God Does Not Exist: Bedbugs Prove It

Susan Jacoby, the "Spirited Atheist" at the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, seems to believe that she's hit upon a new and devastating argument for the non-existence of God:

The return of bedbugs to 21st-century urban America presents a most potent argument against the idea that everything in creation was planned by an intelligent designer.

We're afflicted with rape, murder, the slaughter-of-the-innocents, tidal waves and hurricanes and the best Ms. Jacoby can come up with is . . . bedbugs? Let's pray that Ms. Jacoby doesn't suggest that the little pests be exterminated, which would cause her excommunication from the Church of Secular Orthodoxy.

We confess we have no answer to Ms. Jacoby's argument. After all, we weren't around when the foundation of the earth was laid, or when its measurements were set, or its bases sunk.

Love

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Catholic Liturgical year for the Ordinary Form of the Mass. (In the Extraordinary Form, it was Septuagesima Sunday, that is, (approximately) 70 days until Easter, but I digress.) The Collect for the Ordinary Form was:

Concede nobis, Domine Deus noster,
ut te tota mente veneremur,
et omnes homines rationabili diligamus affectu.

Father John Zuhlsdorf slavishly translates this as:

Grant us, O Lord our God,
that we may venerate you with our whole mind,
and may love all men with rational good-will.

Father Z uses this prayer as his launching pad for a discussion of "love." His entire essay falls into the category of "things I wish I'd written," but the following excerpt struck me as particularly moving:

We are commanded by God the Father and God Incarnate Jesus Christ to love both God and our fellow man and God the indwelling Holy Spirit makes this possible. But the word and therefore concept of “love” is understood in many ways and today, especially, it is misunderstood. “Love” frequently refers to people or stuff we like or enjoy using. Bob can “love” his new SUV. Besty “loves” her new kitten. We all certainly “love” baseball and spaghetti. But “love” can refer to the emotional and affections people have when they are “in love” or, as I sometimes call it, “in luv”. Luv is usually an ooey-gooey feeling, a romantic “love” sometimes growing out of lust. This gooey romantic “love” now dominates Western culture, alas. The result is that when “feelings” change or the object of “luv” is no longer enjoyable or useable, someone gets dumped, often for a newer, richer, or prettier model.

There some other flavors of “love” you can come up with, I’m sure. But Christians, indeed every image of God in all times everywhere, are called to a higher love, the love in today’s prayer, which is charity: the grace-completed virtue enabling us to love God for His own sake and love all who are made in His image. This is more than benevolence or tolerance or desire or enjoyment of use. True love is not merely a response to an appetite, as when we might see a beautiful member of the opposite sex, a well-turned double-play, or a plate of spaghetti all’amatriciana. True love, charity, isn’t the sloppy gazing of passion drunk sweethearts or the rubbish we see on TV and in movies (luv). Charity is the grace filled adhesion of our will to an object (really a person) which has been grasped by our intellect to be good. The love invoked in our prayer is an act of will based on reason. It is a choice – not a feeling. Charity delights in and longs for the good of the other more than one’s own. The theological virtue charity involves grace. It enables sacrifices, any kind of sacrifice for the authentic good of another discerned with reason (not a false good and not “use” of the other). We can choose even to love an enemy. This love resembles the sacrificial love of Christ on His Cross who offered Himself up for the good of His spouse, the Church. Rationabilis affectus reflects what it is to be truly human, made in God’s image and likeness, with faculties of willing and knowing and, therefore, loving.

Just so. Read the whole thing.

Temple Prostitution for Lutherans

"I know, I know. Outrageous and offensive. I can hear readers already dismissing the idea out of hand. And I admit that we may not be ready for it quite yet. But please hear me out on this.

"First off, let’s address the common objections. Sure, there are a handful of Bible verses that might seem to condemn the practice. But all the condemnation of temple prostitution involves pagan practices or worship of false gods. The objectionable thing is the idolatry, not the physical act itself. Sanctified, faithful prostitution in service of the true God is a new thing. The Biblical writers never foresaw or contemplated sanctified, faithful, God-pleasing prostitution in the churches and thus never wrote about it. Attempts to find a Biblical injunction against the practice therefore fall short."

I wish I'd written THIS. I hate it when that happens.

Modesty

Big Tent Anglicanism

Matthew 22: 1 - 14

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.

"Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, 'Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.' But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.

"But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

"Then saith he to his servants, 'The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.' So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.

"And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, 'Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?'

"And he was speechless.

"Then said the king to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

G&S Sins Frequently

As you may have heard (on these pages? probably not), the Vatican released their revised, hip, with-it, au courant list of deadly sins. A refresher on the originals from the Catechism:

Pride
Envy
Gluttony
Lust
Anger
Greed
Sloth

Basic. We know them. Hell, even Brad Pitt knows them.

The updated list (per the BBC):

Environmental pollution
Genetic manipulation
Accumulating excessive wealth
Inflicting poverty
Drug trafficking and consumption
Morally debatable experiments
Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

Uhhh... what? You lost us on "morally debatable experiments," Ratzy. In the tradition of "stuff that really gets our goat," G&S (with some help from its cynical, godless, hedonistic research staff) offers some additional suggestions. After all, why stop at 7?

Littering
Line-cutting
Calling skim milk "non-fat"
Stopping when you get to the top of an escalator
Bouncing a check on purpose
One-sided printing
Exiting out the front door of the bus when there are people waiting to get on
Unsecured wi-fi
Using Starbucks corporate lingo when you order their drinks
Rooting for the Yankees
Failing to observe daylight saving time for no good contemporary reason
Wearing one of those bluetooth earpiece thingies all the time
Bottling domestic beer without a twist-off cap
Doing the macarena two beats off so that you switch in the middle of the measure
Doing the macarena at all
Amtrak
Keeping your .edu email address
Analog clocks on car dashboards
Gentrification
"Now That's What I Call Music!"
Saying "begs the question" when you mean "raises the question"
Giving raisins to trick-or-treaters
Red Bull
Calling everybody 'bro'
"Irregardless"
Insisting dollar coins are going to happen this time around
American Idol
Engagement party registries
Viral videos
Lower back tattoos
Citing Wikipedia

Your tireless editors continue to take suggestions.

And You're Assuming She Means Narnia

It's always best to tell the truth, rather than to say what you think your listener wants to hear. But politicians are selling every second and, unlike most salesmen, they have a wider field of play in representing just what the product is. A used car is, after all is said and done, still just a used car, and no amount of slick talking can make it into a blimp -- but a favorite book could be anything, and who's to contradict you?

Sometimes, however, you get called out by the most unlikely critics, as Mike Huckabee learned when he decided to talk down to the wrong little girl:

“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, 'The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.'"

Luke 24:1-7

And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

Then took they Him, and led Him, and brought Him into the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off.

And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.

But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, "This man was also with Him."

And he denied Him, saying, "Woman, I know Him not."

And after a little while another saw him, and said, "Thou art also of them." And Peter said, "Man, I am not."

And about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying, "Of a truth this fellow also was with Him: for he is a Galilaean."

And Peter said, "Man, I know not what thou sayest." And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crowed.

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said unto him, "Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice."

And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

Luke 22:54-62

Blessed are the Merciful

"In its relation to wrongdoing, mercy is retrospective; it looks upon sins already committed and is ever disposed to forgive. But progressives (always falsely, sometimes mischievously) orient mercy toward the future, turning it into a grant of permission to sin tomorrow. For a man to forgive an unpaid debt is an exercise of the virtue of mercy. For a confessor to tell his penitent, "your sins are forgiven; go and sin no more," is an act of sacramental mercy. But the progressive priest who says, "our compassionate God won't mind if you intend to commit such-and-such a sin," performs an act not of mercy but of subversion."

More here: Jesus Can Handle It.