It was just hysterical to me that it would think it’s customers were so moronic that the only way they could relate to Tuna, would be to be told it was like chicken, but wetter.

IOW, if somebody has to dumb something down so much for me, I’m outta there!

Make sense?

I thought the article was brilliant, and followed you for most of it, but could you explain the chicken of the sea comment? I don’t get it! You should be able to reach me by email if you do respond.

I view the Hitler defender as a sad malcontent that’ll probably fail to influence anybody about anything of any consequence. OTOH, people that talk about homosexuality as immoral concern me because they can influence others.

Of course the Church has done good as well and there are millions of good people that attend regularly. It was the way the hierarchy moved into to protect their own that made it sickening to me and it has done and still does lots of bad too.

Oh and what Doug said too ;-)

Hard and fast rules are problematic, but in general I believe this:

Morality and immorality run the gamut from kindness to cruelty. With all the nuances and layers and levels included.

And, because I believe that, I could never follow any of the three monotheistic religions of the Levant, as I see their vision of morality and immorality as mostly antithetical to that. To me, they are hopelessly paternal, dictatorial, irrational, imperialistic and still stuck in ancient times (with the exception of sections like the Sermon on the Mount). If a person follows them in a fundamentalist way, if they gather their ideas of what is moral or immoral from those ancient scriptures and take it all literally . . . I see little chance for them to view morality and immorality in a rational, logical or beneficial manner.

IMO, it takes a poetic reading of those ancient texts to move away from arbitrary and irrational “thou shalt nots” into logical, rational and uplifting “yes we cans”. It means that we look at those texts as literature, fable, legend, parable, poetry . . . and derive from them wisdom that suits our own context.

Millions do this. Millions see religious texts as springboards for poetic/artistic/metaphorical deductions. I see this as the most “moral” way of viewing them. OTOH, if we remain locked in the chains of words written down more than two millennia ago, if we choose to remain locked in a fundamentalist interpretation the authors never, ever intended . . . we fail ourselves and our fellow human beings.

Those authors clearly wrote down an oral tradition that was shaped, altered, altered again and again, depending upon circumstances and context. Those authors clearly saw that allegory, parable, myth and metaphor could reach the widest, most diverse audience. Really reach them.

IMO, we do a disservice to them if we fail to question their words, to think around them, through them, because of them and above them. As Nietzsche said (roughly translated), “One pays back one’s teacher poorly if one remains forever the student.”

What is morality? IMO, the three religions of the Levant are silent on the issue if we only read them “literally”.

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You have no argument from me that it was terribly wicked and unjust what some priests and their superiors have done. The Church is far from impeccable. I’m also very anti-abuse.

You’re willing to apologize to the homosexual community to avoid offending them; would you do the same to avoid offending faithful Catholics?

I have seen firsthand, and in history, how the Catholic Church has redeemed so many lives. They’re not in the business of screwing up lives. Their moral and charitable contributions have been tremendous. You can’t take bad examples and make that out to be representative of what the Church is and stands for.

No, I’m not a regular or occasional reader here. I was attracted by your blog’s title and several of your articles a while back.

Your eye-rolling and head-shaking, by the way, does little to change my perception that you’re intolerant. It leaves me with the impression you believe that you have a superior set of values — the very thing you’re preaching against.

Frankly, I find it creepy that a “life coach” is less concerned about someone who supports genocide than someone who holds a different viewpoint in the realm of sexual morality.

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There was a whole stream of cases In Ireland a few years ago when it came to light that Priests had been abusing young boys for years. It had been kept quiet by those in power to ‘protect’ the integrity of the Church. Yeh, right. Screw (pun intended) the integrity of the abused, let’s protect the abusers.

I’m actually not anti-Catholic per se and it is quite frankly an absurd thing to say when half my family are Catholic. I am though anti any group that abuses its power which your guys have done more than once or twice over the last few centuries. I also see first hand though how the Catholic Church has screwed up so many lives.

You’re not a regular or even occasional reader here because if you were you’d have found something to be offended by in your first visit or two. And quite frankly when you post about homosexuality being immoral, I just roll my eyes and shake my head.

I had somebody defending Hitler here last week and quite frankly he scares me less than you do, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

He is obviously anti-Catholic and unfairly smears the priesthood in his nonsensical but perverse comment about “bouncing around,” yet he is “reasonably tolerant.” (About the comment: If I saw a priest sexually abusing my son, my initial emotional reaction would be to go the opposite direction of what the blogger presupposes.) He speaks of “tolerance and equality, values that are absent from people that support Prop 8″–how unreasonable, polarizing, and closed-minded is that! I don’t need that kind of ignorance or intolerance in a “life coach.”

As a proponent of Catholicism, I know that there are many homosexuals who are basically “good people” (even though I believe the homosexual act is immoral), and every gay person is as deserving of every basic human right as anyone else. That doesn’t mean I have to submit to gay activists’ new definition of “marriage.”

A person can and should be tolerant and principled at the same time. Buckling to a political homosexual agenda is not a requirement for a person striving to be tolerant; to many Americans, if not most, it would be a betrayal of their own principles.

The blogger, on the other hand, says he “could” change his opinion about Prop 8, “but it’s not very likely.” Earlier, he said he knew Prop 8 was wrong just as he knows that slavery is inhumane and racial discrimination is abominable. If he believes that so strongly, how could he entertain the possibility of changing his opinion on it? I don’t see him as principled, and therefore not worthy of me subscribing to his life-coaching blog.

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I will click the submit button after I finish typing that I’m going to click the submit button–

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