The American Spectator

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(Page 4 of 16)

p> Lisa Fabrizio replies: br> Given the constrictions of space, let me say this: the gist of Pope Benedict's book -- indeed, of Christian belief for some 2,000 years -- is precisely that, to understand who Jesus was, one cannot only read the New Testament; one must look for his coming predicted in the Old as well. And it is not his "past existence" which is at issue, but his present and eternal one. /p>

As far as his "moral" philosophy, the pope writes: "Unless there had been something extraordinary in what happened, unless the person and the words of Jesus radically surpassed the hopes and expectations of the time, there is no way to explain why he was crucified or why he made such an impact." Excluding some early Gnostics, not many dispute that Jesus was crucified, not only for political reasons, but because he claimed to be God, a crime punishable by death under Jewish law.

And as regards my myopia in stating that Jesus was either who he constantly claimed to be, or a prolific and/or pathological (as in related or resulting from disease) liar, this is indeed a tough statement, but nonetheless a true one. It may be myopic to believe him, but billions have and will continue to do so.

p> FEELING THE HEAT - br> Re: G. Tracy Mehan, III's An Industry of Mutual Degradation : /p>

I'm sure Mr. Mehan and Bishop Loverde will take a lot of heat from those holding an absolutist view of personal freedom because they dared to expose the harm caused by the virtually unrestricted dissemination of pornography. For decades we have been told that this form of "entertainment" is not only benign but actually beneficial in some instances to those who partake of it. After all they say, only puritanical clods, who desire to take away everyone's fun, believe there is anything wrong with looking at pictures of naked co-eds. But, as these men point out, the reality of this vice is quite different from the one our libertarian friends portray.

When law enforcement officers search the homes of sexual predators they usually uncover a huge cache of pornographic material. Online sting operations like MSNBC's To Catch a Predator, reveal that many of the men caught soliciting sex from underage children entice them with graphic sexual images, some with provocative pictures of their own genitalia. The fact that the recidivism rate for people who commit crimes fed by their addiction to pornography is extremely high should temper any reservations we might have about reconsidering our permissive attitude toward this blight on the human landscape.

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