, but they aren't portrayed as the bad guys either. Pilate washes himself of his guilt, and the crowd is given a second chance to free Jesus from his fate.

Seeing the story of Judas' betrayal in light of the situation of the early Christians does not make a convincing case for Judas being a real person. It would make sense for the early Christians to make such a character up in order to place blame for Jesus death on the Jews.

What does this mean to me as a Catholic? I don't think that questioning the existence of Judas is heretical. Judas isn't in the Nicene Creed. The important thing for Christianity is the belief that Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified and resurrected. [Edit: Joe Heschmeyer has corrected me as far as the previous flawed 2-3 sentences: His blog is here.] The story of Judas still has some value as a reminder of the dangers of greed and the importance of trust and friendship. It also brings about fruitful reflection on questions such as, "If a particular sin is preordained by God, is it really a sin?"

Also, it serves as a reminder of the painful history of Jewish/Christian relations. May we never forget that the Jewish people are our brothers and sisters. The Christian faith does not supersede the Jewish faith. The Jews did not kill Jesus, the Romans did.