Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 101

Simcha Fisher on Sick Pilgrim, Part 2

I believe Donna Provencher. The one really great thing about #metoo is that it has broken a dam (and a damn) that needed broken. When a bunch of women say, “That guy preyed on us” it is common sense to believe the women, not the predator. When a dozen people with nothing in common say, […]

Simcha Fisher on the Weirdness at Sick Pilgrim

She does, I think, a very thorough job. As is my custom, when multiple women with nothing to gain and no axe to grind come forward, my assumption is to believe them for the same reason I believe multiple independent witnesses to a bank robbery: because it’s common sense. Simcha gives plenty of room for […]

Pope Francis Warns of Libertarianism

In his Message from the Holy Father to the participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences: “Finally, I cannot but speak of the serious risks associated with the invasion, at high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools, of positions of libertarian individualism. A common feature […]

Social Networks vs. Communities

Here’s a little video from the Beeb about one of the zillions of pseudo-“communities” spawned by the internet: One of the unexpected effects of social media has been that it makes it possible for isolated, ignorant, paranoid, and dumb people to network in such a way as to create pseudo-“communities” tightly walled off from the […]

Richard Feynman, a born teacher…

…gets us to think more deeply about magnets–and just to think more deeply: I’ve always thought Chesterton’s insight was helpful here: In fairyland we avoid the word “law”; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm’s […]

Connecting the Dots on the True Cross, the Titulus…

…and the extraordinary weirdnesses of popular pieties throughout the ages, featuring T0m McDonald, Knower of All Arcana! For still more McDonaldian arcana, go here for The Mystery of the Copper Scroll, featuring an actual Treasure Map from none other than Qumran. When you dress like Indiana Jones and sport a kafiyah, you pretty much are […]

Rebecca Hamilton is Back!

And in fighting trim, telling us very truly that “Judge Roy Moore’s Religious Apologists Do Not Speak for God“: What does a child — or an adult, for that matter — who has had their humanity ground into the dirt by the callous cruelty of another person who was more powerful than them keep their […]

That thing of when the Christian adulterous creeper

passionately decides to back the Christian pedo creeper when he finds out he’s a pedo creeper–just out of spite: Conservative Christian Trump and Moore supporters: The world does not reject you because you are like Jesus.  It rejects you because you are like Judas. “God’s Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” – […]

The Parable of the Bridge

A couple of years ago, the I-5 bridge spanning the Skagit river collapsed. Suppose that, due to pressure groups working to limit the Department of Transportation’s power, the DOT was limited only to stretching a piece of tape across I-5 a hundred yards ahead of the bridge and handwriting on it: “BRIDGE OUT!” Technically, they […]

There could hardly be anything more deeply symbolic…

of the neglect and contempt which the President of the Gun Cult has for victims of mass shooting than this: After today’s slaughter in California, Dolt 45 tweeted out “condolences” about the slaughter from last week because he does not give a shit. This will go on for all time until the power of the […]