Let Europe Burn: The Murder of Alfie Evans

The more I look at Europe, the more I think it would look pretty whilst on fire.

For the past twenty years, I've watched Europe fall apart. I saw the EU throw their entire Christian history under the bus in the vain hope of some bright sparkling secularist future. I've seen Europe disrespect their elders to death. I've seen them disrespect the dead by either turning them to fertilizer or just keeping them on ice while the family went on vacation. I've watched Muslims drive Jews out of Europe and have their own pogrom of gays.

I figured that there was always some measure of hope for them. It's not like they were going to murder people, right? There were no boxcars.

Then there's Alfie Evans.

At the time of this post (4/25/18, 9:30AM Eastern) Alfie is only 23 months old. He entered the hospital in December 2016 due to a chest infection that caused chronic seizures, eventually leaving him reliant on a ventilator. The UK doctors can't be bothered to give him a real diagnosis, but his doctors say he suffers from a rare and incurable degenerative neurological condition.

The UK doctors just gave up on him. They wanted to pull his feeding tube and pull the plug on his life support.

Meanwhile, Italy and the Vatican have offered to continue his treatment and try to save him. They offered to pay for the costs. They offered to grant the family citizenship. They offered everything you'd think that a caring parent would offer, only this time it was to a total stranger.

The UK courts said that Alfie couldn't be taken out of the country. It was in the child's best interest that he simply die. At least one decision said that Alfie couldn't even be allowed to go home with his parents, because the parents were a flight risk, and might DARE to do something as simple and as straightforward as GETTING THEIR SON TREATMENT SO HE CAN LIVE.

But nope, the UK has gone full statist. Any rights the little people have are granted to them by the state, and can be taken away at any time, for any whim.

As of the writing of this post, Alfie has been taken off of life support, but he's a stubborn child, and is breathing on his own. He will not go quietly. So, the UK doctors have, in their wisdom, decreed that he will not be fed, nor given anything to drink, and will starve him to death.

I'm afraid that if Alfie lives too much longer on his own, without support from the UK doctors, they will simply go in and smother him with a pillow. No, this is not hyperbole on my part. I expect them to straight out murder him if he doesn't die quickly enough on his own.

Meanwhile, the Leftist douchebags in America, who constantly point to Britain's National Health Service with praise, declaring it THE model for nationalized health care, are dead silent. After all, why should they say anything? They're hoping that little Alfie will die quietly, the news story will slip away, and everyone will forget he even existed.

Don't worry, Lefties, Alfie has already gone into my current book project. You'll be seeing him again.

I'm certain that someone out there will consider this an anomaly, that it's not important for the future. That this isn't worrisome at all.

Please keep in mind the real world incident of the "children's summer camp" for the disabled and the handicapped, the retarded / autistic / et al. Over time, they would be euthanized, their bodies cremated, and there would be a letter sent back to their parents, explaining that their child had contracted a form of meningitis, and the body had to be burned for health reasons. The letters of condolences would be staggered, so that it didn't look too suspicious. Eventually, a Cardinal became suspicious because too many families had this happen to them. Him and his secretary looked into this summer camp, and they didn't come back. They had disappeared both of them.

If you're thinking that this story is "obviously about Nazis," you'd be wrong. This did take place in Germany, but not under Hitler. No, this took place in the 1920s, during the Weimar Republic, about a decade before Hitler came to power. It was under Weimar's eugenics program. For the good of the state, the children were put down, and anyone who looked too closely were treated like criminals.

For the good of the state, Alfie Evans was sentenced to die, and his parents treated like criminals.

But this is the world that Europeans created. This is the world that they've voted to build. It is a world where the state owns them, and they live and die depending on what the state ALLOWS them to have. Which is funny, England used to be part of the "free world." Now they're barring law abiding citizens from leaving for the continent, lest their precious nationalized, single-payer health program be shown up for the freak show that it is.

They voted to give their rights away, and now, they're reaping the consequences.

No, I do not see Europe learning from this. I don't see them changing their ways. I see the laws that murder Alfie Evans be codified and locked into place. Then I see the lawmakers double down on these laws, making it illegal for parents in Alfie's position to even sue the doctors or NHS -- perhaps just skip straight to denying all medical services to anyone who doesn't recover from a condition X-serious in Y-weeks.

This is the world that they built. Barring a miracle, it will not change. While I believe in miracles, I'm not certain about the efficacy of a miracle like this if no one would accept it.

This is what the people of Europe wanted. It will eventually kill them. By the time they figure it out, it'll be too late.


(UPDATED 10:36 AM, EASTERN, 4/25/18: Alfie's doctors, after trying to starve him to death for nearly 28 hours, have deigned to resume feeding him. I would congratulate these butchers on doing something as strange and as outlandish as FEEDING A HUNGRY CHILD, but Alfie's father had talked to the press about how "they wouldn't do this to an animal." I admit that this child, who isn't even two years old yet, has lasted so long without life support, food and water. Alfie may yet live out of pure stubbornness. Assuming the UK doctor's don't murder him in his sleep, when no one is watching.)

Video Games: The Latest Scapegoat

There they go again.

Every time there is a shooting under the age of 25 (sometimes even older), there is a cycle to the pattern of blame.

Blame the NRA: They don't even sell guns, and have been adding suggestions to "gun safety" for as long as I've been alive.

Blame Republicans: Because "They haven't done anything about guns." Ignore that all of the shootings happen in gun free zones, and more laws won't stop anybody who is already committed to a spree killing.

Blame Video Games. "Because Video games are violent."

Oh please. These are the people who will usually never blame the shooter. They will never blame the pharmaceuticals that the shooter is on or should have been on. They will never blame the permissive environment created by public schools that allow bullies to torture the freaks / nerds / geeks / outsiders without any recourse. They'll blame guns, they'll blame Republicans, then they'll eventually blame video games.

This is getting to the point where I should put together a "shooting press pack," starting with all of the arguments against all of the usual stupidity, and just repost it on the blog every time someone mouths off.

Even without a shooting, every few years (or every few months, depending), there is someone out there who spends a lot of time and energy trying the place the blame of the world’s ills on video games.  Right now it's President Trump and Matt Walsh, two people who I usually haven't disagreed with.

But now it's back. “Oh no! Video games are violent and will warp the brains of poor little children! We must ban / control / destroy them!”  Didn’t you hear? “Studies show” that video games turn your kids into werewolves, or some such nonsense. I suspect these are the same people who declared that “90% of Catholic women use contraceptives!”

If you believe either, I’ve got a Bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you like.

If one were to believe this incredibly stupid theory, I should be a mass murderer. I have been killing turtles with fireballs since I was eight-years-old and the game was Super Mario Brothers. The amount of aliens I’ve slaughtered in Halo easily number in the hundreds, if not the thousands. Mysteriously, I manage to go to Mass every Sunday and eight holy days a year, and other strange and abhorrent things in this society – like believe most, if not all, of your standard Baltimore Catechism (I put in “most“ because I skimmed it a little).

Now there are modern games that deal with much more mature themes.  The premise of the Hitman series is obvious by the title, but they are mostly a matter of, well, murder puzzles. Think of it as playing through an episode of Columbo from the murderer’s perspective.  I’ve played it, using it mostly as a thought exercise before I go back to writing.

The Mass Effect series is one that combines an epic storyline (violence) with the option for a love story (sex), but with surprising amount of character thrown in for fun. For the most part, that last bit is the real fun for players.

Mass Effect — an epic science fiction choose-your-own adventure where your morals are your character’s morals.
My body count? 300,000. I’m still sane. Ish.

It is, at its core, amoral when it comes to the romantic aspects – in this case, it’s a moral as you allow it to be. That actually caused a bit of a stir a while ago, with religious groups condemning the game for allowing same-sex relationships.  The response from the game designers was simple: If you don’t like that option, don’t play that option, have a nice day. The entire premise behind the series is that the whole universe is dictated by the player’s actions, where you can show apathy, interest, or utter disdain.

Are there video games that are too violent? Sure. Look at a recent Mortal Kombat game, if you have a strong stomach and don’t mind people being decapitated or cut in half. But I’m not that big into horror movies either. Are there games that focus too much on sex? I’ve heard that they exist, but I think they’re only available in Japanese.

They’re just video games. They are what you make of them – and if you don’t like the content, don’t buy them. They're, as a whole morally neutral, they are what you make of them, and the violent, profanity-ridden video games are clearly labeled for your protection. Now please shut up and let me violently murder these alien hordes, okay? Thanks.

But there are always, ALWAYS two objections from the knee-jerk cliché department. “Well, I played video games and there are no positives. It makes you anti-social.”

And where we are now: “video games are a prevalent factor in mass shootings” argument.

Both arguments are so full of inaccuracies, it is obvious that neurons have died just reading those words – some of those neurons are mine, by the way.

VIDEO GAMES MAKE YOU VIOLENT.

I love this argument. I truly do. I've been killing turtles with fireballs since I was eight and the game was Super Mario Brothers. I have yet to find time to plot out my murder spree between going to Catholic school from K-PhD, and going to church every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation.

First, a constant issue in discussing video games is that people seem to think that video games are still for children. I was the first generation to play the first Nintendo Entertainment System. In fact, I still have it. Guess what – my generation grew up, and we're still playing.

As of 2011, the average gamer is between 32 and 37 years old.

Now, 82% of gamers are adults, and 72% of American households play video games.

42% of gamers are women – in fact, 30% of all gamers are women over 18 years old.

Hmm, 72% of American households. So that's 72% of 300,000,000 people means that … over two hundred million people in America play video games (Yes, I rounded down).

“Yes,” says the critic who may have a clue, “but how many of those are family games, like Wii games?” Well, the top ten best-selling video games for 2012 were violent, rated M(ature) games for gamers 17+ only.

So, to say that “video games are a prevalent factor in mass shootings” is roughly the equivalent of saying that “having the ability to speak English is a prevalent factor in American mass shootings.” When nearly three quarters of the country plays video games, it is almost certain that you're going to get a crazy or two in there.

If video games make you into a psychotic mass murderer, we should be hip deep in blood and the planet should have looked like the book of Revelations sometime after the first Mortal Kombat games were released.

The usual counter is to say that it will bring out the inner crazy in people … so might a commercial for Mountain Dew, does that mean we unplug all the signs in Times Square? Or shut down Las Vegas? Either of those might be a good idea, but I can make better arguments than inspiring one or two people with sociopathic tendencies.

Guess what? The ECA – the Entertainment Consumer Association -- released an open letter to the Vice President in 2010 entitled “Policy Considerations post-Newtown, CT School Shooting”. (You can see the full letter here.)

Studies show that media does not cause violence. Christopher J. Ferguson, Chair of Texas AM International University’s Department of Psychology &; Communication, has shown through his work that there’s no link between violent video games and real world violence like mass shooting, bullying or youth aggression ….

Media consumption has risen as the number of violent crimes has dropped. While video game sales have increased, violent crime has been steadily decreasing according to FBI statistics. In 2011, video game sales increased to over $27 billion dollars and violent crimes nationwide have decreased 3.8% from 2010. Since 2002, violent crime has decreased 15.5%. This is all during the time when games like Call of Duty and Halo have dominated sales.

Oops. Someone should check their numbers.

Luckily, I already checked it for them. So there.

Now, of course, there is the argument that:

VIDEO GAMES ARE ANTI-SOCIAL

Oh, for the love of …

Usually when I have this discussion, I'm not sure which is more fun, being told that I was using only my personal experience, and my argument was therefore garbage, or if someone told me my argument was garbage because of their personal experience.

I'm going to limit this to a format that everyone can understand – the infographic on your right (click to enlarge, otherwise it will take up half the column length).

When eHarmony, the #1 dating site in the world, isn't as successful at bringing people together as World of Warcraft (WoW), telling me that video games make you anti-social and isolationist is the punchline to a bad joke.

The argument that “well, I played video games and it was a waste of time and kept me from talking to people” only tells me either 1) the person saying this is a liar who just wants to score points on the internet or 2) a statistical abnormality.

Another point I've heard, this time on a Catholic website,  was that "video games can't be used for evangelization."

Really? Playing WoW can people one player in touch with over twelve million fellow players. If someone really wants to spread the Word, I'm sure they can figure out something. Otherwise, they just suffer from a lack of imagination.

If you don't believe me, then I recommend you read Infinite Space, Infinite God II for some ideas – particularly “Otherworld,” by Karina Fabian.

This of course, assumes that everything one does must be to spread the Word.

THE WORST TYRANNY

At the end of the day, this entire argument comes down to your standard, boiler-plate thought control. Even the “discussion” on guns -- which consists of a gun owner being yelled at for a period of time before having his property taken away – is a joke in itself.

I mean, heck, the guns least likely to kill anyone … happen to be the ones everyone talks about banning.

Banning video games – that have nothing to do with violence – or banning rifles that have even less to do with mass murder, is just playing to the ignorance of people in general. It's one part Orwellian thought control, and one part finding a scapegoat – be it video games, media violence, rock music, bullying, etc. The Sandy Hook shooter was also Catholic, so I guess we all dodged a bullet on that one.

As C.S. Lewis once noted, "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”

Who hates religion in fiction?

I'm always wary about reviews that talk about how a book is "too religious." Not even that it's religious message fic (which sucks) but that the character has religion, or is religious at all.

Sometimes I think there are people out there who are hurt at the mere mention of religion in a novel.

And I'm not talking about religious themes, or concepts, or overtones, but religion itself. What moron thinks like that? This is basic, dirt-stupid cultural anthropology. We're somehow going to have a world completely and utterly devoid of religion? What evangelical atheist paradise is this?

I mean, heck, a world devoid of all Judeo-Christian mythos will still have pagans. Just look at L Jagi Lamplighter's Rachel Griffin books if you don't believe me.

But to discount religion or religious characters, there goes half of David Weber, most of Larry Correia and at least two entire series by John Ringo. Hell, there goes Terry Goodkind and his made-up nuns in The Sword of Truth. There even goes William Lehman's books. There goes Ann Margaret Lewis, Karina Fabian, Richard Paolinelli, John C. Wright....

How about Chronicles of Narnia? Is that going into the wood-chipper too? I'm sure that Tolkein barely gets a pass, because his books were supposed to be a "pre-Christian" mythos, but he himself is Catholic.

But, heck, even the new Wonder Woman film made Ares sound like the Judeo-Christian Satan. I guess that goes down the crapper.

"I don't like religion in my stories" ... yeah, good luck with finding something completely and utterly devoid of faith. I wonder if people like this were offended by Captain America's line that "There's only one God, and he doesn't dress like [Loki or Thor]." Because, you know, that was a line written by an atheist. Even Joss Whedon respects the religion of character more than some people.

But I do try to get my head around this concept or having no religion. Are we now in a position where everyone is supposed to have one, monotonal thought process of Atheism? This is, of course, excluding the idea that Atheism itself is a religion. If you don't believe me, go out and meet the anti-theist branch sometime (THE IDEA OF GOD IS EVIL AND SO ARE THEIR FOLLOWERS), instead of the more libertarian branch ("I don't believe, and I don't care if you do. Next").

I'm sorry, but I'm generally open to all ideas and all thought processes. I read Eric Flint, atheist Communist. I read John Ringo, Recovering semi-Catholic. David Weber and Timothy Zahn, who are both ministers, if I recall correctly. John and Jagi Wright. Richard Paolinelli, who believes in God, and it's in his books. Larry the Mormon Correia.

Seriously, in order to pull something like that, I can only conclude one would have to be some sort of anti-religious SJW-zealot who hates religion in general. They're the only ones closed-minded enough to be offended by a character who might even have a religion.

I mean, good God, congratulations, there goes Dracula, by Bram Stoker. That had the Eucharist! They're Catholics involved! OMG! I can only conclude that this is particularly painful to read.

Even Die Hard has religious Catholics. The McClanes! It's directly referenced in movies 1-3. Congratulations, that's enough to be hated by this sort of person.

And anyone who hates Die Hard simply and absolutely HAS NO SOUL.

I'm sorry, wrapping my brain around a secular universe makes my brain hurt. This is in defiance of all basic cultural anthropology. Despite statements made by random philosophers, there has not now, nor has there ever been, in the history of the world, a society that is purely secular or atheistic. The closest we get in America are Deists among the founding fathers, but  that list also includes Reverends, so that's an interesting conversation. The first person who cites Thomas Jefferson will have to justify every contradictory statement Jefferson ever made, and citing the Creator in the first line of the Declaration of Independence.

But religion is a thing. It is a part of any society. Ancient Greeks made being an atheist a capital crime -- if you didn't pray to Athena in Athens, you obviously didn't have the interests of the city at heart, and you had to go.

Now, granted, sure, I've had some people make books that are religious message fiction. That, of course, can be problematic. Because message fiction is message fiction, no matter the message. The problem isn't necessarily the message -- Hell, I like the "save the whales" film, Star Trek IV, but that's because it was funny -- but the execution of story, plot and characters .... usually, that there is little to none of any of the above. But one cannot lump that in with Narnia, or Rachel Griffin or anything by John C Wright has written. To do so is BS.

Heck, even my novel, A Pius Man has religious characters in it ... a Jew, a Muslim, a half-dozen Catholics. Which one gets hated upon the most? Technically, the story itself isn't religious, as it centers on a historical element. But there are priests and Popes, and rosaries, and the historical MacGuffin is around the Pope of World War II. I'm certain that's enough to get those who hate religion to sniff and wave, "move along. Go find your own kind. To the back of the bus with you."

As Jeffro Johnson pointed out in his Appendix N, religion in fiction goes all the way back into the Pulps, where Christianity can rout the fae, God can be a player. Heck, look at Superversive SF, which is also welcoming to God.

And then there's SuperversiveSF, the blog. God, faith, and religion are all over the place. You can't escape it.

And this is why I think that Superversive SF and Jeffro's Pulp Revolution are probably the future of science fiction and fantasy. There are no gate keeping here. There's no snobbish, anti-religious bias that I've seen. I don't even think there's an anti-left bias, as long as one avoids going full SJW, but I could be mistaken.

It's nice that, among the SVSF / Pulp folk, there's an open, accepting atmosphere where even a freak like me can feel welcome.

Illegitimi non carborundum

Anyway you're interest, A Pius Man might just be your cup of tea. 
Just click here, and you can preorder it.

And, if you've done that....

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Truth in History

One of the major problems with finding truth in history is that history is screwed up by politics.  In fact, it's screwed up by politics at both ends of the spectrum of history -- when the sources happen, and when the history is written.

The best example of contemporaneous politics screwing up history is the case of Richard III. Our biggest sources on Richard come from two people: Thomas More and Shakespeare. Both of them wrote about Richard while living under the descendants of the man who defeated Richard. It is only recently that anyone has suggested that Richard III wasn't the pure evil hunchback of London.

Current politics, of course, is the more obvious perpetrator against truth in history. For example, the myth that "white people have never suffered oppression" ... Oh? Really? So, all of that "No Irish need apply" crap in the late 1800s was meant for, who? Hispanics? Please. The last 150 years of history have been all about oppression. At some point, somebody had been oppressed by somebody else.

But yes, modern political agendas are probably the major problem when it comes to getting to truth. As I said yesterday, politics is probably the true root of all evil. Politics equals power, after all.

The easiest example is Dan Brown, who screwed up all of Roman Catholic history, neopagan history, and anything else that didn't match his screwed up, f**ked up agenda. Seriously, he managed to make Newton excommunicated by the Catholic Church "for the theory of gravity" .... Does anyone have a problem with that? Anyone? Aside from the fact that Newton stole parts of his theories from Catholics?  The answer is: NEWTON WAS ANGLICAN! NOT CATHOLIC.

You want other examples? Look at Inherit the Wind, a play, and later two movies, a fictionalized version of the Scopes Monkey Trial. And by fictional, I mean full fantasy. The real Scopes was a teacher using an interesting textbook with a peculiar outlook on evolution -- which suggests sterilizing hillbillies, rednecks, and other degenerates. So ... yeah, charming, huh? Can you imagine why a bunch of religious folks in the Bible belt would find this somewhat objectionable? And yet Inherit the Wind makes it look like the poor innocent teacher is being sucked into a bad situation by ignorant redneck Bible thumpers.

Yeah, charming, isn't it? But modern politics dictates that the red necks are the enemy of Progress! And Progress! is everything. And evangelicals are backwards! They're all the same! They! Are! Too! Stupid! To! Live!

And screw! You! And your blanket! Generalizations!!!!

.... Okay, it doesn't work quite as well as I had in my head. But I'm writing this at an odd hour.

My point is obvious: politics will screw up almost any study of history. The politics of the day will screw up how things are reported, and modern politics will screw up how they're summarized to you, the reader. Usually, "the victors write the history" isn't an excuse, as there are generally no permanent victors -- though in the case of Richard III, he seems well and truly shafted by history.

The usual excuse for idiots like Dan Brown and others of his ilk is that "but we need the changes for the drama."

If anyone, and I mean anyone, tells you that history has been sacrificed for narrative purposes and drama? They're lazy bastards who haven't done enough research into the subject matter. Trust me, I'm a historian. If you think "This story is boring, I need to change things to spice it up," screw you. I'm a history, I know when I'm being lied to. And trust me, that is the surest way to piss me off.

Politics is the enemy of Truth. As God is the Way, the TRUTH, and the Light, I have no problem concluding that politics is the enemy of God Himself.

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them immediately. The instructions are right there.

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The Love at First Bite series. 

    

The Last Crusade: In the Kingdom of Witches

John C Wright posted an article called The Last Crusade: In the Kingdom of Witches, part of his series on what's wrong with Western Civ.

The only takeaway from this that the usual crowd had was "JOHN C WRIGHT BELIEVES IN WITCHES TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD."

They have, once again, missed the point.

I have taken it upon myself to translate a great essay into small words, to be understood by small people. I hope I am stupid enough to live down to the task.

The following, believe it or not, contains spoilers for Love at First Bite.

Leftism as it stands today has always been a religion. Don't believe me? Modern Leftism bases most of their beliefs in your basic, boilerplate socialism of the Russian kind. And, since the Russian revolution took  a lot from the French revolution, there is a lot of blood as part of the Leftist faith, and a lot of anti-theist secularism.

Leftism has kept up this tradition, perhaps even better than the Soviet Union ever did. Communism killed a hundred million people in the last century, over the course of 70 years.

Just to highlight this one more time. That's a hundred million. 100,000,000 dead.

In the United States, we're up to, what, fifty million aborted children and counting?  Over the course of less than fifty years? We keep that up, abortion will have wiped out more people than Communism along the same amount of time.

What what do you want to consider a group of people who are hip deep in blood and want to dive in some more? I think witches is a good summary, don't you?

But JCW wants to go deeper.

But the essential nature of a witch, as she was portrayed in fairy tales (which contain a good deal more sense than newspapers) was of a withered, childless spinster: a woman with nothing to offer the community, but whom age and curiosity had opened the secret properties of plants and stars and other things easily turned to venom.

Welcome to Leftism. Nothing can be good and pure and simple. 

Maleficent cannot be an evil psychotic killer who will take deadly retribution over minor slights; she must be rewritten over a backstory where she's actually the heroine. 

Gaston and his henchman cannot be Alpha and lackey, but there must be a homosexual component to it. We don't even go into how many people tried to make Samwise and Frodo's relationship as gay. Or Holmes and Watson. Or Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. Because good pure and simple friendships can't exist in their world, it must be sexual, because sex is everything, right?

Do we even want to get into the freaks that have been on parade? I refuse to call any of them protesters, or people who marched for Civil Rights, because, sorry, that's Martin Luther King Jr leading a parade of people down the street wearing their Sunday finest, because they all just wanted to join the main stream. I don't care if you look at the Occupy rioters living like animals and defecating on the streets and businesses of New York City, or if you want to look at the "womyn" in gynecological garb wandering around a few weeks ago, these are people who very clearly don't want to be maintstream. They want the mainstream to accept THEM, condone, bless, and accept whatever the BS du jour is -- and no, I don't mean "tolerate," as toleration means to put up with something that is abhorrent to you. "I don't care" is not allowed -- you will be made to care. You will be made to accept it and bless it, and kneel before whatever bull is being force fed you, the culture, and whatever else they can get their hands on.

And no, their isn't a mystical, black-helicopter "they." They're in plain sight, after all. Marching in the circus garb they call "a statement," when it's really more like a thousand clowns.

Witches subvert. Witches turn things that are good and pure into poison. THey turn children into child sacrifice. They turn the feminism of Susan B Anthony into genitalia on parade. They turn Christian Charity into entitlement programs to buy votes. They promise a great society and deliver a broken culture and destroyed family. 

Leftism has its own altars in the abortion clinic, and its own sacrifices called children. They have their own public displays of faith called riots, only disguised as "protests."

Leftism. Witchcraft. Subversion. Alinsky. Same Stuff, Different Decade.

And if you want more application of faith brought into a world like this, check out the Love At First Bite Series

The Catholic Geek: Finding God Among the Stars, with Brad Torgersen

TONIGHT, ON The Catholic Geek: Finding God Among the Stars, with Brad Torgersen 08/28,

7PM, EST

Host Declan Finn is joined by novelist Brad R Torgersen, where they will discuss religion in science fiction and fantasy, as well as religion in the modern secular 21st century American landscape, spiritual themes in a technological society, and how science can only ever answer the ?How? while we (as a species) often need religion to answer the ?Why.?

In short: We're going to have so much fun.

Brad R. Torgersen is a prolific science fiction author who first broke into print in 2010, with a double debut in the pages of Analog magazine, and the 26th volume of Writers of the Future. Since that time he's either won or been nominated for numerous awards, including three readers' choice awards from Analog, and has published in various magazines, e-zines, and anthologies. His novel, The Chaplain's War, from Baen Books, hit print at the end of 2014. In addition to being a science fiction author, Brad is also a Chief Warrant Officer in the United States Army Reserve, and returned from overseas deployment earlier in 2016. Married for over twenty years, Brad makes his home in Utah.

Please remember that today is the LAST DAY to register for a Dragon Award. Register Now, or forever hold your piece. You'll get an email. You can then vote for Honor at Stake. Sound like a plan?

How to Write People of Faith when you're an Atheist

The Injustice Gamer saw a tweet of my post "Fisking "How to Write Protagonists of Colour When You're White," and suggested, well, this topic.  At first I thought of how to reduce my brain to that of a "standard" atheist -- well, the public face of one, like an insult-spewing twat like Dawkins, or a snide, sneering Brit like Hitchens. And I figured it wasn't worth it. One of the reasons I am religious is that it's quite obvious to me that there must be a Deity out there (it's called the law of Causality, people, come now), and anything short of the Judeo-Christian God is just too damn small. Any argument I've seen by Hawkins et al to circumvent the existence of God to create the universe just sounds like bat Star Trek fan fiction (Temporal loops? Multiverses? Really, Steve? Really?). To pretend to be so closed minded so as to completely exclude the possibility is beyond my ability.

And, no, for the record, I have never completely excluded the possibility that there isn't a God. It's just that every time I've chewed over that concept, it really turns out to be inedible.

Now, obviously, the presentation of atheists as seen above is unfair. What is above is truly more representative of a species known as the "anti-theist." Not only do they not believe in God, they believe that those who do believe are dangerous. The Oslo bomber who used "Christianity" to mean "Western Culture," and thought that religion was for the weak? Yeah, one of them. I expected him to cry out "Dawkins-hu akbar."

I have found reasonable, truly libertarian atheists to be closer to agnostics -- "I don't care what you believe, can we go on?" I count some of those folks as friends.

But anyway, for those of the anti-theist persuasion who have no idea what a religious person believes, or how they think, let me enlighten you.

Step 1: Unlearn What You Have Learned

Remember the film Inherit the Wind? That was a fictionalized version of the Scopes Monkey Trial? It's usually what anti-theists like to hold up when they like to say that Religious folk are anti-evolution. After all, they put someone on trial for evolution!

Total bullcrap. Any connection between that and reality is purely miraculous. Besides, the textbooks Scopes was using in real life also had some wonderful thoughts on eugenics. I wouldn't try defending those, were I you.

In the long run, take all those generalizations and just forget them. You might want to brace yourself.

This includes obligatory Psycho Preacher #55, Deranged Pederast #09, and of course, foaming at the mouth nut job #69.

Other cliche?

• Don't make them see miracles everywhere. Read Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries for a model of the theistic skeptic. Or, read The Exorcist and how many tests are required for an exorcism to happen.
• Don't make them see symbols in everything. Sometimes toast is just toast. 
• The religious person isn't constantly talking about JESUS!!! or IT'S THE DEVIL!!! 
• Know the precepts of the denomination or religion you're writing about. A Catholic thinks he's eating Christ; a Baptist thinks he's eating bread.

Step 2: Not Everything Is About Evolution

I don't know what the anti-theist obsession is with evolution. Last time I checked, it was still called "the theory of," not the "certifiable fact of" evolution. Doesn't matter. I'm relatively certain it's right, or near right enough, for the purposes of general scientific inquiry.

But by God, the few anti-theists I've interacted with have a hard on for Darwin, and Lord knows why. One friend of mine insisted that he had hope for me because I believed in evolution, and it was a short trip from there to being a good atheist.

Except here's the thing: The Catholic Church has declared that evolution is not antithetical to Church teaching since the 1920s. Even Pope Pius XII said nice things about it. So did Pope Francis most recently. So, using that same criteria, the Popes of the last 100 years have been close to embracing atheism, because they, too, either believed in evolution, or saw nothing threatening in it.

Here's the thing, atheists, for Christians who believe in evolution, it is merely the mechanics by which God has created the Earth. That's it. Pretty much the same for the big bang. For an eternal being (ie: one that is outside of time) "a day" can be a really, really long time. Which leads into...

Step 3: Not Everyone is a Literalist

Chesterton once noted that there were people out there who spend so much time arguing over the historicity of Adam and Eve that they miss the entire point of the story, which is Original Sin.

My point? It is the same as Cardinal Bellarmine when he said that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the Heavens go. Which is a line I think he stole from Augustine a thousand years before him. I could be mistaken.

However, the point is simple: NO, NOT EVERYONE THINKS THAT THE BOOK OF GENESIS WAS NECESSARILY LITERAL HISTORY.

Thank you.

Come to think of it, the Catholic Church, I believe, has long ago decreed that literalism is a heresy.

What's literalism, you ask? I'll try to explain. A literalist reading of Scripture is one usually found among fundamentalists. EG: the Bible says the world was created in six days, therefore, it was created in 144 hours. Also, eg, if the Bible says  humans were present at the very beginning of Creation, humans coexisted with dinosaurs.

See also Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, using the First Vatican Council's Dei Filius:

Even if faith is superior to reason there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason. This God could not deny himself, nor could the truth ever contradict the truth.

Just because we believe something is true and real doesn't necessarily mean that we believe that it's a minute by minute account.

Which leads to...

Step 4: Christians are Not All The Same.

Looking at some anti-theists, you would swear that every Christian worships under a large tent and handles venomous snakes every Sunday. We have no philosophy, philosophers, no body of real thought, nor believe in the mechanics of the general universe.

It sure is confusing when you recall that Gregor Mendel, who discovered heredity, was a Catholic monk who founded modern genetics. Or that half the craters on the moon are named after the Jesuits who founded them. Or all of the Catholic scientist priests, listed in alphabetical order.

So, a word to the wise, if you say that, for example, Catholics don't do science, check the above list, and then remember we have a blessing for a seismograph.

And I know we started with not all Christians are the same, but not even all religious people are the same.

If you want to bitch that all religious people are uneducated, please look at the history of Jewish intellectuals. Then lock yourself in a room with Simon Schama so he can snark you to death.

In fact, every time you even start to think, "Well, all religious people believe...." just stop. Why? Because, unless the thought is "all religious people believe in something more powerful than themselves, and there is a proper way to worship It," then you're probably wrong.

There is a heavy theme of monotheism kicking around -- there were / are some strains of thought among Greek / Indian believers that the pantheon merely represented many faces of one Being. But even that isn't even consistently represented within Greek and Indian theology.

Yes, while we're at it, please recall that Christianity isn't the only game in town. Because, let's face it, by anti-theists having their attitudes against belief, they also include everyone from Jews to Druids, they just seem to like to pretend that everyone is an evangelical Christian and ignore the rest, or assume the rest will follow if that one falls. Sorry, not happening.

Step 5: Belief Isn't Irrational

Seriously, if you're just going to assume that any believer isn't rational, I suggest you look up Maimonides. Or Thomas Aquinas. Or Heisenberg. Or Pasteur. What do all these philosophers and scientists have in common? They all believe.

Heck, remember the Big Bang? Starting point of the universe? I wonder if Stephen Hawking is so against the idea because it suggests a starting point to the universe, and thus a "who started it" question, but it was also proposed by a Catholic priest scientist. Again.

Step 6: Sex. Religious People have it

Fun fact, if you're new here, a lot of religions encourage sex. Catholic marriage is a contract to have sex.

In fact, studies show that not only do religious folk have more sex within marriage than other people, they enjoy it more. Funny that, isn't it?

Let's just expand it to religious people are also human.

Step 7: Do Your Research

So, how do you write a believable believer? Simple, JUST DO YOUR DAMN RESEARCH. Seriously, if you want Catholic theology, read Thomas Aquinas or his imitators, like Chesterton or Peter Kreeft.

Hell, if you want basic Christianity, CS Lewis' Mere Christianity is a good primer before you research a specific subsection of a belief system.

Ditch your preconceived notions, your stereotypes, and pretend for a few minutes that a believer might not be a horrid human being. Thank you.

Suggested Reading.

Michael Z. Williamson's A Long Time Until Now has an atheist writing a believer. Try it. Take notes. Also, Babylon 5, Passing Through Gethsemane. by a former Catholic, now atheist. 

Call back blog -- The Mind of the Maker

This post was originally put up over five years ago and yet, this is all still true.

Yes, at the end of the day, characters wander all over the place from where you initially point them. They eventually come back to where you pointed them at the end of the day, but you'd be surprised where they have to ricochet off of to get where you want them to go.

Heck, when I was doing Honor At Stake, I've still got those issues. I had cops and mobsters showing up, when they were never in the book -- not that they weren't planned to take on as big a role as they did, I mean that they were never in the book in the first place.  I had a cop appear at one point because I needed someone to deliver information. He was to never darken my plot ever again.  He wasn't going to be there, period.

By book three, he's got a subplot.

Hell, there is also a mobsters known simply as Enrico, who I based off of Michael Rennie, of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and he was only there so there could be just another bump in the rode. Nope. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a thing that happens.

Now he's becoming a major player over time. Yeesh.

The fictional people are still taking over my life.

THIS! IS! Sparta! x2 -- Blog #600: What is this blog about?

When I started this blog five years ago, it was to drum up publicity for A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller.

After a while, it was the only way to sell my books.

Now, the entire Pius trilogy has come out.  Books two and three came out last year.

Seriously, what the hell are we still doing here?  Especially now that the Puppies have taken over the blog?

You'd think that this would be something obvious.  Look above, under the giant blog banner. You'd think I don't get much clearer than that.

But, when I posted one of my Sad Puppies Bite Back posts over in the comments of a blog called File 770, I was met with some ... interesting replies in the comments. Including derision, people who thought that SPBB was about threatening the anti-Puppies, and people who wondered what the site was even about.

And people wonder why I don't read comments on most websites. The term "cesspool of stupid" comes to mind. Who allows these people out in public?

But, it did occur to me that there would be some people confused about what this site's common thread was, considering we've veered so wildly from the original point of glorified marketing.

So, what's it all about?

It's about stories. How do you create them? How do you shape them?  How do you assemble dreams when the world is so busy trying to stomp on them and take them away from you? That's why I dissect political opinions of Superheroes, or examine bad comic book storylines, or try to predict where things are going.  That's why I look at faith in fiction, to see just how much of the writer goes into the story, and how much should go into the story.  This blog will also address the Catholic faith in particular because, well, I'm Catholic -- it's part of me, and who I am, and part of my stories, so it comes with the package.

But, as fiction is not just about how a story is made, but also about the process of selling it. That's why I look at women in fiction, or the politics of publishing, etc.

Also ... it's about marketing. I'm not dead yet and I'm still writing and publishing books. I have a publisher now, and I'm not afraid to use them. I've got a book coming out in September, damn it. I need all the help I can get.

(Honor At Stake, from Eternal Press, due September 1st -- subtle plug, subtle plug).

That's why I've allowed my brain to be taken over by a parody universe that won't leave me alone. I mean, it's not like I can make money on Sad Puppies Bite Back, despite how popular it is.

And yes, for the record, I cannot make money on it at this point. Can. Not.  Why not?  Because I use the real names of real people, like George RR Martin, and Scalzi, and the Haydens, David Gerrod, Moshe Feder, and additional psychos.

Yes, they're parody -- and boy, are these guys parody -- but there are also lawyers, and you don't need to have a leg to stand on to file a lawsuit. And while I would probably win any lawsuit, and any countersuit, the legal fees would probably kill me before we got to the countersuit phase.

If, as has been suggested, I end up with a Sad Puppy nomination for "Best Related Work," I might consider publishing it.

If it gets a Hugo Nomination? It's more than likely I will publish it. Why? Because it would be a Hugo nominated work, and I don't think anyone would want to draw attention to the fact that they are so thin-skinned, they can't take a joke.

But, one disaster at a time, folks. One disaster at a time.

However, even though I can't sell it, Sad Puppies Bite Back has brought hundreds of people to my blog, and has improved my sales a lot. It won't get me into the big money territory, but it's a lot more than I've been getting.

It's also gotten me some interesting friends along the way, which is an improvement for an introvert like me.

So, to the trolls who lurk under the bridge at File 770, that's what the blog is about.

As for all you newcomers who want a laugh, or want a book recommendation, or some music to listen to as you pen your destruction of an alien civilization, or comic book trivia, or just want to look into the brain of a deeply deranged writer, welcome, my friends, to The Pius Trilogy.

The party is just warming up.

Getting published; Situation Normal

So, I got a call from my agent last Wednesday.  He called at 9pm, and we started talking.

At the moment, it looks a  lot like it's Situation Normal.   And, for those who do not know military acronyms, Situation Normal are the first two words of SNAFU.

On the one hand, my agent is having a grand old time selling projects. As long as they're nonfiction.

And, as you might recall, while A Pius Man has historical elements all over the darned place, it's contained within a framework of a thriller. Which puts me in a new acronym: SOL.

However, my agent suggested I try writing something in nonfiction. Maybe even Young Adult nonfiction.  Maybe something in Ethics, or Religion, or something like that. Something that parents would want their kids to read.  And, after all, I have been spending large parts of my time writing religion articles for Examiner.com.

So ... any thoughts?

Seriously, you folks are the most non-partisan observers I know. Do you think I should write more articles on Catholicism, only make it into a non-fiction book? I can call it Snarky Theology, 101.

There's also the wonderful world of IRA songs. I had an entire thesis in graduate school around Irish rebel songs. Between the text and the appendix, that was almost 150 pages. I would only need about 90 more pages to have a full book ready.

And, there's philosophy. Yes, philosophy. I can literally rewrite philosophy for the basic consumption of the general population. I am snarky by nature, after all.

For those of you who think I should be writing a nonfiction book on Pius XII .... no. Because I'd rather write a novel that people would read than be lost in the shuffle of the two dozen books on the subject.

So, what do you think I should try? Irish rebel songs? Snarky theology? Philosophy? Ethics? Something else all together?  Give me a comment with your thoughts on the matter.

Extremists, Atheists, and Jesus Freaks.

In previous articles having to do with politics, I have described myself as apathetic, or left or right depending on where the jury is from. I hate all politics, so I could be summed up as fair and mentally unbalanced.

What about religion? The same rules apply.

If anyone is familiar with the George Carlin routine [link rated R for language] about religion, it involves him talking about the Invisible Man in the Sky, and He Wants MONEY. When I first saw it, I thought it was hilarious. A nice little parody of the Catholic church when he was growing up.

Then I discovered that it's what he believed. Him, Bill Maher, and a whole bunch of other people.

Now, it could be that I'm a snob. My BA in philosophy might as well have been in Catholic philosophy. My father with the PhD in catholic Philosophy taught me more about the faith than my Catholic schools ever did. I get the impression that if my education mirrored George Carlin's, I'd turn out much like him. I would like to think that I could do my own research to learn what was going on, but who knows.

Atheists do not annoy me. Seriously. Two of my friends are atheists. One was my best friend before she went crazy with extremist politics—I was going crazy with PhD studies at the time, so that didn't help either.

My other atheist acquaintance is the primary artist for this website, Matt. He says he's a militant atheist. I disagree. If only because I've met militant atheists, and they have hated my guts for no other reason than I am religious. They couldn't do something reasonable like get to know me and my personality quirks before they hated me.

And I love those hate-filled nutjobs. Truly I do. They're amusing. If only because they spend a lot of them telling me what I think. It's sort of like my political article. I try to tell people what I believe politically, and from one sentence (usually a half sentence) they leap to amazing conclusions about what I think, what I believe, and why I believe it. They're funny as heck.

Then again, I may have a strange sense of humor.

DADT, Gay Marriage: Who cares?

Last week wasn't very good as far as blog posts went. And I'm sorry for that. This week, I've got three posts already written.  This one is considered "timely," as my Examiner.com editors like to say.

A while ago, I wrote an article about gay marriage in New York.  It was entitled: Gay Marriage, so what?  I suspect you can guess what my general conclusions were.

I collect all sorts of weird articles, and magazines.  On the one hand, I could read Guns and Ammo, then the Spring catalog for a major publisher, then Time Magazine (until they went anti-Semite), the list goes on.

One such magazine is Salute, the magazine of the archdiocese for the military services, USA.

Yes, the military has their own archdiocese -- their Cardinal is the Cardinal of New York City.

In their Summer, 2011 issue, there was a statement from Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, the Archbishop for USA military services. (An Archbishop is more hands on.)

His statement was two pages long, and here's an excerpt ...

"The church is unwavering in her commitment to the pastoral care of all persons in need, regardless of sexual inclination or anything else.  All people in need are served by Catholc Chaplains with zeal and passion for bringing the reality of the Risen Lord to all.  Whether Don't ask don't tell persists or not is immaterial to that bedrock principle.  The faithful .... must never forget that those with a homosexual inclination must be treated with the respect worthy of their human dignity."  [Typed by hand, any typos are mine]

In short: that's nice, we don't care if they're outed, it doesn't matter to us.

The message then cited Federal law (1 USC subection 7)... which I believe is commonly known as the defense of marriage act (DOMA).

So, "yes, you have DADT repealed. Who cares? We don't like it, but we're not going to marry gays, and you're not going to make us. We can continue, business as usual."  Everyone can move on.

Which is pretty much what I said the first time about gay marriage.

It's so nice when the Catholic Church listens to me.
[More below the break]

Why I hate politics (Cont): Oslo terrorist a "Christian." Not.

Last week, I took a look at the Norway terrorist, and I labeled the article "Nazis, I hate these guys," because everything I had read about this guy meant that he was so far to the right, he was starting to orbit the planet.  And I was waiting for someone credible to label everyone on one side of politics (Republicans) for it,

The New York Times did not fail to disappoint.

This scumbag's name is Anders Behring Breivik.  The New York Times claimed that the Norwegian who staged two deadly attacks in Oslo was a "gun-loving," "right-wing," "fundamentalist Christian," opposed to "multiculturalism."

Well, that didn't take long.

Last week, there were fewer posts. There were no music blogs, and I failed to post on Thursday. Why?  Because I was trying to go through Breivik's gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence."

Dear God, this man is a windbag.  And he's about as "Christian" as Richard Dawkins.  Matt is more a Christian that this guy is.  At least in the traditional, American sense. [Read Below the break for more]

Muslims Can't Be Good Americans ..... Huh?

A long while ago, I discussed one Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. He was, at the very least, one of the candidates most likely to be kicked out of the US Army, having given a June 2007 PowerPoint presentation that discussed “adverse events” that would occur if the Army did not accept the precepts of Islamic Shariah law and grant Muslims serving in the Army conscientious objector status.

I'm sure Maj. Hasan would be quite, quite happy to learn that the US Army has now taken his advise.

Enter Pfc. Naser Abdo, 21, a member of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. He refused to deploy to Afghanistan, claiming that Sharia law prevented him from killing other Muslims.....

Ahem ....

Let's start with the fact that Sharia is the sort of thing used in Sudan to justify hacking off limbs for theft, stoning for adultery, and crucifying members of other religions.  This is the sort of thing that makes you arch an eyebrow and wonder "What the....?"  

All in all, this is a generally Bad Idea.

 Not to mention that it is pure and utter garbage.[More below the break]

Gay Marriage: So What?

Gay marriage was deemed legal in New York State over the past weekend....

As someone who's spent a lot of time on this blog doing Catholicism for dummies, I guess I would be expected to comment on this sort of thing.

To which one part of my says ... "So what?"  My personal politics says who cares. I don't care what anyone else does as long as they don't harm anyone else. I'm a little libertarian that way.  In fact, I had proposed a few times that we just make all "marriages" properly labeled.  Atheists and gays can have civil unions (because, really, marriage should be something religious). and anyone who can get married in a church can get married in any church that will have them. The End.

[More below the break]

"Atheists are Right." or: Jesus Freaks Scare Me.

Atheists have a point … or some of them do, anyway.

When originally looking at Marx, or Nietzsche, I figured that they had no idea what they were talking about. I do not use my Deity as a drug. I don't hold onto an image of someone being tortured to death on a set of 2x4s because I'm afraid of the dark. I don't use my faith as an excuse to not think, in fact, just the opposite.

I can give you reasons for my beliefs. I could tell you I think there's a God because of this thing called causality (IE: cause and effect … what's the cause of the Big Bang?). I can tell you I believe in an historical figure called Jesus, because there are records from that time period. There is more evidence for a carpenter named Jesus from Nazareth than there is for Hannibal of Carthage waging war against the Roman Empire (Hannibal was only written about a hundred years later, Jesus from the same generation, and was noted by Roman authorities).

I can give a bunch of reasons why I believe different elements of my faith, but as I've said before, I'm not here to convert one single person. Educate, sure, convert, no.

I'm relatively certain that I would not change one element of my life if I were an atheist. So, Marx, Nietzsche, sorry if I've disabused you 19th century pinheads of any fantasies you have.

Unfortunately, as I'm exposed to more of the world, I have to admit that atheists have a few points.

Rapture: Hawking says there is no Heaven. Good.

Last week, high priest of atheism Stephen Hawking said there was no Heaven. He couldn't find it, and couldn't prove it was there. Therefore, there isn't any.

Good.

Why good? Well, before I answer that, I should point out that Hawking also said that he couldn't prove Heaven wasn't there, which is honest of him. Considering that Heaven, should it exist, is a metaphysical location, should Dr. Hawking find anything resembling Heaven, I would be seriously worried.

It's sort of like if someone could point to a box and say "There's God."

I'm sorry, but for something to claim to be my deity, it would have to be unlimited in scope... ie: God doesn't fit in a box.

Besides, Hawking is not in the religion business, no matter how many ways he tries to interject himself into the matter. Were he to fall back on a supernatural explanation for anything, that would be bad science. God doesn't fit into an equation, can't be experimented on, tested, retested, or submitted to any version of any scientific method.

For example, there's the Big Bang. There is evidence for such an explosion to kick-start the universe. Communications satellites have picked up signals that are, in essence, "echoes" of the Big Bang. However, the amount of things that we know about the big bang aren't accurate; most of what we know about it is supposition. People have theorized about what happened based on the results: as in "in order for X to have happened, Y must have occured at Z seconds within the event itself."

If any scientist says "We think there's a God, because we can't figure it out otherwise," that is a cheat. That isn't science. The best a scientist can get away with is "It looks like a bloody miracle, but give us time, we'll figure it out." Using God as a placeholder in a theory is cheating.

However, in the case of Hawking, I object when he injects his atheism into his science.

Hawking has come up with several theories on how the universe started; from what I can recall, all of them throw out the Big Bang. I think the simplest way for me to explain it would be to say that the universe is a self-sustaining temporal loop where the Universe simply goes and starts itself repeatedly...

I think I heard that theory on Star Trek once, only they made it sound more believable.

What Do You Mean There's Philosophy in A Pius Man?

I'm a simple fellow. Simpleminded, at times. Which is why there are a lot of people who know me and say, “I can't really believe you have a degree in philosophy. You don't spout out gibberish about how the table isn't a table..”

Hegel never looked
this good.

I understand that. I do, really. Try to read Hegel, and you get stuff about consciousness-- which is the key turning point of his entire philosophy-- and you basically get gibberish, since his terms are undefined. (If you are a science fiction fan, look up Minbari theology on Babylon 5, Hegel is the same babble, only without the reincarnation bit). Read Descartes, who basically said that you had to look at every little thing with a highly skeptical eye, and start with what you know for absolute certainty, concluding that the only thing you can ever really know for certain is that “I exist,” the rest is negotiable. (Popularly known as “I think therefore I am.” Does not cover instances of drivers during rush hour, who obviously don't think, but are real enough to get you killed.)

I'm sorry, Mr. Descartes, I'm slow and stupid. If I get hit in the head with a rock, I'm going to think that the rock is real. And that someone threw it at me. And that I will have to hurt someone.

Which is why I am a Thomist.

At which point the audience asks, “A what now?”

Authors I Am Thankful For

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are over. Everyone, welcome back.

This is probably something that should have been posted on Thursday, but everyone was probably busy this weekend.

In my life, few authors have affected me in any way, shape or form. Most of it affected me in a professional manner. From Joseph Garber's Verticle Run, I learned how to start a thriller that didn't stop from start to finish, and while he was recently trumped by Matthew Reilly and James Rollins, Garber is where to start.

Few authors have ever actually had an impact on my life in general. And by few, I mean three. And, technically, I wasn't even the one who really felt the impact for two of the authors … it's a long story.


Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Once upon a time, I had considered getting a friend of mine a gift for his birthday. The novel was Good Omens, which was essentially Murphy's law as applied to the apocalypse— losing the antichrist, for example. It was fun. Strange as all hell, but fun. Neil Gaiman still insists that he wrote some of the funny parts. I thought my friend would like it.

Meanwhile, in another part of the internet, a woman was trying to remember the title of a novel she had read once upon a time. She signed into her dating website of choice, and came across the novel in my friend's profile. The book was Good Omens.

That relationship culminated in the marriage from two months ago.....

J. Michael Straczynski.

Way back in the 1990s, there was a television show called Babylon 5. It was a science fiction program that was less about special effects, latex masks and tight body suits, and more an epic about character. It was essentially a filmed novel. Like War and Peace, with one-tenth the cast. It was interesting enough that I would spend time with my family pondering what would happen next.

Along the way, when I was sixteen, I started writing what is unfortunately known as fan fiction. I had written stories based off of throwaway one-liners in the series. And while I touched nothing of the actual series storyline, I had a few concepts that the show didn't expand on, and spun that off into little corners of the universe, and aside from the first two books, it basically became its own series. I started rewriting what was a fan fiction quartet of over two thousand pages, and I'm now on book 6 of a possible 13 that I've outlined...

One of the artifacts I had picked up because of Babylon 5 is a leather bomber jacket. It had a great big gold embroidered 5 on the back, in the style of the show, and the show logo on the front. I have worn it every winter when the temperature dropped below forty, and there was no precipitation. This includes my days in college, when it was just too cold to wear a suit jacket.

One day, in 2001, I walked out of a class called the History of Terrorism, and one classmate had noticed the jacket. We walked and talked across the university's great lawn, past the library, an administrative building, and to the other side of the campus, until my ride literally started the car, pulled up behind me, and flashed his brights at us.

A month ago, I was a groomsman at his wedding.

A few years afterward, during my abortive attempt at a PhD in history, I drove down to a social in Manhattan, wearing the same jacket. Someone behind me said, “Cool jacket, I know that show.” He hasn't stopped talking to me since. Two months ago, I was the best man at his wedding... the one made possible by Terry Pratchett

I've heard people tell me that reading is an anti-social activity. Obviously, they've been reading the wrong books.

Philosophy, Religion, and Sex.

Dear Pope Benedict, I've been a fan of your career since you worked under John Paul II.  The press hated you because you were hostile to them, and for that I applaud you.  But you have to stop having statements come out so close together, it messes up my schedule.

Last week, I explained why the Catholic Church wanted to hire exorcists.

This week, because no one in the Vatican can shut up, I'm going to try explaining something else that was recently in the news.

The New York Times recently reported that, "Yippie, the Pope is giving in and endorsing condom use."

The old gray hag of The New York Times has, once again, gotten it wrong.  One day, they may actually try to get a theologian to explain theology to them.  Unfortunately, given most theologians, that may not help much.

Let's start at the beginning: Why does the Catholic Church have an issue with condom use?  Or any contraceptives?

It basically involves philosophy ... bare with me a minute, I'll keep it short and comprehensible ... and what is the function of "a thing."  In the case of sex, the mechanism of sex is "insert tab A into slot B."  The "function" of sex is procreation, and a darn good time, if you're doing it correctly.

Contraceptions mess with the natural function of sex by removing elements that are inherent to the act -- procreation comes with sex.  The Vatican position is, that if you mess around with it and start taking out elements, then you are messing around with things that are not yours to mess with.

If you are pondering what the Catholic church's advice is on STD prevention when you have sex with your boy/girlfriend, the Church's position is that you should be having sex with your spouse, only with your spouse, have a nice day, thank you.  Under this rubrick, STDs are not a problem, since if you only ever insert one tab A into one tab B, STDs are not an issue; pregnancy remains in effect, but in the Catholic church, marriage is a contract to have sex, have kids, and spread the spawn around the globe, carrying the faith with it.

You are currently up on previously held positions.


The NY Times said, on November 21st .....

“Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS . . . .”

However, George Wiegel, papal biographer and general Vatican busybody, corrected the Times report.  You can find the full text online, but since that will take forever for you to read, I'm going to translate it for you, gentle reader, into something easily comprehensible.

The pope's actual statement, in context, was during an interview.  The pope mentioned how the Catholic Church runs more AIDS hospitals, and stresses "prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment."  IE: The pope pointed out that, unlike pontificating reporters, the Church actually does something,

The pope even stressed that "we cannot solve the problem [of AIDS] by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease."

The pope continued:

.... people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence–Be Faithful–Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality .... the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Short version: sex is important, has an effect on a person, and is also for the purpose of expressing love.  Throw in a condom, and you just make it another way to drug yourself into a stupor.

The part where the NYTimes gets confused is probably in the following section:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

When asked if "the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"  Pope Benedict XVI answered that "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."

Short version: If it's someone infected with AIDS, yes, the Church would rather that they NOT KILL PEOPLE by infecting them further.

Basically, it's like robbing a bank -- if you rob a bank, the Church would rather have someone use an empty gun; it'll lessen the risk of someone getting their head blown off.

So, despite news reports, the Catholic Church's position hasn't changed.

With luck, we can all move on to something important now.