Jan's Stinkin Blog

Sunday, December 08, 2013

THE COLORADO BAKER'S REFUSAL TO MAKE GAY WEDDING CAKE

There has been a very tantalizing question being tossed about these days and it has to do with whether companies or corporations can be treated as individuals.

This may seem strange to you since in your mind you cannot fathom a company as an individual. You can understand the owner of a company as an individual but the company itself?

A lot of the arguments are of course of a legalistic manner and will be argued by lawyers but for us, the question has a more direct impact as when it applies to everyday life.

Take the baker in Colorado that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. As an individual whose religion hates gays and forbids him to have anything to do with them, he has the religious freedom to follow those precepts. Now as a baking company that bakes wedding cakes, does the company have the same religious freedom rights to hate gays and therefore to not serve them? Does a company have religious rights?

My wife, in a knee jerk reaction, said that it’s his company and he can serve who he wants to. Well not so fast, there are laws on our books that prevent discrimination on a number of levels (race, gender, religion, etc.) and now include “sexual orientation” which means being homosexual.

In her case, she saw the company and the individual as one and the same. I owned my own company for 32 years yet I was constrained in my behavior by a myriad of laws governing even what I could ask prospective employees before I hired them.

But in this case, the baker states that he has to violate his conscience in order to continue working. Let us unpack the concept of violating one’s conscience.

My daughter is a vegetarian and although she can physically eat meat, her conscience tells her that eating meat violates what she believes in and that is that animals should not be butchered for our consumption. Obviously, eating meat does not violate any laws or rules of behavior; eating meat violates the dictates of her own conscience; she does not prohibit or hinder anyone else from eating meat.

The baker’s conscience and religion appear to be one and the same. Baking wedding cakes is his business but baking one to be used in a gay marriage ceremony is against his religion he says and therefore against his conscience. The baker’s religion places him in opposition to gay marriage but does baking a cake to be used in a gay marriage ceremony mean his endorsement of gay marriage or is his business is to merely sell wedding cakes?

The bottom line is that if the baker feels selling his cake to a gay couple for a wedding is against his conscience then that is that. If his discriminatory stance is against state and/or federal law, then that is that.

This issue is not over so get ready for phase 2.

Sunday, December 01, 2013

U.S. CATHOLIC BISHOPS WILL NOT FOLLOW LEAD OF FRANCIS...

In a previous blog I have reported on the marching orders that Pope Francis gave to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as to how he expects them to behave in light of his example and direction.

I wondered at the time if they would even bother to listen to what he had to say and just follow what they have been doing all along which is waging a war against abortion, contraception and gay marriage; Francis told them to drop the issue war and get on with serving the faithful and those in need.

Well we now know that the U.S. bishops basically told Francis where to stick his new way forward plans; its back to the dark ages and that is that.

The Wall Street Journal had a nice article on this subject titled: Changing Church’s New Voice / Head of U.S. Catholic Bishops Takes Traditional Line on Controversial Issues by Tamara Audi (Nov. 30, 2013).

The new head of the conference is Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, KY and he, as most members of the conference, could give a shit what the pope or what even Catholics in the U.S. think about issues and how the church should change to accommodate modern thinking and attitudes; it’s the old way or the highway!

Kurtz will praise Pope Francis as a “breath of fresh air” whatever the hell that means but follow the lead of Francis…not so much.

I am puzzled by the election of Francis to the papacy by all these ultra conservative cardinals. Was Francis a “sleeper” candidate, conservative on the outside but a flaming liberal on the inside?

There should be a book coming out shortly (I hope) that will address what really happened at the conclave to elect the new pope because they obviously elected someone that is trying to change the direction of the church; is that what they wanted the new pope to do?...the U.S. bishops definitely don’t want any changes in direction so is there another faction in the college of cardinals that is leading the revolution???

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.