They did that, and they are reporting that the results came back positive for HCG. That's where all this is coming from.

I doubt that, too. I am about 95% sure this is all hot air. But there is enough precedent for this sort of thing, not to mention the simple possibility of unrealized contamination or faulty manufacture, that I would really feel better if an independent party (read: not WHO, Kenyan government, or Catholic bishops)…

1. No, they're not, which is why I would like to see independent testing of the vaccine rather than taking the word of their reported experts.

Thanks; I didn't know that. That assuages some of my concerns about the targeted push. However, I would still love to see some independent testing (I don't trust the bishops' "medical experts" one bit). The Snopes link is helpful, but I don't actually think it's conclusive; for instance, one of the questions it…

But nobody's asking anyone to "trust" the RCC. A group of bishops is raising questions about a vaccine campaign, which, again, regardless of the truth of the claims, is based upon well-founded fears regarding coercive and non-informed medical treatment, ought to be looked into. If the tests come back saying that the…

Given that this vaccine was (admittedly weirdly) only targeted toward women of childbearing age, the fact that no independent testing has been done on the vaccine despite the bishops' request for it, and the unfortunate worldwide history of women being coercively targeted by governments and/or organizations to serve…

My godparents lived in Seattle when they got married, which is a lovely city with lots of gorgeous water-related areas. Their reception was on a party boat out in the Sound. They decided it would be really fabulous if they made their grand entrance to the reception after the boat had cast off, by canoeing out to it…

I do appreciate your civility, but what I'm trying to get through to you is that your reliance upon empirical evidence as the sole kind of evidence or support for any sort of belief relies on a premise that not all reasonable people share. It's not necessarily that an astrophysicist that believes in God has cognitive…

The premise assumed by your argument is that nothing that is not empirically observable and/or measurable is worthy of belief or even consideration. That is a fine premise to have, but it's not one shared by everyone. It's also something of a brute fact; the sole validity of empirical data is not capable of being…

When "seeing things from an American point of view" entails assuming that religion as practiced by a demographically tiny subset of Americans is indicative of all religious practice and belief, everywhere, not only throughout the U.S. but the entire world, then yeah, I do think that's a legitimate gripe. Being based…

That's a fantastic analogy. Nobody who actually is American would even think that non-Americans would consider this surprising. And, in fact, it would be pretty insulting that they did. Yet, here we are.

I'm confused about what you consider the definition of evolution to be. Of course your evolutionary biology textbook doesn't mention anything about God. That's not its purview or area of inquiry. Evolution is a mechanism or a process. It's not an explanation of how the world came to be, but simply an observation…

Exactly. It ignores literally everything except this little insular cultural bubble and universalizes it and assumes it's the case in all communities, everywhere. That shouldn't be acceptable on any topic.

The "Catholic view" doesn't read the Noah's Ark narrative as literal any more than it does the Creation account.

This attitude of "Holy shit a religious person said a reasonable thing! What???!!!" is condescending and ignorant. There are literally billions of people who hold some kind of religious belief, with a huge variety and diversity of views on any number of subjects. Assuming that "religion" = "fundamentalist,…

I think you're probably right. But it seems crazy to me that you can't say "creation" without being painted with the same brush as Ken Ham. Even secular big bang theorists admit that they don't know what was before the singularity. Presumably matter (or proto-matter, or energy, or time-space, or whatever the right…

Miniscule. It's nothing more than previous generations of Catholic theologians and popes have been saying just about since the theories of evolution and the big bang were first proposed.

As has been pointed out numerous times on any number of outlets (including Gawker), this is not new for Catholics. Catholicism has never believed in Biblical literalism, evolution has pretty much always been a non-controversial idea, and the guy who first proposed the Big Bang Theory, Georges Lemaître, was a Catholic…

Great! Very principled and assertive, which is admirable. You've also just torpedoed your entire career, because the President of the United States and his extensive network of staff and connections now have it out for you and will ensure that you never work in this town again.

I am in 100% agreement. I love soup-as-meal. So easy, so filling, so cozy. I'll make a huge pot of something over the weekend (chili, split pea [YES PINKHAM SPLIT PEA], roasted cauliflower and cheddar, etc.) and eat it for dinner every day for a week. Delicious! Totally effort-free! I never get tired of it and I'm…