ropata

"The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God" Catechism of the Catholic Church 1700 These questions and exhortations at the insignificance of man compared to the vastness of time and space are based on confusion of quantity and quality, between what we can quantify about a thing versus what a thing is "worth." For instance a single gold bar can buy an entire tract of land many times larger than itself, and a rock in your garden is immensely older than the house it sits beside yet you would not say the house was worth less. Indeed qualitatively speaking a single celled microbe is worth more than all the lifeless stars and planets in the Universe. With life comes information, ontologically superior to the mere matter of non-life, and with his spiritual intellect and freewill man is ontologically superior again. - ropata

It is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. To the popular mind, science embraces facts and evidence while religion professes blind faith. Like many simplistic popular notions, this view is mistaken. Modern science is not only compatible with Christianity, it in fact finds its philosophical origins in Christianity. Modernity is unaware of this framework, but it is nonetheless soaked in it, like a fish breathing in water. It is difficult for those raised in a post-Christian world to appreciate the radical novelty and liberation Christian ideas presented to the ancient mind. - ropata

There can be no question Labour leader Phil Goff more accurately portrayed public sentiment than the prime minister – and then received an even greater fillip by being personally attacked by the hateful Harawira. Suddenly, the opposition leader was relevant again. And Winston Peters reminded us all that he is still alive by climbing into the Maori Party at a Grey Power meeting in Wanganui. Again, he articulated a sentiment that should have been the prime minister's. But one voice that has been missing this week – and perhaps would have been the strongest – is that of Helen Clark. This was one week when she was missed. One week when her steely outrage would have played so well. And one week when she would have taken the opportunity to hammer Hone hard. Ah yes, it's been a bad week for the government when you start to nostalgise over Helen. - ropata

The Church upholds a series of absolutes that Catholics are required to believe about creation: * Vatican I solemnly proclaimed that God created the universe, did so out of nothing and for His own glorification. * Pope Pius XII declared in his encyclical Humani Generis (36) that all Catholics must uphold, regardless of their opinion about biological evolution, that the human soul did not evolve but was specially created by God. * The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that God created "everything for man" and that man was not the result of a mindless process but, regardless of what method was used, he was the intention all along and the summit of the Creator's work. The Church's declarations say nothing of whether or not God used evolution as the tool to produce the Universe in its current physical order. Therefore in the absence of further declarations Catholics are free to use their own prudence to determine what is true regarding this controversial issue. - ropata

The intention of this series was to examine the essential dogmatic loci as they are popularly articulated or implicitly understood in American evangelical churches. By no means have I exhausted every facet of the problem in each locus; instead I stuck to one major issue that seemed readily apparent. For example, I discussed the doctrine of the Trinity in Part II, but not the attributes of God or the doctrine of election, to name two other areas of importance. Much less have I have examined all of the loci worth addressing in such a series. [The essay on Eschatology is particularly striking] * Part I: Introduction * Part II: The Doctrine of God — a less-than-fully triune God * Part III: Christology — a docetic Christ * Part IV: Soteriology — a pelagian soteriology * Part V: Holy Scripture — a docetic-propositional Bible * Part VI: Eschatology — a gnostic eschatology * Part VII: Ecclesiology — nationalism, or depoliticized discipleship - ropata

"movement atheists" are in fact identified by dogma, at least by any other name. Among the credal claims: * Science and religion are incompatible * Science is the only way we know things * Religion has a net negative impact on society * Atheists should be outspoken * Atheists are persecuted Furthermore the movement atheists have requisite pejorative names for the apostate: Accomodationists. Appeasers. And Coyne's muddleheaded faitheists. A set of core beliefs that distinguishes plain atheists from movement atheists. Name-calling—and even contests (such as Coyne held) to come up with a suitably derogatory term (faitheist) for atheists in the opposing camp. And a huge corpus of writings casting aspersions on those who challenge the creed. Call it what you like--except schism. Because it's nothing like that. Quack. - ropata

It’s 2009 annual report proudly states “over the 15 years since its formation Infratil’s average return has been 18 percent per annum...” Let’s put that in some perspective. This year Infratil is paying out just over $32 million to its shareholders while the increase offered to drivers would be less that an additional $4 million in payments after three years. The company can afford to pay the drivers more – it’s just become too used to thinking about them as a distant second to its greedy shareholders, despite the fact it’s the drivers who do the work that creates the profits. The shareholders have had it too good for too long – it’s time for a bit more to trickle down from Infratil’s top table. Instead the company showed its contempt for its employees by locking out the drivers last month in an attempt to starve them back to work - ropata

One of the most alluring features of Speights is their ad campaign, exploiting all the time-honoured associations between beer, horses, open spaces and ‘real’ men. Not only are there the amazing photos, (the ones of the river crossing and of the stag are two of my favourites) but one can also complete the Southern Man ID Chart, and sing the Southern Man Song which promotes: Now I might not be rich But I like things down here We got the best looking girls And the best damn beer So you can keep your Queen City [Auckland] With your cocktails and cool Give me a beer in a seven With the boys shooting pool All part of what it means to be a ‘real’ man, right? And then there’s Barth’s account in CD III/2 of what being a ‘real’ man looks like: - ropata

Intended to provide a basis for discussion, this book evaluates the evidence of modern science in relation to the debate between the atheistic and theistic interpretations of the universe. Written like a scientific detective story, this excellent introduction to the current debate grew out of the author's lengthy experience of lecturing and debating on the subject. - ropata

The Da Vinci Code launched the literary careers of a whole faculty previously-obscure professors of New Testament Studies. Admittedly, they had good reason for wanting to put the record straight about Brown’s distortions of early Christian history. This time, it’s historians of science who might be upset by Brown’s misrepresentation. Because his contention that the Catholic Church has spent the last two millennia holding back the advance of science is as wrongheaded as the story that Mrs Jesus retired to the south of France with her kids. It’s true that the Church did make a single significant mistake in 1616, when it banned Copernicus’s opinion that the earth orbits the sun. But in the subsequent trial of Galileo, the Catholic Church was siding with the scientific consensus of the time. Still, you can’t manufacture an eternal conflict from a single example, so proponents of the hypothesis have had to resort to a different strategy – inventing the evidence. - ropata

The Rationality of Theism is a controversial collection of brand new papers by thirteen outstanding philosophers and scholars. Its aim is to offer comprehensive theistic replies to the traditional arguments against the existence of God, offering a positive case for theism as well as rebuttals of recent influential criticisms of theism. - ropata

We cannot ignore Christianity as a whole and the problematic of the Incarnation in particular, Žižek claims, because these things from an essential part of the intellectual world of modernity. Christianity achieves its unique position in history because it is an essential element of modernity itself, an essential piece of the dominant logic of a globalising capitalist modernity. After the onslaught of ‘school-yard’ atheists, reactionaries like Hitchens and Harris as well as better-informed critics like Dawkins; in Žižek’s arguments, we find that ‘the supposition of naive atheists that the West can leave behind either Christology or ecclesiology is worthy to be greeting only with ironic laughter’ (181). One cannot blithely ignore the centuries of theological thinking that lies at the back of any assertion of atheism, ... not if there is to be actual, productive debate – not just people shouting at each other or simply restating their own presuppositions over and over again. - ropata

An intriguing collection of more than one hundred out-of-the-ordinary maps, blending art, history, and pop culture for a unique atlas of humanity Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, this collection of 138 unique graphics combines beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. The result is a distinctive illustrated guide to the world. Categories of cartographic curiosities include: • Literary Creations, featuring a map of Thomas More's Utopia and the world of George Orwell's 1984 • Cartographic Misconceptions, such as a lavish seventeenthcentury map depicting California as an island • Political Parody, containing the "Jesusland map" and other humorous takes on voter profiles • Whatchamacallit, including a map of the area codes for regions where the rapper Ludacris sings about having "hoes" • Obscure Proposals, capturing Thomas Jefferson's vision for dividing the Northwest Territory into ten... - ropata

In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that, for centuries, Christianity's center was actually in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with significant communities extending as far as China. The Lost History of Christianity unveils a vast and forgotten network of the world's largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died. Jenkins takes a stand against current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in... - ropata

20 great Classic Christian hits from 1970's - ropata

This didn’t just happen. In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed, as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it. This fascinating journey, from the late Middle Ages to today, reveals the roots of our debacle. From the founding of the first chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace–the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401(k) plans as the ultimate measure of... - ropata