Real Clear Religion

TROUBLED TIMES

09/08/07 08:41 Permalink

"Times of tribulation often teach us more true and profound lessons than times of ease, as pain is often a more effective master than facile success. With terror will come understanding, and we hope to God that the whole human race, as well as each individual nation, will emerge more experienced and more mature from the painful and bloody school of today; that it will be able with clear eyes to distinguish truth from deceptive appearances; that it will open its ears and attend to the voice of reason, pleasing or not, and will close them to the hollow rhetoric of error; that all men will acknowledge reality and take seriously the practice of right and justice, not only when calling for their own demands to be met but also when considering the rightful claims of others." Pope Pius XII, 1940 amidst World War II

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THE NETHERLANDS--THE FUTURE HOME OF "JUDEO-CHRISTIAN-ISLAMIC TRADITION"

01/08/07 11:04 Permalink

Most Dutch adults reject a recent statement by their "integration minister", Ella Vogelaar, who said she expects the Netherlands to eventually adopt some of the traditions of Islam.

"On Jul. 16, Vogeelar said that the Netherlands should in the future be home to a "Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition." The following day, the Council of Moroccan Mosques in the Netherlands (RMMN) released a statement, saying the minister’s comments showed a 'great deal of courage.'"
Earlier this month, integration minister Ella Vogelaar said she expects the Netherlands to eventually adopt some of the traditions of Islam. Do you expect this to actually happen?

Yes 38%
No 56%
Not sure 6%

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FOURTH CHILD BECOMES A STATUS SYMBOL

02/07/07 15:19 Permalink

Lest you think that you are a cultural dinosaur for having, or desiring to have more than three children --take heart --you are now in vogue. But did you realize that your children are now status symbols?

"Forget the yacht or the holiday home in Tuscany, the latest must-have “status symbol” to measure power and success in Wales could now be a fourth child.

Some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet – the Blairs, the Gores, the Jaggers, and the Pitt-Jolies – have four children.

And social commentators say these “alpha” mums and dads have fuelled a vogue, sending a “virility/fertility” message out to the world as they strive to fill up every available seat of their people carriers.

Of course there are those who believe that anyone who would have more than the average 2.4 children are either "rich or mad".

Delyth Purchase, 37, lives in Port Talbot with her husband, Matthew, who works for the military services, and their two daughters, Seren, five and Taryn, two.

She joked that she thinks anyone having four children must be rich, or mad.

She said, “Two children are enough for us. They were both planned and we are not planning any more, for both financial and practical reasons."

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DUTCH REJECT DEBAUCHERY AND "ANYTHING GOES" CULTURE

01/07/07 11:56 Permalink

It seems nihilism and hedonism are not all they are cracked up to be. They not only take an ugly toll on the human soul but also on a society.

"People in high political circles are saying it can't be good to have a society so liberal that everything is allowed," said Kranendonk, editor of Reformist Daily and an increasingly influential voice that resonates in the shifting mainstream of Dutch public opinion.

"People are saying we should have values; people are asking for more and more rules in society."

In cities across the Netherlands, mayors and town councils are closing down shops where marijuana is sold, rolled, and smoked. Municipalities are shuttering the brothels where prostitutes have been allowed to ply their trade legally. Parliament is considering a ban on the sale of hallucinogenic "magic mushrooms."

Orthodox Christian members of Parliament have introduced a bill that would allow civil officials with moral objections to refuse to perform gay marriages. And Dutch authorities are trying to curtail the activities of an abortion-rights group that assists women in neighboring countries where abortions are illegal.

The effort to rein in the famed social liberties of the Netherlands is not limited to the small, newly empowered Christian Union party, which holds two of the 16 ministries in the coalition government formed this year.

Increasingly, politicians from the more center-left Labor Party are among the most outspoken proponents of closing some brothels and marijuana shops, known here as coffee shops.

"Has the Netherlands changed? Yes," said Frank de Wolf, a Labor Party member of the Amsterdam City Council.

"There is not only a different mood among our people and politicians, but there are different problems now."

"In the past, we looked at legal prostitution as a women's liberation issue; now it's looked at as exploitation of women and should be stopped," said de Wolf, sitting in the offices of the medical complex where he works as an AIDS researcher.

And de Wolf said he is fed up with the planeloads of British thrill-seekers who take cheap flights to Amsterdam each Friday evening for weekend binges of sex, drugs, and alcohol in his city's red-light district, where scantily clad prostitutes stand behind plate-glass windows beckoning to potential customers.

"Amsterdam has a reputation that you can do everything here," de Wolf said.

"That's not the way I want people to look at Amsterdam."

Read full article at Boston.com

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Culture, Christianity, Catholic Dogma & The Death Of The West