Daily Kos

Welcome to your Fuzzy Friday Coffee Hour where all are encouraged to share their thoughts, their causes, their projects, their problems and their triumphs-- or just their desire to sit a spell and sip a comforting beverage and relax. It's an open thread which means you can ignore my fluff and be free and uninhibited in the comments.

This weekend I'll be visiting my garden so I hope to have an update on how well the appetizers I'd set out for the slugs were received but perhaps that can wait for next week and a proper photo diary. Nothing like pictures of cute, contentedly well-fed slugs to take your mind off the world's troubles for a brief while ...

So instead, this week I'll be bringing you my latest self-improvement project. I'm working on a digital painting using Adobe Photoshop CS5 and a tiny, old Wacom tablet. If you step over the permed orange hairball I'll share a bit of my step by step--

Reposted from Lollardfish by Ojibwa

Like many people (including this very popular diary and discussion), I first read Francis' statement on atheism and "doing good" to be a clear, explicit, statement that Atheists who do good will be saved. That's not what he said. Sure, in his worldview atheists can be saved, but that's because God can do whatever God wants to do. Humans are bound, in Catholic thinking, to the sacraments. But God is not.

We could spend a lot of time (believe me, I spent a lot of time!) parsing the particularities of Francis' statement, linking them to Aquinas, Augustine, and documents from Vatican II (on goodness). That's fun stuff for a medieval scholar like me, but I think the focus on atheism misses what's really important here. I wrote about this for the Atlantic today, but thought I'd expand a little here with thoughts aimed directly at our DailyKOS community.

Francis is calling for pluralistic engagement across all divisions, focused on doing good, on dialogue, and on finding common ground. We live in a world seemingly divided by caste, creed, nationality, orientation, and so many more markers of division. But the pluralistic view, the progressive view, is that we can honor our identities while meeting others around shared goals, and around a shared humanity.

For a Catholic like Francis, that humanity emerges out of our status as Created beings. For me, I'm more driven by secular principles of universal human rights and secular humanism, but I find the Francis message powerful. A Catholic church pushing for pluralism will be a powerful force in the world, isolating extremists, even (especially!) Catholic extremists.

So if you are angry at the Church for its extremism, for all the wrongs the hierarchy has committed, for the positions on LGBT people, on women, for protecting pedophiles, for all these things. Know that in the Vatican there seems to be a man who wants to effect change.

Can he? Will he?

Time will tell.

I am a long-time DailyKOS member, but also a public opinion writer. Please consider following me on Twitter (@Lollardfish), my public facebook page, or my blog: How Did We Get Into this Mess?

EDIT: Thank you for the many thoughtful comments and for the recommends. I am out most of the day, but will wade into the comments and reply to everything later. Please check back. I look forward to dialogue.

Reposted from cabaretic by Ojibwa

For most of us, Memorial Day is a joyous occasion. We may think of idyllic, lazy summer days of childhood, whole months away from school. Our greatest concern might well be the inevitable traffic jams created when large groups of people head for the same destination at the same time. This holiday is intended to commemorate the service and bravery of those Americans who have served in combat. My own religious convictions speak against war. Friends are, as we are taught, to live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars. It forms the basis of the Peace Testimony.

Reposted from charliehall2 by Joy of Fishes

This week's Torah portion is Parshat Beha'alotcha, chapters 8 to 12 of Sefer Bamidbar, usually called in English the Book of Numbers. In it the direction of the fortunes of the generation of the Children of Israel that left Egypt turn from positive to negative -- a direction that will not again be reversed. I have a suggestion for why that turn went in the wrong direction. More below the fold....

Welcome to Thursday Coffee Hour. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is new with you. In Greek mythology Gaia was the personification of Earth. Gaia is also the name of a theory that posits that the organic and inorganic components of Planet Earth have evolved together as a single living, self-regulating system.

Reposted from National Atheist Party by NationalAtheistParty It seems as if there is a competition among Islamic nations as to who can stoop to the most degraded form of immorality by adhering to the barbaric religious laws and traditions put forth by the Quran. Spokesman of the Iranian Parliament, (Majiles) Mohammad Ali Isfenani, announced recently that in order for Iran to view itself as completely complying with Sharia Law it must concede to allow female children under the age of 10 to marry. This seems an obvious gesture to out-pious their Islamic neighbors, Saudia Arabia, who just three months ago lowered their own legal marrying age to 10.

Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian news service, quotes Mohamaad Ali Isfenani as announcing to the public and Parliament in a recent meeting:

“As some people may not comply with our current Islamic legal system, we must regard 9 as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married. To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”

According to recently released statistics reported by Mohabat news, in the past few weeks over seventy-five female children under the age of 10 were forced to marry much older men in Iran.

Ever have one of those days where you just want to go back to bed?

Todays is one of those days for me. It is a cold 43.6 °F  , with wind, and rain.  Dirty dishes in the dishwasher. flickr has been upgraded. Could not find the share - html links. Contractor hasn't shown up to finish a job. Darn cat's in heat again. Wait what?! Hear I kid about the cat.

Thank you to p50, smileycreek and navjo for your flickr help!

Spoke to soon, now flickr is not responding. Spinning, spinning.... Finally I can post a photo.

How about you? How are you? I need some serious hugs! Smiles. Laughter.

This is a Street Prophets Open Thread. All subjects, art, photos and quotes welcome.

Reposted from National Atheist Party by NationalAtheistParty Kaitlyn Hunt thought her life was just starting to come together. She was a popular cheerleader that would be graduating from high school in a few months and had been dating her first serious girlfriend for several months. They attended the same school and the people that saw them together understood why they were so happy together. Kaitlyn was two years older than her girlfriend, but the way that they got along; you’d have thought they were exactly the same. And they were in many ways, including both having parents that didn’t want gay daughters. So their parents came up with a way to make sure the two girls were separated. Forever. When Kaitlyn turned 18 her father and her girlfriend’s parents had her expelled from school, months before her graduation, and charged with felony child abuse.

Realistically, if Kaitlyn were male, this wouldn’t even be news. First, because her girlfriend’s parents wouldn’t consider it breaking the law if their daughter was dating a guy who happened to turn 18 in the course of their relationship. But even if Kaitlyn was male and they didn’t approve of him, they could still abuse the law.

This law is statutory rape. Statutory rape is defined as any adult who takes sexual advantage of a minor’s inability to formulate good choices, or for the protection of mentally incapacitated people, regardless of age. This law was never intended to be used by parents as a way to destroy the lives of people they felt were unworthy, not only of being a part of their family, but being a part of anyone’s family. The pedophile law is forever on purpose. It needs to be. However, this wasn’t meant to label teenagers as pedophiles for the rest of their lives, simply because their girlfriend or boyfriend’s family didn’t approve.

Reposted from Brainwrap by Ojibwa

OK, the title is slightly misleading--Blitzer didn't know she was an atheist until after he asked, but that's kind of the point--it was an unbelievably inappropriate thing to ask.

I suppose it's better than asking whether she thanked Jesus, but still.

Aside from the presumptive nature of asking her that question, there's also the implied insult that such a statement makes about those who didn't survive. I guess if God was "watching over" the survivors, it means, by definition, that God didn't give a shit about the ones who died, right?

Reposted from SchuyH by Ojibwa

Leave it to Pat to use the latest tragedy to spew his twisted version of Christianity. Yes, it's the fault of the people who live in Tornado Alley that their homes get hit by tornadoes. Of course, Tornado Alley actually takes up a large part of the central part of our country, leaving one to wonder where Pat thinks people should live, if you include his lumping in earthquakes and floods. I'm not sure if there are any places that are completely free of natural disasters, but if there are, I am sure that we couldn't fit everyone into it.

Welcome to the Tuesday Coffee Hour here on Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can hang out and talk about what’s going on in our worlds. I thought I’d start today’s discussion by looking at some ducks swimming in a small creek.

Reposted from National Atheist Party by Ojibwa

War veteran and Atheist tosses hat into Mayoral race in LaGrange, Georgia

Candidate actually believes that the citizens in his city should have a politician working for them.

LaGrange native, Mike Smith, a self-proclaimed Atheist has announced his intent to run for Mayor for the city he calls home. With a platform parallel to that of the National Atheist Party it is with great honor that we offer our support for a candidate that puts the needs of the citizens first. Upon hearing about our support for his run for Mayor, Mr. Smith responded saying, "Thank you for your kind email. I am honored to accept your pledge to back my candidacy."

Vice President of PR/Marketing Bernard "Flash" Kellish says, "The National Atheist Party is honored to support Mr. Smith's run for Mayor of LaGrange, not only because he is an atheist running for office in the bible belt, but because his platform is solid and he is not accepting contributions. That to me is not only extremely refreshing, but an inspiration of things to come. In my opinion, America needs more candidates like Mike Smith."