One For The People
May 22nd, 2008One For The People
Justice
The Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals today decided in favor of 38 women who had appealed the removal of more than 460 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) sect.
The three-judge panel said “The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger” and that the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services “did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty.”
The court concluded, “Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal prior to full litigation of the issue.”
Now, I’m certainly no fan of the FLDS (except for the whole multiple-wives thing), or any organized religion in general for that matter – but I am even less of a fan of out-of-control government agencies. Clearly, the Texas DFPS had overstepped their boundaries and jurisdiction in this case, not at all unlike similar Protective Services departments do in other states.
Far more dangerous than any religion in the United States, even polygamist ones, is a government that is ready and willing to ignore the rights of its citizens.
This is yet another reason for less government.
Aliens Are OK
May 13th, 2008Aliens Are OK
Finally…
If you are a Catholic who believes in aliens, good news: You are no longer going to hell.
Yup, it’s true! Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican’s chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.
Well, this is good news indeed.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.
“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said. “Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ’sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”
I, for one, am very happy to see the Catholic church modernizing a bit, and displaying a more open and accepting mind.
Maybe while they’re in this “accepting” mood, I’ll share my idea for a new dress code for the nuns…
Christianity
April 24th, 2008Christianity
What Is It?
Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes perfect sense.
