Students in Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore were also following the traditional procedure when they clustered in hallways at about 3 p.m. May 20 when an EF-5 tornado swept into the community. Winds measured at more than 200 mph collapsed a concrete wall on the children, ages 8 and 9.
Dorman, a Democrat, said he wasn’t trying to put Republicans in a difficult political position with his proposal. He said he chose the franchise tax because the Legislature had temporarily suspended it so the money wasn’t spoken for. The revenue would be used for the bond payments.
“That just seemed like the best place to draw the money without hurting the budget,” he said.
But Republican leaders maintain that eliminating taxes, especially those on businesses, will encourage more investment in the state, generating more money for communities to pay for their own needs.
Since the rebuff, supporters of the shelter initiative, organized as Take Shelter Oklahoma, have become embroiled in a dispute with Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the state Chamber of Commerce over Pruitt’s use of wording in the ballot initiative that emphasizes the funding mechanism.
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“Just adding on a new tax burden on Oklahomans is not the answer,” said Republican State Superintendent Janet Barresi, Oklahoma’s highest ranking education official.
As part of the long process of formalizing a celebration of the birth of Christ–which includes shifting the purported date of Jesus’ arrival in the world to midwinter to co-opt pagan observances and then suppressing said observances–Saint Nicholas gets mashed up with other figures.
In the Apostolical times the Feast of the Nativity was not observed....It can never be proved that Christ was born on December 25....The New Testament allows of no stated Holy-Day but the Lords-day...It was in compliance with the Pagan saturnalia that Christmas Holy-dayes were first invented. The manner of Christmas-keeping, as generally observed, is highly dishonorable to the name of Christ." (quoted in Penne Restad, Christmas in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 14)But the date of December 25 probably corresponded with a holiday in Rome, and so as Rome Christianized such holidays were made over into Christian holidays. Then as the church centralized in Rome, important feast days regularized to prevent confusion. By the same token the Thunderbird stopped being something from Native American lore and became an automobile (and alcohol, ironically). Yes, Native American culture was crushed in America, but not so we could name a car.
"The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle."
He is not interested in church reform that amounts to a mere rearranging of the ecclesiastical furniture. Authentic ecclesial reform will be in service of the church's mission. In an address to the coordinating committee of the Episcopal Conference of Latin America, or CELAM, during his visit to Brazil in July, he said:
That, of course, prompts a response:The "change of structures" [from obsolete ones to new ones] will not be the result of reviewing an organizational flow chart, which would lead to a static reorganization; rather it will result from the very dynamics of mission. What makes obsolete structures pass away, what leads to a change of heart in Christians, is precisely missionary spirit.
"The service of the Roman Curia is part of the very nature of the church, and so that has to be respected," Cardinal Raymond Burke told EWTN, a U.S.-based Catholic cable network that spotlights conservative views.Indeed, you can draw a very bright line between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis from their own words:
"I can't imagine that somehow the Roman Curia is going to take on a completely different figure. It just doesn't make sense," Burke said. The interview was broadcast Thursday as the centerpiece of a program that highlighted concerns about the direction of the church since Francis was elected in March.
...
But Burke told EWTN that it was "not altogether clear what the results of the reform will be" and lamented what he described as "a kind of unpredictability about life in Rome in these days."
"One gets the impression, or it's interpreted this way in the media, that he thinks we're talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman," Burke said. "But we can never talk enough about that!"The Holy Spirit, need I say, is never about power; not even the power of persuasion. Access to the Holy Spirit comes only through vulnerability; through what St. Therese of Lisieux called "The Little Way." One might say the Pope wants his church to be more "catholic" by being more small, more concerned with little things.
....
"When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine," the pope contends, "then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit."
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) wants kids to learn early in life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he's proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals.We really should just cut to the chase and bring back the workhouses of Victorian England, because it's all about instilling a strong work ethic in the next generation:
....
"But one of the things I’ve talked to the secretary of agriculture about: Why don’t you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria -- and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people -- getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch," he said.
Asked for additional comment on the congressman's remarks, Kingston spokesman Chris Crawford replied, "It is sad that trying to have a productive conversation about instilling a strong work ethic in the next generation of Americans so quickly devolves into the usual name-calling partisan hysteria. Having worked from a young age himself, Congressman Kingston understands the value of hard work and the important role it plays in shaping young people."But does he understand the role poverty plays in shaping young people? Ironically, St. Nicholas did.
One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman's father had to offer prospective husbands something of value—a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man's daughters, without dowries, were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold, tossed through an open window, are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas. And so St. Nicholas is a gift-giver.He really should have taught those girls the value of hard work.
“This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don’t know quite why. That’s just the way God works. Sometimes some of us are lucky and some of us are not,” [Mayor Bloomberg] said.
I don’t think we can examine Pope Francis without understanding the significance Francis’ Jesuit background has on his papacy and on the move with respect to Burke. As a Jesuit, Francis has always lived in a community. Obviously, Francis enjoys people’s company which why he is living in the Vatican hotel. His experiences in community seem to inform Francis’ actions as Pope. The Church is just community on a grander scale.
"What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet."Not "what did you go to hear, what did you think when you listened, what did you learn from what John said: "What did you go out there to look at?"
While we may be sure that the Advent season developed first outside of Rome, to say more than that is not as easy as one might wish. Usener suggested, as have many others, that we see the beginnings of Advent in the fourth canon of a Council of Saragossa in 380. That canon urges the constant presence of the faithful in the church, calling on them not to stay at home or run off to the country or the mountains during a period of twenty-one continuous days, beginning from December 17 and reaching to the Epiphany.23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,[a] the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
In spite of many shifts and changes, that date is still the most common for the beginning of the "Great O" antiphons that have characterized vespers (and perhaps lauds originally) during the latter days of Advent from perhaps as early as the seventh century.--Thomas Talley
O Wisdom, O holy word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care; Come and show your people the way to salvation.
Las Posadas is a time of celebration in Mexico and the Southwest United States. It is an event of much significance with joy, protection and festivity. Las Posadas is always observed with much song and celebration. It is a novena of preparation for the feast of the Nativity. It begins on the 16th of December and ends on the 24th of December with the" Mass of the Rooster," the celebration of the Mass at Midnight.
Las Posadas has its origins, possibly, from Father Diego de Soria, a religious of the order of St. Augustine. He was an enthusiastic priest, introducing the devotion in Mexico, in the church of Alcoman, in 1587. It was the intention of this celebrated religious to contrast the celebration of the Aztecs in honor of their god of war, Huitzilopochtli. It was celebrated at the same time as the time of the Nativity, and was presenting many problems of attraction for the neophyte Christians.
Las Posadas of Father Diego became popular very quickly and extended to other churches in Mexico and the surrounding countryside. It then began to be celebrated in the homes of individuals.
It is the celebration of the "pilgrims" who go from house to house led by an angel who conducts the little donkey with the seated Virgin. She is accompanied by St. Joseph. They sing songs as they look for shelter, the masters of the houses open their doors and all who participate share in the buffet which the owners (innkeepers) of the house offer.
The people celebrate that the messiah will come again. It is the celebration of preparation for this coming. It is time to open the doors of our hearts to give shelter. How do we give shelter to Jesus? By the doing of good works. It is the preparation time for the doing and practicing of the virtues. It is a time for coming together with our neighbors. It is the occasion for gathering with our families and with those who live near us.--Fiestas Navideñas
McElwee begins by calling the New Atheist movement “a rather disturbing trend” in a country “whose greatest reformer” – Martin Luther King, Jr. – “was a Reverend.” Dr. King won fame as a civil rights leader, not as a religious figure.
According to a Pew poll conducted in 2012, a record number of young Americans – a quarter of those between the ages of 18 and 29 — see themselves as unaffiliated with any religion. Atheists’ ranks are swelling, and believers are finding it increasingly difficult to justify their faith.Because we know in America young people are the only people who count, and we know twice nothing is not still nothing (not when we don't want it to be), and America=The World, so those 1 billion Catholics (a subset of the number of Christians worldwide; and then are are the Muslisms, the Hindus, observant Jews, etc., etc., etc.) around the world don't amount to a hill of beans against a Pew poll of a few hundred Americans.
George W. Bush was a convert to Evangelical Christianity, which does not necessarily make him a “religious extremist,” and the (mixed) faiths of the Iraq War’s other architects (Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, et al.) did not fuel their zeal for deposing Saddam.And the proof of this? Tayler said so! What else do you need? But for definitions that make no sense to anyone except a polemicist, this one is the best:
Religion first and foremost consists of unsubstantiated, dogmatically advanced explanations for the cosmos and our place in it, with resulting universally applicable rules of conduct.Honestly, if you're going to be that stupid, we have nothing else to discuss. But since you insist on prattling on:
If one breaks free of the racket of faith, then faith-sanctioned strictures, fantastic tales (human parthenogenesis among them) demanding faith to be believed, to say nothing of the justness of tax exemptions for faith organizations, all appear as entirely human creations that are questionable at best, criminal at worst, and certainly deserving of no kid-glove treatment.The virgin birth is a Catholic teaching, and not one considered essential to Christian faith. Indeed, the commonality of all Christians is bound up in trinitarian doctrince, confession of Christ as Son of God, of God as Creator, and of Holy Spirit as Sanctifier. The only two sacraments which must be recognized are communion and baptism in the name of the Trinity. That's it. Virgin birth is an option, and not one widely adhered to by most clergy (most of us know the "virgin" Matthew identified meant "young girl" in the original from Isaiah, so we don't stumble on Matthew's nativity story, which is not, despite the season, all that central to Christianity). Kid gloves? Son, you can't even don kid's gloves, much less fight bare-knuckled. Forget your arms bein' too short to box with God, your arms are too short to box with me! Go away and come back when you have some clue as to what you're discussing. Until then, the grown ups want to talk, and you're interrupting.
Faith and reason are fighting for supremacy the world over, and rationalists must make their case with ardor, shying away from no battle.
Atheists who wobble in defense of nonbelief would do well to recall 9/11, Baruch Goldstein’s Hebron massacre of Palestinians, the Salem witch trials and violence meted out in the name of religion to “unchaste” women throughout the ages. This is, of course, an incomplete list of atrocities motivated by religion.First, what the hell is "nonbelief" and why do you have to defend it? Sounds like a belief system to me. Second: what you describe are battles for power, every one of them. "Motivated by religion"? No; motivated by the all-too human desire to be in charge. You seem to be familiar with that sentiment. You seem, in fact, to be "motivated by religion." Maybe you should look into that. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the humility taught by most of the world's religions; that it is honored more in the breach generally than in the keeping specifically by people like Gandhi, Dr. King, and Nelson Mandela, is simply proof that it is indeed common to religious belief.
Christmas works for all kind of reasons, not because it is simply the festival of peace and togetherness of which Al-Khalili dreams, but because it is so much more than that. It should be considered, for example, as the first scene in a tragedy that ends on the cross. In Journey of the Magi, this is how Eliot wrote of the first Christmas as ‘hard and bitter agony’ and most , if not all, Renaissace images of the Virgin and Child contain some visual mention of the cross. Then there is the difficulty of the birth, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents. This is not a story of peace and harmony, it is a story about the grievous lack of those things and, in that, it reflects the world as it is. Christmas only survives and Christianity only grips the imagination because it is not a fantasy, it is a truth that can only be apprehended through a story. Invent a secular equivalent and it will not last twenty years, never mind two thousand.Christmas as we know it today has been around since about the mid-19th century, and even then Dickens revived the older version (games and parties) which developed into the gift-giving obsession and fever of possession we all know and endure today. That part of "Christmas" is really not likely to endure. The story: "the difficulty of the birth, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents," the poverty of the conditions, the tension between Joseph and Mary, between Jesus and his family: this is a story that will renew as long as there is a human condition to reflect upon.
Graham Lawton: You compare revelations in neuroscience with the discoveries that the Earth goes around the sun and that the heart is a pump. What do you think these ideas have in common?
Patricia Churchland: They challenge a whole framework of assumptions about the way things are. For Christians, it was very important that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Similarly, many people believed that the heart was somehow what made us human. And it turned out it was just a pump made of meat.
I think the same is true about realizing that when we're conscious, when we make decisions, when we go to sleep, when we get angry, when we're fearful, these are just functions of the physical brain. Coming to terms with the neural basis of who we are can be very unnerving. It has been called "neuroexistentialism," which really captures the essence of it. We're not in the habit of thinking about ourselves that way.
I think the same is true about realizing that when we're conscious, when we make decisions, when we go to sleep, when we get angry, when we're fearful, these are just functions of the physical brain.
GL: Are there any implications of neuroscience that you feel unsettled by?
PC: I'd have to say no. It takes some getting used to, but I'm not freaked out by it. I certainly understand the ambivalence people have. On one hand, they're fascinated because it helps explain their mother's Alzheimer's, but on the other, they think, “Gosh, the love that I feel for my child is really just neural chemistry?” Well, actually, yes, it is. But that doesn't bother me.
I'm not sure what "useless and meaningless sacrifices" she's talking about there. Maybe it's just her addled brain chemistry. But as a Christian I'm not preparing my life for the "great beyond" based on a lot of "metaphysical junk." I know of people who are; but I'm able to not think like them without throwing the baby out with the bathwater; or jumping to absurd conclusions that I really am just a walking test tube of chemical reactions. And, in fact, that "metaphysical junk" I do ascribe to is precisely what allows me to see my connection to other biological things. And the only sacrifices I'm interested in are giving up those things that keep me from being a compassionate human being who recognizes in others their humanity , which I do through Christ who makes all things new in me.
By and large I find neuroscience liberating because it allows us to see our connections to other biological things, and because it's not full of metaphysical junk about preparing your life for the great beyond. Of course it's possible we're wrong. But it doesn't seem very likely, and that lack of likelihood is sufficient for me to not want to organize my life around this possibility. I want to enjoy it now. I don't want to make useless and meaningless sacrifices, and I don't want to trash this planet because I think a better one awaits me.
GL: You accept that we don't have satisfying neural explanations for a lot of higher functions, including consciousness, problem-solving, decision-making, sleep, and dreaming. Are we really ready to declare that we are our brains?
PC: True, we don't have adequate explanations yet, and it's important not to overstate where things are. But that's where the evidence is pointing. Everything we're learning in neuroscience points us in that direction.
GL: Some might say the idea that you are just your brain makes life bleak, unforgiving and ultimately futile. How do you respond to that?Fair enough, but everything she just described is apparently just a process of brain chemistry; and yet she finds that meaningful. How does that work exactly? Especially if one day, through war or sickness or calamity or economic failure or just aging you lose the family, the meaningful work, the dogs, the garden? If that stops making life meaningful, or if her brain chemistry just tells her that's no longer good enough, then what?
PC: It's not at all bleak. I don't see how the existence of a god or a soul confers any meaning on my life. How does that work, exactly? Nobody has ever given an adequate answer. My life is meaningful because I have family, meaningful work, because I love to play, I have dogs, I love to dig in the garden. That's what makes my life meaningful, and I think that's true for most people.
The scientific revolution of the 17th century, which has given rise to such extraordinary progress in the understanding of nature, depended on a crucial limiting step at the start: It depended on subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental – consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose.
Now one immediately identifies in all evolutionary based arguments the initial exclusion of purpose. Purpose is the nature of theism, the argument goes, and therefore is antithetical to the scientific enterprise, especially where biology is concerned.
The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.
This means that the scientific outlook, if it aspires to a more complete understanding of nature, must expand to include theories capable of explaining the appearance in the universe of mental phenomena and the subjective points of view in which they occur – theories of a different type from any we have seen so far.
There are two ways of resisting this conclusion, each of which has two versions. The first way is to deny that the mental is an irreducible aspect of reality, either (a) by holding that the mental can be identified with some aspect of the physical, such as patterns of behavior or patterns of neural activity, or (b) by denying that the mental is part of reality at all, being some kind of illusion (but then, illusion to whom?). The second way is to deny that the mental requires a scientific explanation through some new conception of the natural order, because either (c) we can regard it as a mere fluke or accident, an unexplained extra property of certain physical organisms – or else (d) we can believe that it has an explanation, but one that belongs not to science but to theology, in other words that mind has been added to the physical world in the course of evolution by divine intervention.
In the early 1990s I was engaged in a debate with Dawkins at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said, to much applause, that the existence of God was a scientific issue. If, in effect, God could not live up to the standards of scientific proof, then He must be declared dead.Existence is a scientific issue? Really? Can Dawkins define the parameters of existence? Can he give it a precise definition, the way we can define an angstrom or a light year or a gram, or a "selfish" gene, for that matter? Can he give the empirical principles that support it? Can he give us a scientific explanation of being? Can he prove, with science, his own existence? Or can he do no more than establish his identity, based on his works and the fact everyone associates that face, body, and voice, with that name, so that by convention we agree he is "Richard Dawkins"? Then again, what does that mean?
All around me in the stadium, South Africans were dancing, singing and laughing to honour their departed leader. It was more like a carnival atmosphere, not at all morbid. The ceremony had already gone on for two hours and would last another two. The atmosphere was totally relaxed – I didn’t see anything shocking in my viewfinder, president of the US or not. ...I heard news reports about people dancing in the rain the day of the memorial service, and even people saying tradition in Africa held that rain on such a day meant the heavens were open to bless the virtue of the dearly departed. Where we might see rain on a funeral day as one more reason to be gloomy (and I've done funerals in snow; it's not cheering at all), they see it as another reason to give thanks for the life of the one who has died.
The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of human beings who, united in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, press onwards toward the kingdom of the Father and are bearers of a message of salvation intended for all. That is why Christians cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history.
They've come to sing in your honor
from the desert and the forest.
From valleys deep in the mountains;
they make a joyful chorus.
They've brought their drums and their dances,
ancient ways their parents taught them;
Their village saints and their banners,
ev'ry group mad sure they brought them.
O Mother dark and lovely
hear the poor who come with their song;
Lead them into Jesus' kingdom
where they truly do belong.
From Vera Cruz and Nogales,
from old Taxco with its fountains,
Tehuantepec, Zacetecas,
and Durango in the mountains;
The come from humid Tampico,
Matamoros near the river,
From the ranchos deep in Sonora
where the cottonwoods still quiver.
They dance to show they love you,
out of faith and deep emotion,
They offer flowers and candles
as a sign of their devotion.
The children run and are laughing
all are sure that you still love them,
While parents weep out of gladness,
for you picture's there above them.
“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change,” [Megyn Kelly, "brilliant supermodel"] said (unintentionally providing a sort of mantra for conservatism vis-à-vis race). “You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too. He was a historical figure; that’s a verifiable fact—as is Santa, I want you kids watching to know that—but my point is: How do you revise it, in the middle of the legacy of the story, and change Santa from white to black?”
