Just a minor technicality – but please don’t let it get in the way of a good rant.

Transubstantiation is what happens to the wheat/rice paper and wine when they are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. They keep the external “accidents” of matter but their “substance” is transformed into that of the flesh and blood of Jesus.

So you’re right to a point. If you had to chemically and physically examine a consecrated circle of wheat/rice paper you’d find it’s just that. But unfortunately for believers – who are helpless to “prove” otherwise – there are no tests that can be conducted on the “substance” (in the Aristotelian sense) of a body.

Another point that many well-meaning “defenders” of the Eucharist are consistently failing to use to counter your Mohammed cartoon jibe is that Catholicism is the only religion that claims to have been founded by God Himself (God made man, of course). Theory goes that although we do not have the whole truth and nor do we hold exclusive rights to the truth, our view of the truth is the best you can get this side of the Beatific vision…. precisely because the person who “wrote the truth” – of which there is necessarily only one – has told us “what to believe”

Boring, I know … but you started it :)

You can find anybody to say anything about anything…

This would be a difficult subject to broach with all the numbers and exceptions and interpretations necessary. Here’s what seems to be the current view on crime.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/476/Age-Crime-Effects-age-structure-on-crime-rates.html

Fukuyama seems to be the son of conservative christian stock and that shows why is views are skewed in blaming everything on social norms (morality for you).

I’m not forcing my beliefs on anyone, though. You can believe that divorce is Lily the Pink’s medicinal compound for all marriage ailments. Can’t make you see that it’s not.

I for one certainly wouldn’t force you to see that believing in you particular brand of metaphysical mumbo jumbo is simply a choice foisted on to you by birth that you glibly accepted as fact.

I will however do one better than you and support all government legislation that lets you waste time comforting our insignificant mortality with fairy tales. I do it in the name of tolerance and inclusivity as a secular humanist.

Frothing-at-the-mouth ideologists are blind to the fact that they have contracted foot in mouth disease. Even when they sprinkle it with funny innuendoes and pseudo-witty remarks.

Excuse me, Reuben.

You claim that you are being asked for your opinion on the matter, and therefore it is your place to voice your opinion (by voting). That’s well and good.

But you commit an error by believing that ‘your beliefs’ aren’t ‘forced on anyone’. The two outcomes are:

a) Divorce becomes legal in Malta, so Maltese people can get divorced in Malta instead of flying to Germany to get it done, and so on. Under a) even people who don’t believe in divorce (like yourself) will never make use of the system, just as you won’t fly to Germany now to get a divorce.

b) Divorce does not become legal in Malta (you presumably will vote this way). Under b) your preference deprives others from having the opportunity to get divorced in Malta. Since you don’t believe in the idea of divorce, and you claim that this is simply your opinion, why should your opinion influence the capabilities of others who think that their lives would be significantly improved by having a divorce?

I can understand that some people can’t imagine ever being in a position where they feel that divorce is their only way out. Some people are in these positions, and it’s a selfish rationale (like yours) to have your preference influence others’ capabilities.

I am somewhat intrigued by this idea. So how would that actually work in practice Lino? Impose a curfew on the spouses? Maybe house arrest?

Or else let them live apart, but still let them have power over each other’s assets? Would make for quite the drama I guess.

It’s true. I don’t touch-type. I just think and the words flash on screen. That’s superior brain power for you :)

[Daphne – Gosh. They didn’t teach that at secretarial school in 1980.]

A man’s wife died and he asked the engraver to inscribe “Lord, she was thine” on the headstone. When the man visited his wife’s grave, he was horrified to see that it read “Lord, she was thin”.

He phoned the engraver and in a temper shouted down the phone “You fool, you fool, you messed up the carving. You left out the ‘e’, you fool”. The next day, the engraver let him know the work was done. Upon visiting the grave that afternoon the man was gobsmacked to see it now read “Lord, e, she was thin”.

Fukuyama moves squarely into the realm of social norms and
values. His thesis is that from the early 1960s until the early 1990s, most western countries
(including Australia, which he deals with somewhat sporadically) witnessed a disruption in
our social order. The Great Disruption came in three forms. First, an increase in crime.
Secondly, a decline in interpersonal trust. Thirdly, the breakdown of the family, whichFukuyama perceives to be the result of rising illegitimacy and divorce rates.

Aha! there’s more to this slip than meets the eye. if she wrote “severe” it most probably means that she pronounces “sever” incorrectly. Ajma he-ej. Ajma he-ej.

[Daphne – It doesn’t. It means that she touch-types. When people touch-type, their fingers work on autopilot, ‘predicting’ the spelling of words used more often than similarly-spelled words which are used less often – roughly similar to the ‘prediction’ facility on your mobile phone text message system. Not many people know this, because not many people touch-type.]