Mr. Brog, in his In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity, concedes that Christians have committed horrendous crimes in the name of theology but sets out to prove that Judeo-Christian beliefs gave the Western and, ultimately, entire world its most important spiritual value: an obligatory reverence for life.
Mr. Brog advances his argument in a series of historical vignettes. He introduces Tacitus, the Roman senator and historian, who (in his major work, Histories) describes the Jews as wicked, stubborn and lascivious and lists the Jewish beliefs he finds most revolting – especially, he says, the belief “that it is a deadly sin to kill an unwanted child.” The Romans were “proud practitioners of infanticide.” As were the Greeks. As were the other nations of the ancient world.
The value we place on life is a values judgment, ever evolving. What was established (life is sacred) can easily be torn down, and one could argue, has been substantially in recent years. Over to you, Tacitus!
For people like me, there were only two options. One was to abandon all dreams, which would lead to a quick, hopeless death; the other was to struggle without arms to live an outstanding life,” he said.
Though not many of us will face the physical challenges he does, I still think the principle applies: “One was to abandon all dreams, which would lead to a quick, hopeless death; the other was to struggle with ______________ to live an outstanding life.” We can all fill in the blank with the thing we struggle most with.
As a side note, it appears there is no country in the world that does not have its own talent show now.
No, I didn’t do anything nearly as good or interesting as what Andrea did during my time off. (Actually, I didn’t take time off – I just worked on other things. I have issues.) Still, it’s good to be back. To the stuff that matters. Such as this:
Mark Wahlberg regrets dedicating a book to his penis in the 90s.
Mark has given up his hell-raising ways and is now a respected actor who recently received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 39-year-old married his long-time partner Rhea Durham last year and the couple have four children together.
However, the star found fame as a streetwise teenager and released records as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Mark often posed topless to show off his muscular frame and became renowned for dropping his trousers during live performances.
In 1992, he released his memoirs entitled Marky Mark and paid tribute to his genitals in the preface.
When asked why he chose that dedication during Time magazine’s Live 10 Questions this week, Mark replied, “I thought it would be funny.”
Here’s an easy rule for you boys and girls out there: If you’re ever tempted to make your private parts public, don’t. Chances are you’ll regret it.
Please forgive the serious topic for a moment (some days, you gotta do what you gotta do). Hold onto your bonnets, ladies, because it appears the new Old Spice Dude is making personalized videos for bloggers and random fans. Please please please, can I get one?
If you’re somehow unaware of this phenomenon, read about it here. Below is my personal favourite (“I’m on a horse”).
p.s. I *hate* the smell of Old Spice…
p.p.s. here’s a fantastic interview/making of video
I’ve never seen this show, but it is a very strange argument in any case.
Seated at Tami Taylor’s kitchen table, Becky Sproles wrenchingly lays out her dilemma: The only child of an embittered single bartender who gave birth to her when she was a teenager, Becky is faced with the prospect of recycling her mother’s past and she doesn’t know what to do. [...]
Is she seeking an abortion simply to counter her mother’s example? What if she were capable, caring and present as a parent? What if, as an emotionally wounded 10th grader without resources living in Dillon, Tex., with its pageant of grim futures, she could defy sociological prediction?
The tortured expression on Becky’s face tells us how profoundly she would like this to be so and yet how clearly she foresees the bleaker reality. “I can’t take care of a baby,” she tearfully tells Tami, matriarch to Dillon’s lost youth. “I can’t.”
With those words Becky decides to have an abortion.
It seems to make the agrument that if Becky had never been born, her mother wouldn’t have ended up an embittered single bartender. The article ends,
Again and again, “Friday Night Lights” seems to remind us, as if in klieg lights, of the consequences of parenthood pursued by accident or default.
… gives us Andrea Bocelli (aka the “blind tenor”). It matters what we choose. As he says, maybe he’s partisan, but there is no question for him that his mother made the right choice.
The first thing I ever saw in 3D was Ghostbusters. I was six years old at the time, and I couldn’t get over just how real Slimer looked as he flew past my face. It was all I talked about for days, weeks, years afterward. Slowly, my interest in 3D waned and once again found myself content with the world of 2D entertainment.
3D cinema has come a long way since then, Pixar films, Avatar… but it’s still appealing to the younger audience. So when I read this article from The Chronicle Herald about Playboy going 3D, I was a little confused. Maybe their marketing department got the demographics all wrong.
Hefner makes no secret of hoping to capitalize on the popularity of 3D movies such as Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon, even as he makes no secret of not quite getting what all the fuss is about.
“I’m not a huge enthusiast of 3D,” he said in a telephone interview. “I leave real life to go to the movies and 2D is fine with me.”
Because you’re a grown-up, and isn’t Playboy for grown-ups?
Peter Gabriel believes in abortion. In particular for victims of rape in a country where abortion is illegal, apparently. Watch this video, and learn what it looks like to speak on a topic you know absolutely nothing about. I’m not trying to be mean, but when famous people weigh in on The Issues, they have a special way of sounding like they just descended to earth from another planet.
That said, time to get a little hypocritical. What the pro-life side needs is a famous person, Bono perhaps?–to stand up and defend life consistently. Any takers?
