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This has, not surprisingly caused some friction and competition between the various religious orders. It’s natural that they compete for funding, prestige, and postulants.

Two young men considering a religious vocation were having a conversation. “What is similar about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders?” the one asked.

The second replied, “Well, they were both founded by Spaniards – St. Dominic for the Dominicans, and St. Ignatius of Loyola for the Jesuits. They were also both founded to combat heresy – the Dominicans to fight the Albigensians, and the Jesuits to fight the Protestants.”

“What is different about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders?” The first asked.

“Met any Albigensians lately?”

That about sums that one up. The Dominicans ensured that the Catholic church’s “catharsis” was complete. The Jesuits, on the other hand, weren’t nearly so effective.

In the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC the SCOTUS Justices rendered a blunt 9-0 ruling that the Obama Regime does not have the right or privilege to tell a religious institution who may or may not be in their clergy nor under what terms they onboard or offboard such ministers and/or priests, overruling and reversing the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ early decision.

The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

– Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
Writing for the Court

So, for now, the shades of the Founding Fathers are smiling. The Supreme Court unanimously slapped down the Obama Regime’s attempt to violate the 1st Amendment and Americans’ freedom of religion.

Perhaps this should be of some concern to Christians, a wee bit more so than arguments about “Happy Holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas.”

After all, the customs, trappings, and imagery of an American Christmas: Santa, Frosty The Snow Man, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Christmas Trees and decorations, and so very many others have nothing to do with Missa Christi aka Crīstesmæsse aka Christ’s Mass.

I think that “the war on Christmas” is one that Christians have already largely lost and that the current trend towards anti-theism and anti-Christianity is just a mopping up operation, the Christians, by and large, having already ceded the field.

Which One Do You Think Will Be Suspended?

Given the levels of political correctness now demanded of the majority of students and the lawfare and paper terrorism engaged in by the Godless over any public expression of religiosity, the rather funny cartoon may well be prophetic.

‘Tis no skin off my nose though. I’m Pagan. Now, when they figure out that Blessed or Merry Yuletide are religious sayings as well, then we’ll have issues.

Jesusween, It Sort Of Makes Sense

You know, if you objectively think about the Abrahamics’ God, Yahweh, it’s makes a certain sort of sense to have JesusWeen. Yahweh’s a scary sort of deity and Jesus, while beneficent, has some scary bits as well.

~*~

NOTE: Don’t take this too seriously, my Christian readers; it’s meant in largely non-nasty fun. As a Pagan, and one who follows something akin to what many are wont to call Celtic Rite Paganism, the secular orgy of binge eating and juvenile begging / protection racketeering is at least as offensive to me as it is to you.

The iPad Killer – Pope Benedict XVI

Apple has easily survived the release of the information that its products are manufactured by Chinese slave labor worked and kept in horrific conditions. Likewise the electronics giant was not chided for its upwards of 60% profit margin on it popular portable products. These facts just don’t affect Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s image with the bulk of their customers.

On the other hand, the iPad being used by the Pope could quite likely hurt Steve Jobs and his company greatly. That is something that the average Apple customer – the Liberals, Hipsters, and Generation Y Slackers – really don’t want to be associated with.

If this keeps up, Steve Jobs won’t be able to afford to buy any more Third World vital organs and will have to use the transplant waiting lists just like Joe and Jane Six-Pack.

No, Father! It’s Get Thee Behind Me, Satan Not Get Me Behind, Satan!

But, if and when gets to the bottom of the human condition, it’s obvious that this isn’t easy.

In giving in to these two faults so many raise themselves up above their rightful station in the order of all things and claim that they know the nature and will of the God(s).

This, as the 17th Century Puritan theologian, Dr. John Owen pointed out, is merely the making of a God or Gods out of our own limited thoughts as if one was carving one out wood or stone.

For the being of God; we are so far from a knowledge of it, so as to be able to instruct one another therein by words and expressions of it, as that to frame any conceptions in our mind, with such species and impressions of things as we receive the knowledge of all other things by, is to make an idol to ourselves, and so to worship a god of our own making, and not the God that made us. We may as well and as lawfully hew him out of wood or stone as form him a being in our minds, suited to our apprehensions. The utmost of the best of our thoughts of the being of God is, that we can have no thoughts of it. Our knowledge of a being is but low when it mounts no higher but only to know that we know it not.

– Dr. John Owen (1616-1683),
The Mortification of Sin

Better by far, I think, that Man cultivate a certain agnosticism born of proper humility and knowledge of our mean nature. Such a path, if followed with diligence and scrupulousness, seems to me far more likely to bring a man, and perhaps Man et al, to a higher estate both in this life and at the time of its unavoidable ending and judgment, than more certain and Prideful religious enterprises.

Of course, given the odd humor of the God(s), this could lead to some quite amusing effects…

An atheist was walking through the woods one day.

“What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

He turned to look and saw a 10-foot grizzly bear charging towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He kept running, striving for yet more speed. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer.

He tripped and fell to the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant of primordial panic, the Atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”

Time stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was suddenly still and silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky, “You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident. Do you expect Me to help you out of this predicament?”

“Am I now to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked directly into the light, and said, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?”

“Very well,” said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head and spoke, “‘Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

And so, the God(s) found a worthy use for one of the Godless. This is proof of Divine Providence, for no human agency in the course of our history has ever succeeded in doing this.

Mmmmmm….Atheists. Tastes Likes Fatty Pork

Of course, all humor aside, the sad and sinful irony of the situation is that through our failure grizzly bears have become an endangered species whereas the Godless haven’t. If that doesn’t violate natural law then nothing does.

The image above is likely to be quite offensive to Christians. Depicting their God and His Resurrection in the context of a zombie apocalypse is quite disrespectful, offensive, and insulting to Christians. By and large though, it’s safely offensive; neither the law nor individual Christians will attempt to do me harm over it.

Of course this would not be the case if I chose to post images mocking Allah, Muhammad, and/or Islam. Then I would be open to societal reprisals and possibly murderous assault by the Muslims. In some areas of the Civilized World I could even be brought up on criminal charges.

One Is Art, One Is a Hate Crime?

The United Nations, long, deeply, and irredeemably contaminated by the vicious, subhuman Muslims, has repeatedly tried to expand this special protection across the globe.

This imbalance in response to insulting Islam vs. insulting Christianity is, however, fairly easy to understand once one stops looking for a singular reason for the prejudicial treatment. It’s actually the synergy between several disparate pernicious factors that are the blame.

Liberal Oikophobia

All across the Civilized World Muslims are “other.” They are mostly non-Whites in “White nations,” have wildly different linguistic and cultural roots, and hold themselves separate from the cultures of their host nations. The Liberals’ oikophobia drives them to support these Muslims and to attempt to offer them every special protection, aid, and comfort that they can manage.

That the major nations of the Civilized World have been at war with Muslims for years just fuels this further. Since their oikophobia demands that Liberals believe we’re in the  wrong they support our enemies in such ways as they can and are foolishly allowed to.

Cowardly Dhimmitude

It really can’t be argued against by rationale minds that Muslims across the globe, seemingly irrespective of what underlying culture was subsumed by Islam, are violent and savage, prone to hysterical fits of feral rage when offended. Worse, it takes almost nothing by civilized standards to set them off en mass.

And it works for them.  Many people, lacking courage or conviction fear the violence of Muslims and will accept the dhimmi’s yoke in order to appease them. They may carefully claim that they believe that Islam is the Religion of Peace and the violence is a small aberration of a few extremists, but the fear belies this and is endemic in the Civilized World.

Godless Christophobia

Atheists – the Godless – in the Civilized World fear, loath, and hate Christianity and Christians far more, and more virulently, than they fear, loath, and hate any other religion or religious adherents.

For the Godless in the West Christianity is dominant religion and is often the one that the Godless have rebelled against in this first place. Islam is merely a minority religion with, for now at least, limited power to affect change.

Since the Godless’ goal is the destruction of religion it makes sense that they would focus on the strongest religion. If they can destroy or cripple any and all expression of Christianity, Christian morality, and Christian thought in the public square then they’re sure that they can do the same to any lesser followed faith such as Islam.

These three societal failings, along with other lesser problems, feed off of each other and create the bigoted atmosphere in which anything that attacks, insults or demeans Christianity is condone, even encouraged, and anything that attacks, insults or demeans Islam is a crime worthy of punishment by society and/or law.

So Zombie Jesus is offensive, but safely offensive – it might even be hailed as art – but any depiction of Muhammad, insulting or not, is considered wrong. That’s a sad and bigoted thing as is any case where standards are not equally applied.