Peter Kreeft: Does God Exist?

Great video by Peter Kreeft of Boston College courtesy of Prager U, via St Peter's List.

PragerU
January 25 at 8:59am · 
If there is a ‪#‎God‬, why is there so much evil? How could any God that cares about right and wrong allow so much bad to happen? And if there is no God, who then determines what is right and what is wrong? The answers to these questions, as ‪#‎BostonCollege‬ philosopher Peter Kreeft explains, go to the heart of ethics, morality and how we know what it means to be a decent person.
‪#‎Atheism‬

http://weekly.spl.link/iG2SNCI?m=email&sid=5jxDcgm

Take a tour of new One World Observatory

Alice von Hildebrand on Feminism

Alice von Hildebrand, the prominent Catholic philosopher and theologian, was married to Dietrich von Hildebrand, perhaps the most renowned Catholic philosopher and theologian of his time, who Pope Pius XII called  "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church," and Pope Benedict XVI called "one of the great ethicists of the twentieth century."

In the above video, which comes to us from ChurchMilitant.com, she does not hold back on what she sees as the absolute evil of modern feminism.

Oklahoma Wesleyan President Everett Piper on Donald Trump

That's Oklahoma Wesleyan President Everett Piper.  He is another Conservative who will not be voting for Donald Trump for pretty much the same reasons (all good) that Matt Walsh will not vote for Trump.

Dr. Piper, in a recent blog post titled: Trumping Morality explains why he would not be inviting Donald Trump to speak in the school's chapel at Oklahoma Wesleyan as he did at Liberty University on January 18 at the invitation of Jerry Falwell, Jr.  That blog post is reproduced below.

On January 18, Jerry Falwell, Jr. welcomed Donald Trump to Liberty University to speak in the school’s chapel. As the college president who wrote the “this is not a daycare” article that received so much national attention recently, I have been asked by the media if I would be next: Will I be inviting Mr. Trump to Oklahoma Wesleyan University to speak in our chapel service? My answer has been simple and brief. No, I will not.

In selecting speakers for Oklahoma Wesleyan, party affiliation and political positions do not matter. Personal conduct, public statements, theological integrity and moral consistency do. In short, unless it is an open debate where different sides of the issue will be presented, we choose speakers who generally promote our university’s mission and who do not stand in opposition, either in word or deed, to what we claim to hold dear as a Christian community. I believe I owe it to our students, faculty, staff, board, donors and church to do nothing less— and frankly, Donald Trump simply doesn’t represent OKWU’s behavioral, theological, moral or political ideals.

“But, we need to defeat Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,” many have said: “Your criticism of Trump only helps them. You need to stop attacking those on ‘our side!’”

My response:

Anyone who is pro-abortion is not on my side. Anyone who calls women “pigs,” “ugly,” “fat” and “pieces of a–” is not on my side. Anyone who mocks the handicapped is not on my side. Anyone who has argued the merits of a government takeover of banks, student loans, the auto industry and healthcare is not on my side. Anyone who has been on the cover of Playboy and proud of it, who brags of his sexual history with multiple women and who owns strip clubs in his casinos is not on my side. Anyone who believes the government can wrest control of the definition of marriage from the church is not on my side. Anyone who ignores the separation of powers and boasts of making the executive branch even more imperial is not on my side.

I’m a conservative. I believe in conserving the dignity of life. I believe in conserving respect for women. I believe in conserving the Constitution. I believe in conserving private property, religious liberty and human freedom. I believe in morality more than I do in money. I hold to principles more than I yearn for power. I trust my Creator more than I do human character. I’d like to think that all this, and more, makes me an informed and thoughtful citizen and voter. I’ve read, I’ve listened and I’ve studied and there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing, in this man’s track record that makes Donald Trump “on my side.”

I refuse to let my desire to win “trump” my moral compass. I will not sell my soul or my university’s to a political process that values victory more than virtue.

No, Donald Trump will not be speaking at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

“The conservative…will not surrender to the contagion of mass-opinion or the temptations of…power… [I]f he hopes to conserve anything at all, he must make his stand unflinchingly.” Russell Kirk

To read the above referenced "This is not a daycare piece" by Dr. Piper, go HERE. 

Nobel Laureate, Ivar Giaever, Smashes the Global Warming Hoax

Historian Forrest McDonald: The Grave Decline in Moral Standards

That's Forrest McDonald, who died in Tuscaloosa, six days ago.  He taught there at the University of Alabama from 1976 - 2002.

This is from today's Wall Street Journal: 

Notable & Quotable: Historian Forrest McDonald

‘It is leftists, not conservatives, who are Puritans, who want to make people over in accordance with their views.’

Jan. 24, 2016 4:07 p.m. ET

Historian Forrest McDonald, who died Jan. 19 at age 89, writing in a 1999 Commentary magazine symposium on the results of the 1998 midterm elections:

Still—to turn to the editors’ second question—there can hardly be room to doubt that the nation has undergone a grave decline in its moral standards. Relativism and permissiveness have won; “sensitivity” toward the behavior of others, no matter how despicable, has won; the notion that self-esteem is more important than achievement has won.

Many reasons for the decline can be adduced, not least among them being the intrusiveness into our lives of the corruption that pervades Washington. Earlier, the Grant and Harding administrations were corrupt, but the scandals had virtually no impact upon society; the federal government had nothing to do, for example, with the way parents raised their children. Now, by contrast, the government pokes its nose into everything, including standards of morality. To cite but one kind of instance, the Catholic church’s charities and the Salvation Army, which have been traditional carriers of religion and morality as well as of succor, now refrain from espousing religion and morality, lest they lose their government funding.

It is federal money that corrupts: take their money and they own you. Most people probably know this but are willing to take the money anyway. I once heard Frank Sinatra say on a talk show that it was easy enough to get along with the Mafia. “Just don’t ever let them do you a favor.” The same advice applies to the federal government.

Nevertheless, despite the general moral decline, I would insist that there is no widespread neo-Puritan impulse among conservatives. It is leftists, not conservatives, who are Puritans, who want to make people over in accordance with their views—in myriad ways, ranging from stamping out smoking to imposing correct thought; and that has been true since Rousseau. They constitute the most serious threat to our cherished freedoms.

Matt Walsh on Donald Trump

Matt Walsh does not want you to vote for Donald Trump, and he makes a very good case to convince you not to do so.   He writes, as usual, at The Blaze.

"It’s very simple. If a man has no moral center, if he has ambition but no faith, if he does not demonstrate humility or integrity, I will never vote for him for president. I don’t care who he is, what he’s done, what he says, or what positions he holds. None of that will matter when we are living under his tyranny, and tyranny is sure to follow when you give unspeakable power to a man who believes he is God.

"I’ll put this another way: if you vote for a man who worships himself over God, you deserve the tyranny that happens next.

"You deserve it because you chose it, just as the souls in Hell deserve Hell because they chose it. If you go to the ballot box and say, “I am going to do my part to put this self-absorbed pagan in charge of my nation” you are directly consenting to the inevitable result. You are embracing it. You are literally asking for it.

"I know this will not resonate with atheists, but for us God-fearing folk it is extraordinarily obvious and irrefutable that we ought to only vote for other God-fearing folk. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I think it goes without saying that if the governed ought to be moral and religious, certainly the governors ought to be the same, and arguably more so…"

To read the rest of this hard to argue with post, go HERE.

Best Ever State Farm® commercial - "Never"

The End of Prayer Shaming: East Catholic High School

The End Of Prayer Shaming from East Catholic High School on Vimeo.

Learn more about:
East Catholic High School, Manchester, Connecticut.

Bishop Barron on the "Waze" of Providence