A Sound of Sheer Silence

I have said before that I have great respect for Ross Douthat, even though I often disagree with him.   He has a blog post today that demonstrates why I have respect for him, as I think he gets it 100% right regarding the tragic shootings in Paris yesterday. Douthat begins by pointing out the inherent contradiction with "blasphemous" statements--it is very important that we allow blasphemous statements in a macro sense, while recognizing that most individual blasphemous statements are juvenile and unnecessary.  Or, said another way, blasphemy has the potential to serve the essential social purpose of speaking truth to power, even if most of the time it is just a bunch of obnoxious jack-asses trying to get a rise out of people. To take a concrete example, I am very weary of the Westboro Baptist Church folks picketing the funerals of deceased servicemembers and other folks that catch their ire for some reason.  Beyond their underlying messages, which is an atrocity, I ...

Watch this clip of a speech given by Sarah Palin yesterday: I am pleased to see Andrew Sullivan call this for what it is--blasphemy .  To hold that intentionally placing a person on the line between life and drowning is "baptism" is to mock everything that Jesus Christ stood for.  The religion that Sarah Palin is preaching here is not Christianity--it is a fascistic death cult. With the exception of Sullivan and Rod Dreher , I have seen very little reaction to this in the Christian/Catholic blogosphere and media.  Where are they?  I suppose they are too busy identifying made-up threats to religious freedom from the Gay Agenda, Obama, et al.  Shameful.