Jan's Stinkin Blog: November 2013

Thursday, November 28, 2013

POLICY STATEMENT OF POPE FRANCIS...

Pope Francis is moving pretty fast these days and I must admit that my admiration for him grows with every day.

Now he has come out with a 224 page “teaching document” that he wrote titled: EVANGELII GAUDIUM or THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL as described in the Detroit News (Nov. 27, 2013) by Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press: Pope’s mission: Lift the poor, downsize doctrine.

I will not pretend to agree with everything Francis says in this document especially when he condemns capitalism (my interpretation) or trickle-down economic theories “money must serve and not rule” says Francis.

The pope chose St. Francis as his namesake for a reason; he worked for the poor. Francis is also a Jesuit; an order that dedicates itself to helping the less fortunate, so I understand where he is coming from.

Francis definitely and unequivocally stands on the side of the Vatican II reforms, something the last two popes did not.

He once again decries the church’s obsession with rules and doctrine and said (listen to this carefully) that in some cases, the church’s old customs can be cast aside if they no longer serve to communicate the faith.

Francis obviously wants to shift the focus of the church saying that mercy is paramount and that the faithful should be invited in and not castigated.

This is huge and in the right direction; I just hope he lives long enough to make his ideas stick.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

WHY DRAG PETER'S BONES OUT INTO THE SUNLIGHT?

Pope Francis is a busy man. He is aware of his age but it appears that he does have an agenda so he is not letting moss grow underfoot.

I was puzzled to see him bring out the box that supposedly contains the bones of St. Peter, the so called first pope. I guess the bones will be on public display for the first time after being discovered under the St. Peter’s Basilica in the 1940s.

The bones will undoubtedly draw thousands of faithful who will pay good money to be near the saintly bones so is it a money maker?

The Vatican is not saying that these are definitely the bones of St. Peter but is sure treating them as if they were certain they are. In the history of the church, a lot of money was made from saintly relics even if the bones were nothing but dog bones; people really want to believe.

Pope Francis wants the church to be transparent but I wonder if he really wants to bring the whole issue of St. Peter out into the public discourse since it is quite controversial.

The Vatican itself has maintained that the story of Peter being the first pope of Rome is a long standing “tradition” which indicates it may not necessarily be true or factual.

Peter has been somewhat problematic for Christians and especially the Catholics. After the crucifixion, Peter did not take over the leadership role of the Jesus followers but the bother of Jesus, James did.

The problem with James for the early Christians was that James was an adamant Jew trying to continue the mission Jesus started which was to reform Judaism itself and not start a new religion; James was at first, very opposed to bringing gentiles into the fold until he saw how much money Paul could bring in.

There is no historical evidence Peter was any type of leader at all (he was illiterate) and there is not historical evidence that he even travelled to Rome. The tradition that Peter and Paul (as a team) were the founders of the Catholic faith is historically laughable since both men despised each other if Paul is to be believed.

Pope Francis must know that the Vatican / Church is on shaky historical ground as to its religious legitimacy (Upon this rock I will build my church) and that Peter was the first pope giving legitimacy to all the popes who came after him.

Francis does appear to want to start some kind of commotion within the church; challenging all sorts of long held beliefs and practices.

After recent popes tried to dismiss the work of Vatican II and go backwards to darker days, Francis is trying to go in the very opposite direction; I just wonder what his motivation for bringing ole’ Peter’s bones out into the open is.

Friday, November 22, 2013

POOR COSTCO: Labelled the Bible as fiction...

Recently COSTCO apologized for its store in Los Angeles for selling Bibles labelled as FICTION. It seems a religious fellow (pastor) was shopping at Costco for a gift and noticed the labels on the Bibles for sales at the store and thought he should make some noise about it.

Costco blamed the error on a distributor.

My question is WHAT LABEL SHOULD THE BIBLE CARRY?

The Bible (Old & New Testaments) cannot be labelled NON-FICTION because that would imply that the stories in the Bible are actually FACTUAL and that is definitely not the case.

There are many religious people that believe the Bible is factual and some even go as far as to call words in the Bible as literally factual even though the Bible has been translated zillions of times from and into all sorts of languages; no originals exist.

Modern Christians will argue that even though the Old Testament stories are quite suspect as to being actual history, they argue that the New Testament is based on eye-witness accounts and therefore is factual or non-fiction.

The case for the New Testament being more historically accurate than the Old Testament has some merit since someone named Jesus of Nazareth did actually exist according to most historians (unlike Moses, etc. who probably were just made up to give the Jews a history of sorts).

The problem with the New Testament is that the writers of the Gospels were not eye witnesses to what Jesus said and did but based their accounts on a variety of sources none of which can be called factual or historic and believe me, there are a ton of books discussing this very issue.

Should Costco have apologized?…probably so since it does not want to piss off the people that buy Bibles.

Was the fiction label wrong? Well the Bible could not have been labelled non-fiction or even history so what is left?

Saturday, November 16, 2013

VIRTUAL COMMUNION???

I have been blogging about religion for quite some time now and have run into some issues that are historically very significant but this latest one takes the cake…for now.

Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article by Valarie Bauerlein titles: VIRTUAL SACRAMENT OR SACRILEGE?...North Carolina Church’s Plans to Offer Communion Online Run Afoul of the United Methodist Hierarchy.

Let me first explain what this all entails.

This particular Central United Methodist Church near Charlotte will launch a “virtual” or online campus that would include church services, Bible study classes and counseling services all online.

This does not sound too bad since many people tune their TVs to religious services being performed at other locations and have for many years. My mother regularly watches Mass being televised from all sorts of places including the Vatican.

What caused a stir is the plan for this North Carolina church to offer Holy Communion on a virtual basis. What this means is that people sitting in front of their computers and listening to the virtual church service being performed would have some crackers or wafers as well as some grape juice or wine which when blessed by the pastor, would become “Communion” and once ingested would signify your receipt of the sacrament of Communion; kapish?

Some say that this is a “sacrilege” or desecration among other definitions or is it.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus turned wine and bread into his blood and body and instructed the apostles to do this (the same) in my name and so priests have been doing the same for thousands of years. Why is doing it online different.

We still have a church setting but in this case the people attending the service are not in the pews but online.

A priest still blesses the bread and wine (host) but he does not physically give the host to the recipient…so is that the issue? Why?

I will not get into the centuries old debate about whether the Communion host is the actual body of Jesus or symbolically so because that will just get us into a very absurd area but I will watch closely at the arguments that are made for and against this proposal.

BOEING UNIONS REJECT 777X PROPOSAL...Too bad...South wins again!

I have been following the battles between Boeing Corporation and its union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) for quite a few years and especially when the Obama administration tried to interfere on the side of the unions (of course) trying to force the company to give in to union demands.

Boeing had the balls to stand up to Obama, the NLRB and the union and build a non-union factory in Charleston, South Carolina which I have seen on one of our vacations there.

Recently, Boeing was making plans for building its new 777X (wide-body, twin-engine, long range) plane and gave the state of Washington (its main manufacturing site) and its unions to bid on the building program by agreeing to certain provisions for an 8 year period.

The State of Washington agreed to billions in state concessions (taxes, etc.) to keep the jobs in the state. The union, on the other hand told Boeing to get fucked; the concessions asked of the union were not to their liking…they said Boeing was bluffing.

Now Boeing has dispatched a team to visit states that may welcome Boeing to build the 777X in their state.

Now what state would not welcome the prospect for thousands of good paying jobs to their state.

I expect the Washington State based union to appeal to the NLRB and to the Obama administration to block Boeing from going to any other state to manufacture the 777X.

This is where having a Republican dominated House of Representatives comes in handy; GOP members will make sure that Boeing will have the right to build a factory wherever the fuck they want to and the Northern unions can just lose their lucrative jobs to workers in the South who I am sure will welcome those jobs with their usual enthusiastic anti-union fervor.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

POPE FRANCIS INSTRUCTS U.S. BISHOPS HOW TO BEHAVE...really?

Well I have been wondering if the Pope Francis will have something to say to the U.S. bishops gathering at their conference in Baltimore and today I learn that he has sent an envoy to the conference to convey his wishes as to how he wants them to behave and act.

As you remember, the U.S. Conference of Bishops is made up of some pretty conservative characters who have been screaming and I do mean screaming about their opposition to abortion, gay marriage and contraception something Pope Francis has told them to stop obsessing about.

Now we have some definitive instruction from the pope to U.S. bishops.

1. Live simply. The pope, as you know, lives in the Vatican hotel and not the Vatican palace and drives his own compact car and carries his own luggage.

2. Make Roman Catholics more welcome in church.

3. Bishops should be more in-tune with the people.

4. Bishops should be more pastoral.

5. Do not follow a particular ideology.

Well what do all of this mean…?

Ideology is defined as a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture. The bishops think they know what the hell is the right way to live on this earth and the people on this earth and their ideas how to live be damned (abortion, gay marriage, contraception).

What Pope Francis is telling them (or at least I think this is what he is telling them) is that they (the bishops) do not know specifically how people should live and act and therefore the bishops need to get in-tune with society and learn from the people about the reality of life on this planet; priests do not lead a normal life.

Bishops need to be more pastoral according to the pope and this refers to pastors as shepherds taking care of their flock and the best way to do that is to be as one with their flock; catering to the needs of the flock. At present, the bishops stand in front of the flock and order them around; that is not tending.

As far as living simply; well that may be harder to do for these spoiled and pampered princes of the church; they enjoy the good life and have for quite some time.

The pope is the CEO of the company and it should be his way or no way but if they refuse; can he fire them?

Bishops appointed by John Paul and Benedict are staunch conservatives like they were; Francis has no one of like mind to support him or does he?

This is truly a historic time for the papacy, the Vatican and the Catholic faith…I am quite excited about the prospects.