Belonging Without Believing

Interesting study about Jews, religion and affiliation. The study states that one can be an active member of a religion and not really believe. There are also statistics comparing Christians, broken down by types-- evangelical, mainline protestant, Catholic as well as the unaffiliated and Jewish.

I'm skimming it now but thought I'd mention it.

One of the things I found interesting is that evangelicals are more apt to believe in miracles than Catholics. The social findings are interesting. Nothing too shocking.

Sorry is the hardest word

Here's an actual copy of the letter Hagee sent to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League apologizing for his comments and remarks about the Church in the past. I hadn't read it before, but I had heard about his noble gesture to help the sisters in San Antonio and that he wrote a nice letter or piece about the pope's recent visit. While, I think it's a nice that he apologizes, I don't take it seriously. I still think it's all about timing and politics.

I've seen people jump to his defense about buying the property where the Ursuline Sisters were about to be evicted, he said they could live there rent free for 12 years, why not forever? That would have been a grand, Christian gesture.

Ok...I'm done. I'm cynical and jaded. That will probably never change.

Religion and Politics

This is not a political post. Not really. But it seems that Pastor Hagee, the world's or at least this country's favorite Anti-Catholic, has apologized for his comments against my Church. Interesting. So, in that apology, did we get what we wanted? Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League says so.

"Donohue, one of Hagee's sharpest critics, said he accepted the apology and planned to meet with Hagee Thursday in New York. "I got what I wanted," Donohue said in an interview. "He's seen the light, as they like to say. So for me it's over."

While not my favorite Catholic spokesman by far, but when he was on The Colbert Report recently, I totally agreed with him on his take on Pastor Hagee. At least by publicly apologizing, Hagee's admitted he's said, implied or believed the bullshit he rattles off so easily in his well, researched and well thought-out video, not!

It totally boggles my mind that people believe him, think his message is true and Christian, when all it is is full of hate and vile bigotry. Unrelated to his Anti-Catholicism, but interesting nonetheless, I saw a video about his Christian Zionist movement. Not being an End Times believer or a follower of the Rapture, it's a bit amusing to watch, especially since it opens with Tom Delay being interviewed. The followers Hagee amasses, those believers totally astonish me because what they say in the video just sounds so ludicrous. However, it's also quite eye-opening at the same time. This video made by Max Blumenthal was posted with an article at TPM (Talking Points Memo) in February . Though, I think the video was produced at their Christians United For Israel Conference last summer. At the end, when the interviewer asks some heavy, pointed questions to Hagee, he gets flustered and eventually ends up throwing out Blumenthal and his film crew.

Still, the question now is, will this apology help McCain with the Catholic vote? Hillary is winning the Catholic vote among Democrats, which surprises me a bit. Honestly, I expected the vote to be a bit more evenly split. However, I'm going to refrain from talking too much about that right now. I'm just writing about my observations and what have been reported in the media already, not personal feelings, cuz quite frankly, as a Democrat, I'm having a hard time with this election cycle. And I still will never vote for a Republican no matter what. I also shudder to think that I won't vote.