Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 77
May 18, 2017
Blog update & our FaceBook page
BeliefNet, having purchased Patheos, is planning a new look and new features for its family of blogs. So watch for changes here at Cranach. For example, you might notice a difference in how the illustrations are presented. Actually, that is a minor change I was asked to make as part of the Patheos social media initiative. [Read More...]
May 17, 2017
The 221 religions
The U.S. military has compiled a list of religions, numbering 221. Though including varieties of paganism and unbelief, it makes mistakes and is incomplete.
“I hope you can let this go”
Fired FBI director James Comey has reportedly kept a paper trail of President Trump’s inappropriate efforts to influence investigations of his administration’s Russia connections. The New York Times reported on a memo that Comey wrote the day after the president’s national security director Michael T. Flynn resigned. It recorded a conversation in which the president [Read More...]
Flushing a friend
I have long complained about contemporary funerals. But I have learned about yet another way of honoring the death of a loved one. A man is going to baseball stadiums around the country. While the game is going on, he goes to the men’s room and flushes some of the ashes of his late friend [Read More...]
May 16, 2017
Believing, behaving, belonging
The Pew Study of religious belief in former Communist countries that we blogged about recently cites a scholar who breaks down religious involvement into three factors: “Believing. Behaving. Belonging.” A religion entails believing in certain things. “Behaving” refers not so much to moral behavior–though acting in accord with what one’s religion teachers is surely an [Read More...]
Treating pets like children
Young adults are not having children, much. But they are having pets in great number. And they are apparently channeling their parental instincts into their pets. We can now hear 30-something men and women calling dogs or cats “my children,” “fur-babies,” “kids,” “girls,” “boys,” or “sons and daughters” and themselves their pet’s “mommy” or “daddy.” I have [Read More...]
Officials deny claim that Trump revealed secrets to Russia
In yet another controversy, The Washington Post reported that President Trump revealed top secret information to the Russians during his talks last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. According to the report, the information had to do with threats from ISIS and exposed a crucial source. But now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National [Read More...]
May 15, 2017
The little nation that defeated the Soviets
A nation is defined by its history and its people’s common experiences. That is especially true of nations whose citizens, for the most part, share a specific ethnic identity. In Finland, where I spent some time recently, history is a living force. For some 500 years, Finland was part of Sweden, a region in the [Read More...]
Assault on pro-life doctors
The Hippocratic Oath specifically forbids physicians from committing abortion or euthanasia. So that oath isn’t used much in the medical profession any more. But doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals in the United States can still refuse to perform abortions on the grounds of conscience. But now a concerted effort is underway to eliminate that conscience [Read More...]
Global cyberattack stopped by 22-year-old who lives with his parents
A massive ransomware attack on Friday hit 99 countries and shut down thousands of operations, including FedEx and England’s National Health Service. The malware took control of computers and kept them from working unless victims made a payment of $400, going up as time elapsed. The virus had its origin in software stolen from the [Read More...]
