Category: Musings

The Protestant Revulsion to Mary

Posted on by Jeff Cassman
For a variety of reasons, I tend to avoid arguing with my protestant friends. For one, I stay busy teaching and defending the Catholic faith with fellow Catholics. Secondly, I’ve found that a person really needs to be open to hearing a different perspective for the possibility of productive dialogue.
 
However, when a friend says that a devotion to Mary is more repulsive than atheism, I’m inclined to speak up. (Yes, it was a Calvinist).
 
It has always struck me as illogical that protestants are so eager to ask one another-not just sinners, but those predestined to hell-to pray for them, but consider it idolatry (literally), to ask those *already in heaven* to pray for them.
 
This obstinance regarding Mary is all the more unusual given that even the most extreme fundamentalist would proclaim belief in the 10 Commandments, which even in abridged, modern translations includes the obligation to “honor father and mother”, and would even go so far as to admit that imitating Christ-the perfect, sinless man-would be a good thing (1 Cor 11:1)…so long as we don’t imitate too perfectly His honoring of His mother.
 
They recoil at statues to the mother of the King of Kings, but erect statues of earthly royalty, reformers, Masons and warmongers. They abhor pictures of the mother of God but cover their timelines with pictures of family, friends and acquaintances, all of whom are alienated from the righteousness of God and at least some of whom are no doubt completely depraved.
 
One
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The Malicious Witness

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

“Word of the Day: GOSSIP

The other day I heard the first somewhat unflattering description of the behavior of some — some — of our students. It wasn’t that they got drunk, or fornicated, or cheated on papers, or did drugs, or got into fights, as is par for the course everywhere else. It’s that some of the girls engaged in GOSSIP. The trouble is that the walls and floors in the dormitory are rather thin, so that two girls talking about a third girl would be overheard by ten others.

Men GOSSIP too, but it isn’t so much fraught with emotion. Consider it to be another case of a gift gone awry. Women do use words more often than men do, and women are in fact more keenly attuned to the feelings of others. You want that sort of thing in the sex that is to take care of babies and small children. You do not want that sort of thing in the sex that is to hunt buffalo. You want, in the buffalo-hunting sex, a different gift, one that can also be abused or that can harden into something bad: the capacity to bracket your feelings and put them in the closet marked “Inconsequential,” because what counts are not feelings but getting the particular job done. And if the job is complex and risky, like bringing down the buffalo, or building the cathedral, or digging the canal, most expressions of personal feeling are quite simply in the way.… Read the rest

Are We All Really ‘Slaves’, as Some on the Left (and Right), Claim?

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

A Facebook friend claimed we are all just slaves:

The truly amazing thing about America is that its workers have been persuaded that they really want to build the pyramids. Slaves who believe they are free are so much easier to control.

Another mocked the notion that Americans are adequately fed, paid and housed.  To top it all off, he claimed we lack sufficient leisure time!

As for myself, I work a lot (perhaps 50 hours a week), because I have a large family to support and commitments to others. But I enjoy leisure time as well, frequently after 6pm, usually on Saturdays, and always on Sundays.  My list of leisure activities-and between my work, teaching children, domestic duties, prayer and Church activities is not really very extensive-includes books, music, television, internet, radio, newspaper, a fully-equipped gymnasium, public greenways, libraries, parks, tennis…the list of leisure activities that are low cost or free is almost exhausting.

This daily leisure time-adding up to nearly as many hours as I work in a week-puts me in the category with Kings, doesn’t it?

And, if I (really here I am talking about the ‘we’ of the first world), didn’t want multiple cars, multiple smart phones, cable, dinner out and the long list of other luxuries even the poor among us enjoy (if you doubt that the poor enjoy multiple cars, smart phones and cable, spend more time in the ER, or at prison waiting rooms, or at WalMart, or around public housing), well, if … Read the rest

Cassman’s Principle of the Certitude of Contrarianism

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

Complex situations (like societies), can often be difficult for us to interpret and analyze (if you doubt me, watch people trying to order at McDonalds). I find that a reliable method for simplifying this process is to simply study my opponent. Put another way, if you know who your enemy is, and you are uncertain of your situation, observe your enemy closely for a reliable barometer of reality. I listen to NPR for this reason, and watch CNN. I can quickly ascertain the reality of any situation simply by believing the opposite of whatever they assert. If they say the polar ice caps are melting, I know they are not. if they say the seas are rising, I know they are not. If they say candidate X will lose, I know he will win. This is how reliable they are. It’s an extraordinary thing, really. But you have to read Orwell to get it, and that means I’m only making sense to 12.5% of you.

This Slate article is a great example: the modern understanding of “civil rights” is unequivocally a violation of the first amendment rights of every citizen. You are not even free to THINK without violating federal law. (Hate crime legislation and ‘enhancements’ in federal sentencing guidelines prove this beyond a doubt). P.S. Trump is winning and I don’t even think he gets it.

 … Read the rest