[Please click here for part 1, as this just picks up where that left off. Also, another blogger found the article again at a new URL on the same site. I’d searched using their advance search form with no success, but glad that it’s back so people can read the whole thing.]

The newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent

The authors, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva,  start this section with their definition of personhood.

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.

Thus, to be a person, you have to know you’re a person and be able to value it. The state of not knowing, however, lasts quite a bit beyond newborn status. The authors, again, fail to address this. More than fail to, actually, they refuse to address it, as we shall see.

Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

The equivalence here is somewhat flawed, not the least because they start to blur the moral right to life with the legal right to life. Further, they equate giving up your legal right to life (by, for example, murdering someone else) with a fetus or embryo being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Depending on your morals, all three examples have a moral right to life, it’s just in the last case it was actively forfeited.

Read the rest of this entry

[FYI, Part 2 of my "after-birth abortion" article will appear Monday, for both of you waiting for it. ]

Obama: ‘Drill Drill Drill won’t work. And you can thank Me that it did.’

America’s per capita debt is worse than Greece. And Greece’s credit rating is in the basement.

BBC: We’ll Mock Jesus But Never Mohammed. (Because Christians won’t cut off their head or burn things.)

For all the talk about crude names called at Sandra Fluke, the war on conservative women goes merrily unreported. Meryl Yourish refers to this as the new Exception Clause.

No wonder liberals think their unconstitutional ideas are constitutional. They don’t understand the document’s intent.

Like all generalizations, it’s not true of every single case, but James Q. Wilson asks an interesting question: Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

And finally, the return of the political cartoon to Friday Link Wrap-ups.

October Baby
“Every life is beautiful”

From Brett Kunkle,

Mark your calendars for March 23. That’s when a new movie, October Baby, will hit movie screens. I was able to preview the film last week and suggest you go see this one in the theater. I’ll be up front, it is a strong pro-life movie dealing head-on with abortion. But it was powerful and compelling, without being preachy. The message comes through loud and clear, but in a way that stirred my soul (yes, yes…I cried like 4 times — it was intense). And ultimately, the message is hopeful.

Trailer here.

###

Tatts for Jesus! Except…
these are done FOR Lent.

From Joe Carter,

Although Christians have been getting inked for centuries, the recent rise in popularity and mainstream acceptance of tattoos is leading many Christians to reflect on the meaning and prudence of the practice.

“Nearly 40 percent of young adults aged 18-28 have tattoos now, which is more than four times the number in the Baby Boom generation,” noted Matthew Lee Anderson in his book Earthen Vessels: Why our Bodies Matter for our Faith. “While tattoos mark a desire for significance within a destabilized world, they are a live option for most young people precisely because we have not escaped the clutches of the consumerism and the individualism that are so often criticized.”

From CNN,

In a hip, artsy, area of Houston, a hip, artsy pastor is taking an unorthodox approach to Lent.

…

He asked them to get tattoos. Specifically, he asked congregants to get a tattoo corresponding with one of the Stations of the Cross, the collection of images that depict scenes in Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion.

…

Another member of Ecclesia, Joyce O’Connor, channeled her family when she was deciding what station of the cross to get tattooed onto her body. O’Connor, who has one biological child and two stepchildren, connected with the fourth station, Jesus meeting his mother.

“I am a mother and in just a minuscule way can relate to how Mary must have felt,” O’Conner said.

“The tattoo captured me and I love it,” she continued. “When I think of that image, I don’t feel tragedy or sadness because I know how the story ends and it makes me smile.”

Permanent images on your body using Biblical imagery as a metaphor for what has happened in your life?

It seems to me that this is nothing more than a carnal attempt at personalizing scripture or, in these cases, Biblical notions.

###

Could this be an Introvert’s weapon of choice for fighting smalltalk?
From Engadget,

Silence is golden, so there are plenty of times when it’d be awfully convenient to mute those around us, and a couple of Japanese researchers have created a gadget that can do just that. Called the SpeechJammer, it’s able to “disturb remote people’s speech without any physical discomfort” by recording and replaying what you say a fraction of a second after you say it. Why would that shut up the chatty Cathy next to you? Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) is based on an established psychological principle that it’s well-nigh impossible for folks to speak when their words are played back to them just after they’ve been uttered.

###

Postscript to the Open Letter to Praise Bands
Excerpts,

1. Worship is not only expressive, it is also formative. It is not only how we express our devotion to God, it is also how the Spirit shapes and forms us to bear God’s image to the world. This is why the form of worship needs to be intentional: worship isn’t just something that we do; it does something to us. And this is why worship in a congregational setting is a communal practice of a congregation by which the Spirit grabs hold of us. How we worship shapes us, and how we worship collectively is an important way of learning to be the body of Christ…

2. Because worship is formative, and not merely expressive, that means other cultural practices actually function as “competing” liturgies, rivals to Christian worship. …The point is that such loaded cultural practices are actually shaping our loves and desires by the very form of the practice, not merely by the “content” they offer. If we aren’t aware of this, we can unwittingly adopt what seem to be “neutral” or benign practices without recognizing that they are liturgies that come loaded with a rival vision of “the good life.” If we adopt such practices uncritically, it won’t matter what “content” we convey by them, the practices themselves are ordered to another kingdom. And insofar as we are immersed in them, we are unwittingly mis-shaped by the practices.

Read it all.

###

Yes, conservative women do get more of the “Rush-treatment”

###

Heh. Funny. Very funny.

© Day by Day

I would have never thought of this, but then, I have a difficult time understanding the entitlement mentality.

Last Friday, I noted in my Friday Link Wrap-up "Medical "ethicists" are seriously arguing that post-birth newborns are ‘not persons’ and can ethically be "aborted". I also posted this article on Facebook, and one of my friends took me to task on it. He said that "sloppy agenda laden journalism" has misinterpreted their intent, and that "the researchers are attempting to provoke debate on the ethics of abortion, not the desirability to kill newborns."

I’ve read the whole piece by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, and I come to the conclusion that, while their stated intent may not be to suggest that it is desirable to kill newborns, the result will be the same. The main problem I see is that, while they have their personal moral stances regarding how often and in what circumstances what they call "after-birth abortions" would take place, their stances would not be what others use to make their determination. Would they accept a gun manufacturer’s statement that "I don’t intend my product to kill innocent people"? Perhaps not, but it can be used that way, and abortion kills millions upon millions because they are merely inconvenient. The authors’ morals will not be used to put into practice their suggestions. Keep that in mind.

(Note: While putting this blog post together, the article was removed from the Journal of Medical Ethics website. The link takes you to a "Not Found" page, and no amount of searching for title, text, or authors could find it. I’m not sure if it was taken down for some reason, or if, perhaps, only the most recent articles appear on the website. In any event, the article is no longer there. I’ll continue to look to see if it gets posted elsewhere.)

(Second note: This is why I haven’t posted anything this week so far. I’ve been spending my time working on this.)

Read the rest of this entry

In Canada, strip searches from possession of a deadly … crayon.

Also from the Great White North, government intrusion into homeschool, saying that Christian parents can’t teach a Biblical view of homosexuality. Freedom of religion is being chipped away slowly enough that most don’t see it.

If Obama is some post-racial president, why is he launching "African Americans for Obama"?

Medical "ethicists" are seriously arguing that post-birth newborns are "not persons" and can ethically be "aborted".

With all the religious implications of Obama’s policies, you’d think he’d have kept around his faith-based council for advice. Nope, they’ve just faded away.

Movie reviewers of the liberal persuasion are all for anti-war, anti-military or pro-environmental message movies, but that idea gets thrown out when they disapprove of the message. Suddenly, it’s "propaganda".

Scofflaw Democrats. "The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 further provides that if, for two years in a row, more than 45% of Medicare funding is coming from general revenues rather than Medicare taxes, the president must submit legislation to Congress to address the Medicare funding crisis. President Bush dutifully followed the law, but President Obama has ignored it for the last three years."

Obama claims that we can’t drill our way out of the energy problem, and then, in the same speech, notes that domestic oil production is at it’s highest level in 8 years. Because we drilled! Can’t have it both ways, Mr. President, but the press will try to let you have it.

Recently, in Christian apologetic circles, it was noted that a former Christian professor of philosophy had converted to an Eastern religion. Dr. Michael Sudduth, from San Francisco State University, was highlighted in the blog post Michael Sudduth Converts to Vaishnava Vedanta!

As part of our home schooling effort, we engage in a weekly Current Events series in which I have my oldest daughter (high school) read various news items (which I have selected), and then write a brief commentary on the item, first explaining what the article was about and then giving her opinion on the story.

Here is what she wrote regarding the conversion story of Dr. Sudduth:

This article is a letter written by a man who has converted from Christianity to Vaishnava Vedanta. He had been a Protestant Christian for 25 years, but had increasingly become drawn toward Vedanta, both trough a philosophical attraction and an experiential attraction. As he began to explore the religion more deeply, he became profoundly affected by it and to feel the presence of God through it. He began to believe that his former beliefs in God were a limited expression of the deeper meaning he found through Vedanta.

Vaishnavism articulates a model of the love of God, where intimacy and separation are the two important elements of the divine-human love relation. People are both one with God and separate from God. The relationship with God is a simultaneous difference and non-difference. He believes that God is manifested in different ways, and God-realization takes on diverse forms. Vaishnavism acknowledges religious truth found across different religious traditions, and though the names are many, God is one. How we experience God depends on different aspects of our own personalities.

The author says that he does not believe he is worshipping a different God than he worshipped when he was a Christian – he believes it is the same God, under a different, and fuller manifestation. He says that the basic principles of Vaishnavism are compatible with a number of fundamental Christian beliefs, and that he is not relinquishing these beliefs but situating them in a different philosophical and theological context. He closes his letter by saying that he doesn’t want to convert any of his friends to Vaishnavism, but he hopes that they’ll make each other better devotees in their respective faiths.

From this letter, it seems like the author has based his entire conversion on experience. He felt something when reading the texts associated with Vaishnavism, he felt a closeness to the person of Lord Krishna, he felt profoundly affected and overwhelmed with a sense of the presence of God. He felt Krishna’s presence in his bedroom, he felt a validation of his spiritual journey. Even when he starts talking about philosophy and theology, he says that he has found aspects of the Vedanta theology and philosophy appealing to him. I think that his question should not be, “is it appealing?”, or “does it feel right?”, rather, he should ask “does it line up with reality?” He seems to ignore this question, replacing it with how he happens to feel. If these beliefs don’t line up with reality, if they’re not true, they shouldn’t be believed no matter how appealing they are or how good they make one feel.

The author claims that Vaishnavism is compatible with Christianity. He even claims he is worshipping the same God he worshipped before he switched religions. However, if he really means this, he couldn’t have been worshipping the Christian God before. Jesus said that He was the only way to God – obviously, the author believes there are many ways to get to God, so his beliefs are in direct opposition to fundamental Christian beliefs.

Lastly, he says that he’s only interested in making his friends better devotees to their respective religions, not in making them converts to Vaishnavism. Why is this? If he believes that Vaishnavism is true, then shouldn’t he want to convince other people of that? This religion seems to be one without much substance – it seems like anything you believe goes, and I don’t think that lines up to the way the world we know actually works.

Personally, I think that it is incumbent on us, as Christian parents, to prepare our children for the realities of a post-Christian America, thereby providing them with the resources to not only counter the worldviews they will come up against, but to courteously provide a clear explanation of the veracity of the Christian worldview.

And, I’m proud of my daughter’s grasp of these concepts, while in high school. We must engage our young adults (that would be anyone older than 13) in the marketplace of ideas, stretching them, and setting the bar high – they can achieve it.

If Samuel L. Jackson voted for Obama because he’s black –  using as his reasoning, "’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them … That’s American politics, pure and simple." — then is it OK for white folks to vote for white guys just because they’re white? Could those white folks expect the non-reaction to their reasoning as Jackson got for his?

Albert Mohler takes Nicholas Kristof to civics class.  The Constitution protect freedom of religion as a basic right, not only when it’s convenient.

"Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy." No, we want to make as many people as possible wealthy, as opposed to Venezuela’s socialism, which is making as many people as possible poor.

Stoning Christians on the Temple Mount. No, not Jews. One more guess.

Germans are discovering that, when they need their solar energy most, during December and January, it doesn’t help that they don’t get much sunshine then.

Sign of the Times: "For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage" Perhaps Rick Santorum isn’t as kooky as some are making him out to be.

How close does the corporate worship singing in your church mimic a secular concert? Does it matter?

From An Open Letter to Praise Bands,

…I sometimes worry that we’ve unwittingly encouraged you [praise bands] to import certain forms of performance that are, in effect, “secular liturgies” and not just neutral “methods.” Without us realizing it, the dominant practices of performance train us to relate to music (and musicians) in a certain way: as something for our pleasure, as entertainment, as a largely passive experience. The function and goal of music in these “secular liturgies” is quite different from the function and goal of music in Christian worship.

And then, these axioms,

1. If we, the congregation, can’t hear ourselves, it’s not worship. Christian worship is not a concert…

2. If we, the congregation, can’t sing along, it’s not worship…

3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it’s not worship…

…This isn’t just some plea for “traditional” worship and a critique of “contemporary” worship. Don’t mistake this as a defense of pipe organs and a critique of guitars and drums (or banjos and mandolins). My concern isn’t with style, but with form: What are we trying to do when we “lead worship?” If we are intentional about worship as a communal, congregational practice that brings us into a dialogical encounter with the living God–that worship is not merely expressive but also formative–then we can do that with cellos or steel guitars, pipe organs or African drums.

Read it all.

At what point does our worship singing methodology fall in line with the purpose of worship? For that matter, what is the purpose of worship? To energize the singers, individually, so they leave the service feeling better or happier than when they entered? How does a passion for Christ manifest itself in our singing – our corporate singing?

The HHS Mandate Edition

Six Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate
Read the entire post,

1.The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities, or hospitals.

2.The mandate forces these institutions and others, against their conscience, to pay for things they consider immoral.

3.The mandate forces coverage of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and devices as well as contraception.

4.Catholics of all political persuasions are unified in their opposition to the mandate

5.Many other religious and secular people and groups have spoken out strongly against the mandate.

6.The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates.

###

Message from Chuck Colson
If the administration does not back down, religious liberty—as clearly articulated in the Constitution and in court cases—will be gravely impaired. And your organization, like mine, will face the question of civil disobedience.

###

Manhattan Declaration – Sign it

###

Tightening the Screws
From the article,

Perhaps the Government’s own attempt to kick this can down the road until after the elections will be cited as evidence. In its announcement of January 20, 2012, HHS stated that “birth control… is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women.” If contraception is already the most commonly taken drug in America, then it seems hardly necessary to shove a requirement to provide it down the throat of the Catholic Church and other religious organizations.

###

National Petition to Stop HHS Mandate – Sign it

###

Obama Tries to Spin His Way Out
From Mere Comments,

Abstinence for 15-year-olds is considered impossible–how in the world can they possibly control themselves? But obesity is something we can fix by teaching them to control their appetites for certain foods and eating veggies. What a country.

California, like Greece, has been spending like there’s no tomorrow. And, like Greece, there may not be a tomorrow, if they can find $3.3 billion in the couch cushions.

Occupy Wall Street complained about how powerless they were against big banks and other members of "the 1%". Their solution was more government intervention to make things "fair". Ironically, their best success came when they themselves, the people, switched banks to protest fees and other things. In many cases, we don’t need government to act for us, we just need to act. The people already have the power. Use it!

James Taranto on the fallout from the Planned Parenthood / Susan G. Komen for the Cure dustup: "Planned Parenthood’s bitter campaign against Komen–aided by left-liberal activists and media–is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. The message to other Planned Parenthood donors is that if they don’t play nice and keep coughing up the cash, they’ll get the Komen treatment."

Speaking of which, if even a New York Times columnist recognizes press bias in anything dealing with abortion, you know it’s getting much worse.

Speaking of which, while the media did report that donations to Planned Parenthood were up after the controversy, they conveniently didn’t report that Komen donations doubled.

Abortion pill via vending machine. Talk about changing the concept of "over the counter". What does it say about our society that a university finds it useful to dedicate entire vending machines to abortion pills? A cousin of mine commented, "These are the same people, of course, who will freak out at the presence of Chemicals In Food. But take a pill strong enough to abort before the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall? No biggie."

Churches using school buildings during weekends is not a church-state issue. It just isn’t. New York City politicians are evicting some because of fear of lawsuits, not for any actual legal reasons. As Ed Stetzer says, "Any constitutional concerns about church use of public school buildings can be answered by a religion-neutral approach. A government that is religion-neutral we will not discriminate based on the content of speech–even unpopular religious speech. Thus, I stand with my Muslim friends who wish to rent on Friday, my Jewish friends on Saturday, and my Christian friends on Sunday–all paying money to use space that belongs to us all."

President Obama may have picked the wrong fight when his administration announced they were forcing the Catholic Church to provide contraceptives including the morning after pill to their employees. In his unforced error, the President may have awakened the sleeping giant of the Catholic Church and set the wheels in motion for a permanent political shift. From the Daily Mail:

Prominent Catholic leaders across the U.S. have threatened to turn voters against President Obama over his controversial plans to offer free birth control.

The fight is over a provision of the health reform law announced on January 20 that would require health insurance plans — including those offered by institutions such as Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities — to offer free birth control including sterilization.

According to estimates, there are some 70 million Catholic voters – and many could be posed to vote against the president in the crucial upcoming election.

Catholic League head Bill Donohue said: ‘Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,’ CBS New York reported.

‘This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.’ Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who was promoted to the status of a Cardinal just weeks ago, spoke out about the issue.

‘It’s not about contraception. It’s about the right of conscience,’ he told reporters. ‘The government doesn’t have the right to butt into the internal governance and teachings of the church,” he said.

‘This is not a Catholic issue, it’s an American issue. We’re strong on this issue of conscience, and that’s what’s at stake here.’

Catholic clergy on Sunday called on the faithful to write Congress to protest new birth control rules from President Barack Obama’s administration, stepping up a campaign that began a week ago with denunciations from the pulpit at Masses across the country.

Catholics are traditionally staunchly pro-life despite their tendency to vote for Democrats. But over the past couple of election cycles, Catholics have slowly begun to wake up to the fact that many prominent Democrats who also profess to be Catholics (think John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi) don’t hold the same values as those that the church endorses.

The Catholic Church is rising to the challenge because they realize this controversy is not just about abortion. It’s also about religious liberty. And they are finally realizing that Democrats that they have worked to elect over the past several decades are not their allies. It’s about time.

It’s starting with the Catholic church but it won’t be long before all churches will be targeted. But the Catholic church isn’t going to take this lying down.

The controversy began when the Obama Administration informed Catholic institutions that the new healthcare law requires them to pay for contraceptives. It’s not just birth control pills, either. They are also requiring them to provide the so-called “morning after” pill to anyone who wants them. The Catholic church has responded that the rule violates their teaching and they will not abide by it. In fact, they are calling for parishoners to stand up in civil disobedience. Archbishop Jose Gomez is among those calling for action.

While the first impulse would be to say this is merely a political dispute, it is anything but. This is a salvo in an ongoing war against Christians. Catholics and Evangelicals have an opportunity to band together for the greater good. When you have people of different faiths and political backgrounds come together for a common cause (as can be seen in this video) then you know you have a huge issue on your hands.

On one hand, there is a constitutional crisis that is being brought about by the administration’s actions. Their edict is a clear violation of the First Amendment. For years, liberals have misinterpreted the phrase “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” to mean that the church cannot influence government. But the amendment was worded this way to prevent exactly the sort of action that the administration is taking. Government should not interfere in the affairs of the church. That’s exactly what’s happening here.

But there is another issue at stake. As Elizabeth Scalia put it in her recent article, “With the administration’s decision, the covert culture of death has finally made a truly overt move against the culture of life.” The adminstration has stripped away any pretenses that they were in any way supportive of those of us who strongly believe in life.

This is not simply a controversy involving the Catholic Church. It is part of a larger war against people of faith. It’s also a wake up call to Americans to realize that their country and the rights that we hold so dear are being taken away from them right before their eyes.

Martin Niemoller, founder of the Confessing Church in Germany during World War II, famously summed it up:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

It’s time to stand up against tyranny. It’s time to stand up in civil disobedience to this government. It’s time for change. It’s not about supporting one candidate over another. It’s about standing up for what is right. It’s about standing up for truth. There’s a war on. Are you ready for battle?

The Firearm as a Tool
In Washington state, a National Park Ranger was shot dead by an Iraq War vet with post traumatic stress syndrome. In Oklahoma, an 18 year-old widowed mother shot and killed an intruder in her home.

From Massad Ayoob,

In each case, the death weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun. Some in the anti-gun camp have already blamed the law that allows ordinary, law-abiding citizens to be armed in parks like the one where the ranger was killed, for the depredations of a madman who had already violated every law from the Sixth Commandment on down before he reached the park. I try not to use words like “idiocy” when speaking of the other side, but in this case it fits. The firearm is a tool, which carries out the will of the owner. Evil in the first case, good in the second. Yes, it IS that simple.

###

On that anti-gun hysteria
From the news report on the Park Ranger who was shot and killed,

It has been legal for people to take loaded firearms into Mount Rainier since 2010, when a controversial federal law went into effect that made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.

That controversial federal law actually applies to the concealed carry laws which, to the best of my knowledge, do not apply to the carrying of 12-gauge shotguns.

###

The True 1%
From Consumer Reports,

Only 1 percent of all mobile subscribers are guilty of gobbling up 50 percent of the world’s bandwidth, according to a new report by the British company Arieso, which advises mobile operators in Africa, Europe and the U.S.

###

Quiet
Please.

###

Coddling replacing spanking?
From The Atlantic,

But crotchety as I am, I find it sort of creepy–and anecdotally, as the first generation of what David Brooks calls “Organization Kids” enters the workforce, employers are apparently complaining that they have an outsized sense of entitlement combined with a difficulty coping with unstructured tasks.

###

Apathy about religion and spiritual matters in America?
And this is surprising? From the article,

Most So Whats are like Gerst, says David Kinnaman, author of You Lost Me on young adults drifting away from church.

They’re uninterested in trying to talk a diverse set of friends into a shared viewpoint in a culture that celebrates an idea that all truths are equally valid, he says. Personal experience, personal authority matter most. Hence Scripture and tradition are quaint, irrelevant, artifacts. Instead of followers of Jesus, they’re followers of 5,000 unseen “friends” on Facebook or Twitter.

This is not surprising given our culture of peace, prosperity, and self-infatuation… the sorry thing is, we perpetuate this mentality in the church and in how we think we are evangelizing.

[Wow, long time, no blogging. But I’m back into a routine again, so here goes.]

If Bill Maher has lost atheist sports writers, he’s lost America. Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post explains her puzzlement at him.

If God is liable to smite anybody around here, it’s me. When it’s smiting time, I duck, because I don’t believe in any religion that requires a building and loan payments. Nevertheless, I’m having a hard time seeing anything wrong with Tim Tebow taking a prayer knee in public. The knee seems a pretty plain and graceful statement, and it’s tiresome to see it so willfully misinterpreted. It’s the preachers from the top of Mount Idiot like Bill Maher who are hard to understand.

If you want to know Maher’s overriding philosophy on anything, you have to go back to high school and the stoner in the last row, surrounded by sycophants as he makes ugly cracks about his betters. That was the vein of the tweet that Maher chucked at Tebow on Christmas Eve, after the Broncos quarterback was intercepted three times in a loss to the Buffalo Bills. Maher wrote, “Wow, Jesus just [expletive] Tim Tebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is Tebowing, saying to Hitler, ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them.’ ”

Set aside the intriguing question of whether Maher would have the nerve if Tebow were Muslim. Or whether he’s funny. (He’s not, really. Monty Python is.) What’s more interesting is why Maher, and other political commentators from Bill Press to David Shuster, feel compelled to rip on Tebow simply for kneeling.

Based on the first 2 sentences, I’m assuming atheism on the part of Jenkins. If I’m wrong, I apologize. However, whether or not she is doesn’t really take away from the point that the press and others seem to really have a huge problem with one guy taking his religion seriously, rather than shutting it in the closet while he’s at work.

Ironically, these would be the same people who would (rightly) castigate Tebow for having an affair, or pilfering from teammates, or swearing up a storm; anything that would tend to be at odds with his testimony. And yet when he does things that line up with his religion, they still crack on him. You just can’t win with some atheists, eh?

Now understandably, Tebow is a public figure and some of this comes with the territory. I’m not saying that Tebow is beyond criticism. But you can go over the line, and I think Maher and many others have done that. Criticism is one thing. But just like there is a right way and a wrong way to tackle an opponent, a cheap shot is quite another thing altogether.

But why all this vitriol? Jenkins asks and answers.

What is so threatening about Tebow? It can’t be his views. Tebow has never once suggested God cares about football. Quite the opposite. It’s Maher and company who stupidly suggest a Tebow touchdown scores one for Evangelicals whereas an interception somehow chalks one up for atheism. Anyone who listens to Tebow knows he doesn’t do Jesus talk, he’s mostly show and no tell. His idea of proselytizing is to tweet an abbreviated Bible citation. Mark 8:36. He leaves it up to you whether to look it up. When he takes a knee, it’s perfectly obvious that it’s an expression of humility. He’s crediting his perceived source, telling himself, don’t forget where you came from. On the whole, it’s more restrained than most end-zone shimmies.

So why does Tebow’s expression of faith make people so silly-crazy? Why do they care what he does?

Because he emphasizes the aspect of his talent that is given, not earned.

And that makes people nervous. The reactions to Tebow seem to fall under the category of what theologian Michael J. Murray calls “Theo-phobia.” In his essay “Who’s Afraid of Religion?” Murray argues we’re ill at ease with intrusions of personal faith. We fear they could lead to oppression, or mania, or even prove us wrong.

Basically, when you shine a light, it points out how dark it really has been. Here’s a guy who’s thankful for the talent he’s been given, rather than thinking he’s earned or deserved it (and we have seen countless times how that attitude has become self-destructive). If you tsk-tsk when a player is found with a gun at a bar, how can you possibly belittle a guy staying away from that because of his religion, who’s publicly showing it and is thus asking to be held accountable?

You can belittle him, if you feel you have to, if doing so allows you to keep your feeling of superiority. If you’ve ever seen Maher in action, you know he’s got that. Which explains his animosity. If he doesn’t want to continue to look childish, he should just stay away from religious topics completely.

Christopher Hitchens was a brilliant writer, and while I disagreed with him often, especially with regards to religion and Christianity, he certainly could make a good and entertaining point. Douglas Wilson, writing on the  Christianity Today website, considered Hitchens to be a classic "contrarian". Wilson had many occasion to work with Hitchens when the two would do the circuit debating this or that point of Christianity. Wilson gives us a look behind the scenes at what Hitchens was really like. He closes noting that Hitchens told his readership that, should he ever say, or be reported to have said, that he ultimately converted on his death bead, to simply not believe it. Even if he did say that, he would not be in his right mind.

This is interesting, not so much because of what it says about what he did or did not do as death approached him, and as he at the same time approached death. It is interesting because, when he gave these interviews, he was manifestly in his right mind, and the thought had clearly occurred to him that he might not feel in just a few months the way he did at present. The subject came up repeatedly, and was plainly a concern to him. Christopher Hitchens was baptized in his infancy, and his name means "Christ-bearer." This created an enormous burden that he tried to shake off his entire life. No creature can ever succeed in doing this. But sometimes, in the kindness of God, such failures can have a gracious twist at the end. We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth, who will certainly do right. Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011). R.I.P.