Dennis Prager at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011

Diane Schrader, my blogging colleague at NewsReal, reports, "Why You Better Pray that God is Not Dead – Dennis Prager Diagnoses America’s Disease":

What passes for faith in most mainstream (liberal) Christian denominations and most of Judaism (outside Orthodox) has become a mushy pablum of warm fuzzy feelings instead of concrete moral standards. One can’t even discuss concepts like sin and hell (which are necessary prerequisites, by the way, for mercy and grace) without being accused of “extremism” and, in a torturous logical twist, of being just like “radical Muslims.”

The lack of critical thinking skills from which these illogical flights of fancy emerge is of course the fault, in part, of our current educational vacuum, but Prager frames it in an interesting way. If a student was homeschooled in a strict Christian home his or her entire life, never allowed to watch television, listen to popular music, read anything other than the Bible, get on the internet, or even leave the house – would you consider them somewhat brainwashed? You might – although of course, I defy you to actually find anyone who has experienced this (despite the fevered imaginations of teacher unions that oppose homeschooling or any type of Christian education).

Now Prager turns this on its head. Keeping in mind the virtually lockstep leftist leanings of popular culture, the media and our educational institutions – if a student went to a secular K-12 school system his or her entire life, absorbed countless hours of secular TV programming, listened to nothing but popular music, read nothing about teen-oriented magazines and books, and went to movies, concerts etc. that were all completely non-religious and non-conservative in nature, would you consider them to be somewhat brainwashed? Because you should – and I guarantee that you can find thousands and probably millions of kids whose lives mirror this set of experiences.

What does this have to do with God? Well, an entire generation has been inoculated against thinking about Him in any kind of serious way. And without an understanding of God, as Prager says, our concepts of good and evil grow blurry indeed, and we get all mixed up, just like the leftists who confuse hating people who fight evil with hating evil.

Be sure to read the whole thing, at the link. Diane does an masterful job recounting Prager's talk, which was a sight to see. I'll have my work cut out for me later this week when I have some time to write up a couple of reports myself.

The Arrogance of the Atheists

From S.E. Cupp, at NY Daily News, "They Batter Believers in Religion With Smug Certainty":

The militant atheist wants nothing more than to spoil the believer's spiritual journey. That's both meanspirited and radically unenlightened.

RTWT.

RELATED: "The Secular Religion of Radical Progressivism."

Richard Dawkins Slams Pope, Christianity on Christmas Eve

At least The Guardian titled the essay for what it is, "A Shameful Thought for the Day." Dawkins slams the Vatican's "obscene indulgences" and then goes after original sin, a foundation of Christian faith:

We've already had what little apology we are going to get (none in most cases) for the raped children, the Aids-sufferers in Africa, the centuries spent attacking Jews, science, women and "heretics", the indulgences and more modern (and tax-deductible) methods of fleecing the gullible to build the Vatican's vast fortune. So, no surprise that these weren't mentioned. But there's something else for which the pope should go to confession, and it's arguably the nastiest of all. I refer to the main doctrine of Christian theology itself, which was the centrepiece of what Ratzinger actually did say in his Thought for the Day.

"Christ destroyed death forever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross."

More shameful than the death itself is the Christian theory that it was necessary. It was necessary because all humans are born in sin. Every tiny baby, too young to have a deed or a thought, is riddled with sin: original sin. Here's Thomas Aquinas:

". . . the original sin of all men was in Adam indeed, as in its principal cause, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 5:12): "In whom all have sinned": whereas it is in the bodily semen, as in its instrumental cause, since it is by the active power of the semen that original sin together with human nature is transmitted to the child."

Adam (who never existed) bequeathed his "sin" in his bodily semen (charming notion) to all of humanity. That sin, with which every newborn baby is hideously stained (another charming notion), was so terrible that it could be forgiven only through the blood sacrifice of a scapegoat. But no ordinary scapegoat would do. The sin of humanity was so great that the only adequate sacrificial victim was God himself.

That's right. The creator of the universe, sublime inventor of mathematics, of relativistic space-time, of quarks and quanta, of life itself, Almighty God, who reads our every thought and hears our every prayer, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God couldn't think of a better way to forgive us than to have himself tortured and executed. For heaven's sake, if he wanted to forgive us, why didn't he just forgive us? Who, after all, needed to be impressed by the blood and the agony? Nobody but himself.

The Pope's Christmas message is here, and at The Telegraph, "Pope Benedict XVI delivers BBC's Thought for the Day." Plus, from a commenter at The Guardian:

What Dawkins says about the abuses committed by the catholic church is true enough, but reading him one cannot help getting the impression that, given access to the levers of political power, and given the right sort of regime or the right sort of period (eg Russia in the 1930s) , he would happily turn churches into warehouses and put priests in labour camps. Just an impression though. I may be wrong...

No, sir, I don't think you're wrong.

RELATED: How atheists celebrate Christmas.

The Nativity of Jesus

The love the classic paintings of The Nativity.



At top, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Nativity at Night (c.1490), and below, Gerard van Honthorst Adoration of the Shepherds (1622).



BONUS: A video for the modern age, "The Digital Story of the Nativity."

Save Mosab Hassan Yousef

Some of my blog budds have started a new effort: Save Mosab Yousef: Help Him Stay In The U.S.

More at Bob Belvedere's, "HELP SAVE MOSAB YOUSEF FROM CERTAIN DEATH," and Steven Givler, "Please Support Mosab Hassan Yousef."

Background at Maggie's Notebook, "Mosab Hassan Yousef Homeland Security: Homeland Security to Deport Mosab Hassan Yousef," and WSJ, "Deporting 'Son of Hamas': The U.S. may send an antiterror agent back to the West Bank":

Mosab Hassan Yousef is a best-selling author who wrote "Son of Hamas" about his life as a Palestinian who became an informant for Israeli intelligence. He's probably near the top of every Islamist terror hit list, yet, incredibly enough, the U.S. may soon deport him as a terror threat.

In 2007, Mr. Yousef came to the United States, where he converted to Christianity from Islam and applied for political asylum. The request was denied in February 2009, Mr. Yousef says, on grounds that he was potentially "a danger to the security of the United States" and had "engaged in terrorist activity." His case has automatically proceeded to the deportation stage, and on June 30 at 8 a.m. he will appear before Judge Rico Bartolomei in Homeland Security Immigration Court in San Diego.

Homeland Security is well aware of the author's history, and in fact is using it against him. According to Mr. Yousef, a letter from Homeland Security attorney Kerri Calcador cites passages in "Son of Hamas" as evidence of his connection to terrorist leaders and suggests that the work he did for Hamas while spying for Israel provided aid to terrorists. "At a bare minimum, evidence of the respondent's transport of Hamas members to safe houses . . . indicates that the respondent provided material support to a [Tier I] terrorist organization," the U.S. lawyer wrote.

But unless Ms. Calcador knows more than she's saying, this is bizarre. As a spy for Israel, Mr. Yousef had to make his colleagues believe he was a loyal member of Hamas. He used that trust to gain information that he provided to Israeli intelligence, which used it to prevent terror attacks and save lives. One of Mr. Yousef's handlers at Shin Bet confirmed his book's account to the Israeli daily Haaretz, and his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has disowned him from the Israeli prison he has occupied since 2005. (See our Weekend Interview with the younger Yousef, "They Need to Be Liberated From Their God," March 6, 2010.)

The problem seems to be that, under a provision of U.S. immigration law, anyone who is shown to have provided "material support" for terrorist organizations is automatically denied asylum. In the relentless way that bureaucracy works, this is being interpreted as leaving little discretion for deserving exceptions like the case of Mr. Yousef ...

RTWT.

'Father, Into Your Hands I Commend My Spirit'

I just finished "Passion of the Christ."



From Luke 23:46, "'And speaking in a loud voice, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit'. Having said this, he breathed His last breath."

And the image, from Wikipedia, "Cross-section diagram of the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, in relation to the site believed to be Golgotha."



And from this morning, with video from "The Passion," "Thousands of Christian Pilgrims Flock to Jerusalem for Good Friday."