Ryan Overbey links to a story about the banning of amulet advertisments.#

Banning amulet advertisements that mention supernatural powers is like banning condom advertisements that mention sex. There's a reason people buy these things. But here's the kicker:

"The government should stop peddling lottery tickets before it tries to ban amulet ads," he said.

Bingo. That's a fantastic analogy.

Richard links to Amy who quotes from Letters to a Young Contrarian, by Christopher Hitchens.#

The excerpt is about why Hitchens is an "anti-theist, rather than atheist."

This arrogance and illogic is inseparable even from the meekends and most altruistic religious affirmations. A true believer must believe that he or she is here for a purpose and is an object of real interest to a Supreme Being; he or she must also claim to have at least an inkling of what that Supreme Being desires. I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator -- that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer, let alone in the great law-givers and edict-makers of whose "flock" (and what a revealing word that is) they form a part.

Kevin Lawver writes that it is not Christian to be against gay marriage.#

I don't see how allowing a gay couple to have the same legal rights as a straight couples when it comes to survivor benefits, power of attorney and the rest of the legal rights that come with a marriage (to the state, really a "civil union" anyway), threatens our families. Homosexuals are easy targets because they're "different" and "not like us". If we really wanted to strengthen the "family", we should look at the problems that already afflict families. We should look at ways to decrease the divorce rate, which is currently well over fifty percent (meaning your marriage is more likely to fail than to succeed), provide more help for single parents, and look at ways to promote marriage over co-habitation (since a couple is 33% more likely to divorce if they live together before marriage than not).

The Binary Circumstance links to a surprise announcement from the Pope: "Gays Aren't Normal."#

And he said if he media does not exercise "restraint" the state should step in. The pontifical statement called for regulations to stop the media from acting against "the good of the family," although it said the pope rejected outright censorship.

What exactly is censorship if it's not state "restraint" of communications?

Dean Esmay writes about Jews, and says some things I was not familiar with.#

My own, take, for what it's worth: The real problem with the Jews is that theirs is an hereditary religion. You can convert to Judaism, of course. They are open to that. But a Rabbi is supposed to at least try to talk you out of it. Unlike Islam or Christianity, they don't go out of their way to get people to join--although, oddly enough, non-Jews are always welcome to come worship the God of Israel in (almost) any Synagogue without being asked to convert.

Anyway, the bottom line is, you mostly become a Jew through birth. Secondarily, sometimes through marriage. Simply doing it for personal reasons is rarest of all, and isn't very common. Furthermore, as with most religions, sometimes kids fall away from the faith. Thus you usually have "ethnically Jewish" people who really have abandoned the faith--and when a lot of those have kids, they cease to raise them as Jews, and wind up blending into whatever the majority ethnicity or religion is.