What the H - E - Double-Hockey-Sticks Do I Know?

 Originally published to Facebook October 12, 2020 "God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’" - Genesis 1:28 There is a lot to unpack in this scripture. I'm going to try and be focused. For example, this post is not about misinterpreting the word "subdue" or the idea of to "have dominion" to mean "exploit" or "squander" or treat with cruelty, though that's an important conversation. As I write this, the world population is on the cusp of 8 Billion people. When I was born in the early 70s it was poised to hit 4 Billion, meaning it has more than doubled in the last 50 years. It is about 20 times what it was at the end of the 15th century. The Biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" has certainly become a defining characteris...

Originally published to Facebook August 11, 2020 The sale of indulgences was chief amongst Martin Luther's complaints which inspired the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. To oversimplify a bit, the practice had progressed to a place where the wealthy could donate prodigious sums to the church in exchange for pardon of particular sins, or for the reduction or commutation of the amount of penance or time in purgatory merited by those sins. As practiced, it also created pressure on the poor who already had so little to transfer more wealth to the church for the sake of loved ones who they were told were suffering in purgatory but could be delivered... if the price was right. In practice it created a religious culture where the wealthy could leverage their resources to act immorally according to religious tradition but still be fully accepted into the life of the church and even held up as models of faithfulness, while the poor had to conform to a much higher standard to app...