R.A.G.E. Media

Looking to make a little more money this season off your Catholic website or blog? The Digital Catholic Library, a collection of 35 classic Catholic texts with reprint rights, can now be sold by you on your site, and earn you 50% of the sale, or roughly $15.

The collection includes the entire Summa Theologica, 5 books by G.K. Chesterton, The Imitation of Christ, The Confessions of Augustine, Story of a Soul, and the Little Flowers of St. Francis - just to name a few. Full details, including the complete contents and a video, can be found at www.DigitalCatholicLibrary.com.

I’ve not yet come across an affiliate program for Catholics that pays out so much for such a great value. And in these times of economic hardship and uncertainty, we can all use something that helps us take care of our families while proclaiming the gospel!

More information on the affiliate program can be found on our affiliate page.

Religion, these days, has gotten quite a bad rap. Inquisition, conquistadors, terrorism - it is now taught that violence is the fault of God, or at least those who believe in God.

A product of such teaching, P.Z. Myers, a biology teacher at a Midwest university, has formed a cult following now infamous for their hatred for religion. And while I do not agree with him, I am grateful to P.Z. Myers for several things:

In desecrating Eucharistic Hosts and the Quar’an because he believes them worthless,
He has proven that ‘Holy Wars,’ defiling of sacred grounds and objects, and persecution of people based on one’s religion are not based on belief in God.

In fostering a vehement following who make violent threats against those he denounces,
He has proven that religious terrorism does not require belief in God.

In the repetitive babbling and regurgitating of the same insults, phrases, and words by his followers,
He has shown that no belief in God is necessary to form a cult.

By their sheltering of Myers, despite the above,
the University of Minnesota Morris has proven that even secular, state-funded, progressive schools can be theocracies in open support of terrorism.

In conclusion, I am grateful to P.Z. Myers for being just the sort of person that proves that it is not God, or belief in God, that makes men violent, contemptible, ignorant bigots, but religious fanaticism. For even his science-based, secular message is a body of beliefs shared by his followers - a religion in and of itself.

In other words, P.Z. Myers has exonerated God, and those who profess belief in him, of the very charges he makes against them.

Atheism is, I suppose, the supreme example of a simple faith. The man says there is no God; if he really says it in his heart, he is a certain sort of man so designated in Scripture. But, anyhow, when he has said it, he has said it; and there seems to be no more to be said. The conversation seems likely to languish.

The truth is that the atmosphere of excitement, by which the atheist lived, was an atmosphere of thrilled and shuddering theism, and not of atheism at all; it was an atmosphere of defiance and not of denial. Irreverence is a very servile parasite of reverence; and has starved with its starving lord. After this first fuss about the merely aesthetic effect of blasphemy, the whole thing vanishes into its own void. If there were not God, there would be no atheists.

-G.K. Chesterton, Where All Roads Lead

In that case, I am truly grateful for the example of P.Z. Myers.

May God bless him.

Being an Eagle Scout, former youth group member and (briefly) a private school student, I’ve done my share of fundraisers.

Popcorn, flowers, “gift items” (aka overpriced junk), and even fertilizer - I’ve had to sell a lot of unrelated stuff before to help the organizations I belonged to.

So I had an idea for Catholic organizations, churches and websites that are about to make an appeal or start a fundraising project - offer the Digital Catholic Library to friends and family!

We’re all going to be tightening our belts this year, and at the same time the clouds of darkness are making instructional tools for Catholics even more important. So this year, consider using a quality Catholic product for your fundraiser.

Your organization’s supporters will get 35 books including The Summa Theologica, Augustine’s Confessions, Orthodoxy, Story of A Soul, The Imitation of Christ, and more - a $400 value, according to Amazon prices - for only $30. Even in today’s frightening economic times, this is a great value.

And since I remember selling lots of items for little profit, your organization will get $15 (50%) of each sale!

Here’s how it works:

1) Download the informational flyer below. You can reproduce it for bulletins, handouts, newspaper inserts, etc with your group’s contact information on it.

2) Email sales@dyinglight.com to let us know you’ll be starting a fundraiser. We’ll make sure there is some product set aside for you.

3) Set a timeframe (we suggest 2 weeks) and tell your parish, school, club, community about the fundraiser. Collect the funds and contact information of the people who order for your records.

4) Email us again with the number of CD-ROM’s you’ve sold, and we’ll make payment arrangements for $15 per CD-ROM - the rest is for your group to use! We’ll send them right out to you, with free shipping! There is a minimum of 5 CD-ROMs per fundraiser, though.

If you are planning an appeal and may need hundreds of CD-ROMs, email sales@dyinglight.com and we can work out special pricing and arrangements, including direct order fulfillment.

For a more long-term, hands-off fundraising option, consider our affiliate program which pays 25% of each referred sale of the Digital Catholic Library. Perfect for a website or blog!

Here’s a video overview of the Digital Catholic Library and its features:

There is an alarming number of Catholic and pro-life leaders and influencers who are propagating a dangerous, even evil idea. This idea is that in 2008, we do not have a suitable candidate for truly pro-life voters to choose in November.

Not voting, or voting write-in candidates, is the popular suggestion.

When I was in attendance at the Men and Abortion conference in Chicago a few weeks ago, Jason Jones addressed the audience, and said “When you live in a constitutional democracy, your civic duty becomes your religious duty. We are the sovereigns.” In other words, these influential pro-life and Catholic individuals are asking us to abdicate the throne.

First, though, it should be pointed out that the most convincing argument against voting for John McCain was his acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research. That has now been answered by his announcement that he will maintain the policy of George W. Bush and the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin, who is more courageously pro-life than I would have ever hoped to see in this election on a major ticket. Third, by the very fact these two preceding events have taken place, it confirms that John McCain is a candidate in which pro-life dialog can take place and have an effect. Therefore, this argument that he is not ‘pro-life’ enough seems to no longer hold water.

But even if these events had not taken place, if we were faced with the two parties putting forth such terrible options - would it be justified to cast a vote for a third-party candidate, especially one who has not gotten on the ballot in all 50 states?

The cause for abortion is one of the ultimate issues of good versus evil in our time. For many of us, it may be the greatest of our lives. Therefore it is our duty to take part in the battle.

Those who would have you believe there is no choice but a third-party candidate have cited that one cannot take part in evil. That is true. But we live in a time so compromised our choices have been severely limited. The blood of two generations is literally running in our sewers. The tyranny of the two party system has given us no perfect solution. However, there is a great difference between those candidates put forth by the parties.

The faults of John McCain have been mentioned, and of course one can add concern over his party’s integral part in the war in the middle east. But on the other hand… in Barak Hussein Obama… we have perhaps the personification of a candidate on the anti-Catholic, pro-abortion platform.

Obama not only supports abortion, but he has not opposed the rights of a child who survives an abortion - Obama supports a mother’s right to even kill her already-born children. As a Democrat, it is practically assured that he will revoke the Mexico City Policy, which will allow our tax dollars to fund abortions in foreign countries. There is indeed a great many more lives that will be lost if Obama is elected than if McCain is elected. Of course, if you have even read this article to this point, we are probably in agreement that under no circumstances do we want Obama to be elected.

If we cannot choose either candidate because we should not participate in evil, then we have no choice? That is what a fool will tell you. If you do nothing, or you piddle your precious vote away on a third-party candidate who has no chance, than you may very well commit a graver sin of omission, if your action or inaction brings about the greatest evil. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Let’s say that someone tells you they are about to kill one man, or three. It is your choice. But if you do not choose, they will kill the three, You have in fact three choices. If you refuse to choose, the third option, you would be responsible for the death of two more people than if you had chosen the lesser evil.

The third parties might still seem to be an option. However, never in our history has a candidate from a third party won, and for good reason. Jerry Freisa explains:

On four occasions in US history, the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the presidency. This is a feature of a republican form of government, a government that is intended to “check” popular participation and “leveling” or democratic impulses. The mechanism by which this is done is the Electoral College. The Electoral College also insures that the number of parties seriously competing for the presidency will always be and only be two.

Each State’s allotment of electors is equal to the number of House members to which it is entitled plus two Senators (with the District of Columbia getting three). But here is the key element for our purposes: in order to win the presidency, a candidate must win a majority of electors.

By requiring that a candidate win a majority, the Electoral College guarantees that third parties must do one of three things. Let’s assume a third party arises and is incredibly strong (the Perot candidacy that for a time was pushing 20 percent nationally), but has no realistic chance of wining a majority of electors straight out. Its first choice is to press forward, win a significant percentage of electors and deny either of the two major parties a majority victory. In this case, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, already dominated by the major parties. Option 1: third party looses everything.

The second option, again assuming a strong third party, is to coalesce with one of the major parties in order to get something. Arguably the most powerful progressive political party was the People’s Party during the late 19th century. In 1896, they had anywhere from 25 to 45 percent strength in twenty-odd states. Clearly unable to win the presidency as a third party, they felt compelled to coalesce with the Democrats and saw their more radical labor and socialist elements purged in a losing effort. Well, there you are. Option 2 puts you back inside one of the major parties.

The third option arises when a third party is not that strong, say a Nadar candidacy of 2000. We know what happens there. A weak third party, by taking votes away from the party closest to it ideologically will, in effect, help elect the major party most unlike themselves. Option 3: help the other guys win.

The third option is perhaps the most likely for any “more pro-life than McCain” party, and in effect it hands Obama the presidency. In other words, if the sun rises on November 5, 2008 and Obama is elected, the blood will be on the hands not only of those who voted for him or did not vote, but for those who voted for someone other than McCain.

All three of these scenarios depict a strong third party, which is not a factor in the 2008 election. Even if they were, they would pretty much have to be polling more than at least one party to be a contender, and even then the odds are decidedly stacked against them. If you need a review of how the electoral college works, Wikipedia is actually decent for this.

The Catholic Voter’s Guide put out by Catholic Answers addresses this as well:

Where an ideal candidate, law, or prgram is not on the table, we are to choose the best option, the one that promotes the greatest good and entailes the least evil. Not voting may sometimes be the only moral course of action, but we must consider whether not voting actually promotes good and limits evil in a specific instance.

Is not voting, or voting for a third party candidate, who with less than 60 days to election day has not got a prayer, the best choice to limiting evil? No, for grave evil will befall us and our children if Obama is elected.

Disclaimer: I am an independent voter, with no particular affection for the Republican party. Like Sen. Clinton, whose support of Obama is more or less due to the fact that he is not McCain, my support for McCain is because he is not Obama, and the electoral college has left us with only 2 choices.

Also, I am free to specifically name candidates in posts such as these since R.A.G.E. Media is a Corporation and not a non-profit. We do not have the muzzle that non-profits are burdened with but at the same time we must “render unto Ceasar.” So if you would like us to keep saying what we must, please take a look at our products and consider purchasing an item or two.

Disturbing email I just received from a colleague:

It appears that Prolife pharmacist and PFLI spokesman Mike Koelzer has crossed paths with the very liberal
Associate Professor of Biology, P.Z. Myers. Apparently Mike’s big offense was to show (by offering to make a presentation at Myer’s place of worship) that he didn’t (according to Myers) “know me very well“.
For this grave insult of not recognizing the renown of Myers, small hordes of Myers’ Atheist Acolytes were sent to Mike’s pharmacy survey page to heap spam onto the website of his business. This caused Mike a bit of tedium, from a need to manage the spam, and caused me considerable amusement to hear of it.

Myers, a rather bellicose fellow, apparently in midlife crisis, is known more for obtaining a Blessed Eucharistic Host from a Catholic Church, and desecrating it, than he is for accomplishments in scientific research. A brief search for his work in Biology turned up……. well, ….. next to nothing. I understand that he has one or two peer reviewed journal articles, and a little collection of conference presentations to his name. If you search the net, you’ll find Associate Professor Myers now bending the ears of students at University of Minnesota, Morris Campus.

It appears that when this P.Z. Myers passes on to become fertilizer (as his own religion might suggest) he won’t be remembered for actual accomplishments, and may be recalled by a few for attempting to anger Catholics and other people with a vision of the Creator.

I do sincerely invite P.Z. Myers to get a life, to obtain access to the Creator through the illumination of the Catholic Religion, and perhaps accomplish some significant scientific research.

Science becomes a very useful tool, for the good of living creatures, when one stops abusing it as a religion.

Karen L. Brauer MS, RPh, President, Pharmacists for Life

Mike Koelzer is just down the road from me, and we had a chance to meet last month. He’s a wonderful guy who lives his Catholic faith.

Political Satirist Stephen Colbert has caught my attention more and more. My brother introduced me to the show, and I’ve been catching clips and episodes from time to time on ColbertNation.com and Hulu.com.

Yes, he’s funny and over-the-top, but I’ve noticed more and more Catholic bloggers linking to his clips. Many times, it seems, he is expressing on a secular cable network (Comedy Central, for crying out loud - home to some of the worst trash on television) matters of faith and morals that get everyone laughing. Is this part of the new evangelization? Is it intentional, or just for the laughs?

Either way, it takes gall in this day in age to say that you like Pope Benedict XVI “better as JP2’s Rottweiler,” condemn ecumencalism as a watering down of one’s own faith, and recite the Nicene Creed on the air of the same nationwide network that airs South Park.

Or even more, to tell the Anglican Church to their face (in front of millions of people) that a return to unity with Rome is in order, and that however they want to spin it, their Church was founded by a promiscuous king who didn’t like the Church reinforcing the 10 commandments.

Sure, he likes to make pope jokes - but even then you can recognize his understanding of Church teachings:

He can also ask intelligent questions when he has clergy on the show:

When Rev. Hagee criticizes the Catholic Church, he calls in William Donohue of the Catholic League to pinch-hit in expressing outrage:

On the negative side, I did read on CatholicColbert.com that Colbert is pro-contraception - meaning there is some more dialog that needs to be had with him still.

A bit of background on Colbert - he was the youngest (that explains a lot) of 11 children in a Catholic family. At age 11, he lost his father and 2 of his brothers in a plane crash, which devastated his faith. In time, he came back to the Church and is now a practicing Catholic and Sunday School teacher. You can read more on his life in this article from Parade Magazine and this extra information from the interview.

Special thanks to CatholicColbert.com for providing a lot of links to these videos and info - and since that site is down, thanks to Google Cache for letting me still get to the content.

After the last post, I did a quick Google search and it seems the Scott Hahn facts aren’t showing up. So here they are, authored by his own daughter on her Facebook profile (so you know they are true!) In the spirit of Chuck Norris Facts, here they are:

Someone posted this on PickAFig; and while it is 2 years old it is still relevant.

Stephen Colbert addresses, through his criticism of Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey in 2006, the ecumenical movement. Or more specifically, the lack of strength and commitment shown in the current ecumenical movement throughout Chrisitianity. It’s not bigotry to think yourself right and another wrong, as G.K. Chesterton said - it’s assuming that you cannot be wrong that makes you a bigot. For all his showmanship, notice that even Colbert admits that he “hopes” he is right, but pulls no punches in asserting that if both Christianity and Muslims cannot be completely right. But he’s no bigot, at least according to Chesterton.

We should be a bit more assertive in our own beliefs, or simply cave to another. Yes, we should work toward peace, but not by capitulating our own beliefs, lest we lose our identity. This doesn’t just go for Catholics or even religious beliefs - if you are too willing to believe that everyone can’t possible be wrong, you really have nothing to add to inter-faith discourse or any debate for that matter.

Oh, and when Colbert breaks out into the “speed creed” (excerpt of the Nicene Creed) it is simply jaw-dropping that this was aired on Comedy Central.

If you haven’t found your way over to PickAFig.com, the Catholic Social Bookmarking Site, I highly suggest you take the time to check it out if you are interested in increasing the readership of your blog or website.

Here are a few tips for using the new tool, which also apply for websites like Digg and del.icio.us - although those sites are not Catholic and it can be difficult to get noticed there.

1) Submit your own stories to PickAFig. Also, vote for your own stories if someone else submits them. There’s nothing wrong with self-promoting, since you can only vote once per article anyway. Besides, how can new readers find you if you don’t tell them on a directory like PickAFig that you have content worth reading?

2) Put a PickAFig button on your blog posts. If you put a PickAFig button on your blog template, it will automatically show on each post. It serves as a reminder to your readers to vote for your story and/or submit it, and it shows off your more popular posts at a glance.

3) Don’t pass up the free incoming link. To get better rankings in the search engines, you need to have quality incoming links. That is, links that are relevant to your content from other sites that are similar in content to your own site. PickAFig, being faithfully Catholic and pro-life, can provide those links… but you or your readers have to submit your stories!

4) Vote on other stories, and discuss other posts. Your profile name and link shows when you vote or comment on other stories, and if you comment enough you’ll show up on the “Top Comments” list. Your profile should provide a link back to your site, and will also include links to stories you submitted.

Also, this is free networking with other writers; if someone sees that you voted for their story, they may be curious about what it is you write and submit. Thus, they will be introduced to your content.

5) Get over Writer’s Block. Can’t think of a topic? Browse PickAFig and see what everyone else is talking about. You may have missed a tidbit of news, or get inspired by someone else’s post.

6) Recruit more PickAFig members. The more people that participate on PickAFig, the more people will see your posts on the site. Consider browsing Catholic directories such as catholicblogs.blogspot.com, Saint Blog’s Parish, or stblogs.net and finding posts you like, and submitting them on PickAFig. Then, let the blogger know that you liked their post so much you submitted it on PickAFig.

A relative forwarded me an email from KArl Keating’s Catholic Answers group that the IRS has ruled that the Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics will not threaten the non-profit standing of organizations or parishes that distribute it.

[Catholic Answers, Inc.] created, published, and distributed the Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics (VGSC). The VGSC asserts that it is intended to help the reader vote for candidates for public office in a manner consistent with Catholic moral teachings. The VGSC identifies five issues it deems to be “non-negotiable” issues and instructs the reader on how to narrow down the list of candidates to those who are acceptable based on the non-negotiable issues. The VGSC does not directly or indirectly make reference to any specific candidate, political party, or election. Therefore, the content of the VGSC, standing alone, is not political campaign intervention because the VGSC does not support or oppose any specific candidate for public office [Internal Revenue Service, Addendum to Letter 3609P, May 2, 2008].

They are asking for donations to distribute it.
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