I can guarantee he didn't think of them the same way they thought of him. Completely different philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings to the theology, Jesuits are anti-Islamics.

My question is, if ISIL, just for a second, isn't a CIA plant, what makes them think a few beheadings will STOP the bombings? Given the evil of American Secularism, it is far more likely to turn the Levant into tritonite than it is to stop anything at all.

Which is why environmentalists need to get on board with isolationists and localists about charging per-container-mile shipping taxes.

It should be the car that is disabled (or your license taken away)

Exactly - as they do already in the UK: get caught driving while using a mobile phone, you get 3 penalty points. That puts your insurance premiums up in itself, and if you reach a total of 12 points, no more driving for a few years. The penalty may be increased to 6 - in which case, get caught driving on the phone twice, you're in the passenger seat for several years. If someone's been caught driving on the phone (whether texting, talking or reading Slashdot), why let them continue driving at all? Will disabling the phone stop them driving while fiddling with the radio, eating, shaving etc? Of course not - so get them away from the wheel and let them text all they like as passengers.

It is against the law pretty much everywhere. However that law is enforced pretty much nowhere. It is just simply too difficult to enforce it, as a police officer has to catch the person in the act to even write a ticket. And then the ticket is so laughably small in terms of the monetary penalty as to be pointless to even write.

Here in the UK, the penalty is that you get one-quarter of the way to no longer driving (3 penalty points, where 12 means a driving ban); the government announced earlier this year they were considering doubling that to halfway, i.e. get caught doing it twice (within 3 years) and you won't be driving again. However small the risk, I suspect that's a big enough deterrent to scare many - particularly since it would often mean losing their job too. You don't have to be caught red-handed, either, just suspected enough for the police to investigate, then they check the network usage logs and confirm you were using the handset at the time in question. (Or get seen on a traffic camera, of which there are many.)

The idea in the article is just silly, though.

My point is that this "reward" sounds a heck of a lot like the tail end of This STTOS series.

And apparently, keep doing it for 1.3 million years....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA78e7Vh_XE

Simple -- they're at a MegaChurch near you.

But what they do, when, say, Ted Haggard gets high and engages in gay sex, is say... well, he wasn't really saved before. But this time (after the whole rededication / rebaptism) it'll stick -- pinky swear.

And that's really where I think a lot of my Protestant brothers are incorrect -- they focus too much on whether a person is "saved" and not what happens afterward. What MUST happen afterwards that the faith should bear fruit, otherwise, the faith is dead. (Those who keep the faith to the end...)

So what is that fruit? Corporal works of Mercy, becoming more Christ-like, always continuing to refine one's self, abandoning venial sin habits, etc. Those are the fruits of a faith that is alive and well.

tl;dr: Don't just be a pew sitter on Sunday morning because you like the coffee or the praise band (Prayer Bolt.. ) or want to feel like you're part of the club. "Oh hey, we're part of Faith Grace Meadow Church -- yeah, the one the size of a Wal-Mart superstore. Yeah, the praise band makes me feel happy, and the pastor just talks about what's in the Bible."

"Oh, I was thinking about trying Grace Faith Meadow, they say they teach just what's in the bible too"

"NO THEY ARE DIRTY HEATHENS!"

And so on, and so forth. The riff on the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front from Life of Brian was intentional.

And while I'm wound up...

The segregation I see in the Protestant Community really bothers me. "Oh, we only send our kids to christian school (or homeschool)" -- meaning that there are fewer points of light in the public schools.

Or, "We only buy Christian media" -- fine, but then without Christian influence the culture rots faster.

It's time for Christians to stop segregating ourselves, and START FIGHTING THE CULTURE WAR. Start throwing some (metaphorical) punches at the culture.

The ones I was tracking did so about 3 miles.

There is a misconception that the Catholic Church has a "point system" -- it doesn't.

What the Church encourages is to live out your faith -- and, as James eloquently points out -- a faith without works is a dead faith.

Logically, this makes sense. If you've truly accepted Christ, and His commandments to be more like Him, then your life *should* be different from what it was before.

You are correct that none of us can get to Heaven on our own. We need Christ's grace and mercy -- my point is simply, we can turn back on that journey of ours at anytime.

This is what "those who have faith at the end" means -- those of us who have the faith at the end of our lives enter in to Glory.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that once "saved", always "saved", therefore they can do as they please because grace covers it. So it's OK to cheat on their spouse, steal, murder, etc, because after all, well, they just love Jesus enough and He died on the cross for it, so no worries, let's party!

This line of thinking is folly.

Shoulder pads with big batteries and solar panels? Then we could all look like we come from the 24th century Romulan Empire!

I'm not persuaded that, once properly accepted, salvation can be relinquished

That flies against free will. One could, theoretically, at some future date, reject Christianity and lose their salvation.

The Protestant argument is that they never had Salvation to begin with... so when they rededicate their life (again), are they truly saved that second / third / fourth time?

For some of us -- because I've experienced Christ present in the Eucharist, I could never turn away from my faith. But the choice remains mine.

This is probably the wrong venue for this discussion though. If you would like to continue, shoot me an email.

As for faith bearing fruit: what specific fruit did the saved thief on the cross beside Christ bear?

Acceptance that he was a sinner who deserved his fate, and earnestly asking Christ to deliver him.

All of which is greater than 11mph.....the speed of the automobile traffic in New York City.

Having said that, I used to drive a Honda Spree. I've *clocked* bicycles doing 30 in 25mph zones.

Average speed was 11mph to begin with. The bikes, able to weave between traffic at 30mph for a biker in shape, were not the limiting factor.

I thought it was going to be more like what other cities that have implemented bike lanes and routes have seen- fewer people in cars on the road.