Asymmetric Religion and Philosophy

This year, thankful for (in no particular order)...:

1. soldiers who have sacrificed for their country.
2. clergy and others who sacrifice for God.
3. being an American.
4. health, mental and physical.
5. wife, that she's faithful to and loves me.
6. children.
7. having both my parents with me.
6. having a job.
9. being a teacher.
10. being a soldier.
11. my friends.
12. being able to learn, read, listen to, watch whatever I want.
13. having this outlet for self-expression.
14. you guys who are reading this right now.
15. computers and all of gadgets I enjoy.
16. being able to choose my leaders.
17. Pilgrims.

Who do I thank? Well individuals, where appropriate (my wife for putting up with me), but God, overall. And, if I had none of the things above, I'd still thank God.

Why?

Well, my existence and the opportunity to fight for or persevere without items 1-17.

Why?

God told us to.

Why does he need thanks?

He doesn't. We do.

Why?

We need to recognize the source of everything. We need to acknowledge the order of the universe.

Can Fox report something about the Vatican and science without mentioning Galileo in the first sentence or Giordano Bruno, who was not burned at the stake for being a scientist, in the middle of the report. Really, the article needs two anti-Catholic references?

Why didn't they say that the search for extraterrestrial life follows the great history of the Catholic Church in encouraging science in general and particular scientists like Galileo; Copernicus; Mendel; and Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, who first proposed the Big Bang theory or Nicholas Steno, one of the pioneers of archaeology?

How about mentioning that 5% of the greatest mathematicians in history were Jesuit priests?

Too much to ask?

I may have a mini-obsession at any one time (the last being 40s music), but I'm pretty moderate about any one thing over time and my interests have breadth- from the physical like cars and technology to the metaphysical to those things in between, like music and art. I partition my radio listening according to this tendency. When I reach maximum political talk radio capacity, I switch to straight news, music, or, like I did a couple of years ago, the Comedy Channel on Sirius.

Lately, I've been listening to Catholic radio on Sirius. They have two Catholic channels, the Catholic Channel and EWTN. The former has a good psychologist show called Fully Alive! with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak.

EWTN is more serious, generally. My favorite show, one that I've been podcasting for the last month or so, is the Catholic Answers radio show. Patrick Coffin hosts the show and he's a very talented broadcaster. Calm and goofy, he has a great radio presence. Each day, he welcomes a different guest, with Sister Rosalind Moss, a convert from Judaism, being an especially powerful speaker, combining as she does intelligence and emotion to produce one engaging presentation. I see her being the successor to Mother Angelica.

Anyways, they're having a membership drive. The site for the drive is here. I suggest you download one of their free podcasts, here.

In light of current national events.

Here (no paragraph breaks, annoying) here, here, and here.