Christopher Columbus Discovers America

This scene from the movie Apocalypto captures that moment when Spain brought civilization to a barbaric culture. WARNING: For Mature Audiences Only.

But then, some revisionist historians prefer to turn a blind eye to what the toltec, aztec, and late-mayan civilizations were up to prior to the Spanish arrival:

Every Drop Counts

For your annual community gathering you could kick it at the Atlcahualo festival. Yeah, this fellowship gathered for the god Tlaloc where child sacrifices took place to favor early rains. You see, at this festival, crying was a good omen. But big boys don't cry. So the civilized Aztecs picked on the ones that would shed tears when their bodies were slowly being ripped apart. If on the way to the shrine these children cried, their tears were viewed as signs of imminent and abundant rains and those that wouldn't would have their fingernails torn off in order to achieve this effect.

Don't believe it? There's evidence. In an Associated Press article subtitled, "Mexican digs confirm grisly Spanish-era accounts" we see that the Spaniards weren't exaggerating when they told of barbaric practices of cannibalism, child sacrifice, and barbaric behavior. According to archaeologist Juan Alberto Roman Berrelleza, "the results of forensic testing on the bones of 42 children, mostly boys around age 6, sacrificed during a drought at Mexico City’s Templo Mayor, the Aztec’s main religious site, all shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry."

But according to liberal modernist historians we're supposed to forget all the sadism and focus on how Spanish Franciscans 'unfairly' introduced Catholicism to a culture that 'already had their own religion'. We're supposed to forget the bloodbath that follows idolatry and focus instead on the deeply 'spiritual' pagans . . . on the art and language of a 'lost and forgotten' culture. Modernists might like us to think that gruesome child slash-fests were better than Catholicism. We're supposed to forget about the medical malpractice of perfectly healthy patients having open heart surgical procedures by unlicensed witchdoctors and focus instead on smallpox. Modernists might like us to think that somehow modern medicine making it to our shores which then developed the vaccine for things like smallpox - the disease often heard from liberals to decry the Spanish arrival - is somehow a greater crime than widespread child sacrifices to an imaginary false god.

It Tastes Like Chicken

Maybe Tlaloc is just an 'extreme example used by Westerners to justify the Spanish invasion'. Okay, let's see a less extreme example in one of their other gods, Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca’s main feast began when a young man was chosen to be the likeness of Tezcatlipoca. He lived like a god, lavishing beautiful clothing, and eating sumptuously for a year. During the feast where he was worshipped as the deity he personified, he climbed the stairs to the top of the temple on his own where the priests seized him and sacrificed him, his body being eaten later. Sounds scrumptious. Immediately after he died a new victim for the next year’s ceremony was chosen. Hope he tastes better than the last guy.

The Real Genocide

Perhaps I'm just a triumphalist Westerner who fails to see the deeper spirituality of this culture. Fine, let's look at more of the aztec spirituality. Let's take another god, Huitzilopochtli. Huitzilopochtli must have had a high metabolism and it must have taken him great energy to spin the solar system because this guy required near-constant nourishment. But Huitzilopochtli needed something more substantial than Wheaties. He needed nourishment in the form of human bloodbaths to ensure the Aztecs that the sun would survive the cycle of 52 years. For the grand opening of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, dedicated to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 20,400 prisoners over the course of four days. And liberals want to spin history and blame the Spaniards of genocide? Talk about double standard. Let's not forget that many Aztecs defected and joined the Spaniards when war broke out.

Archeological Evidence

Some liberal spindoctors try to blame Spaniards of embellishing the stories of human sacrifice. But thankfully there's something called evidence. Liberals like to say,"okay doggonit, fine the aztecs did that sort of thing, but you leave the "peaceful" mayan culture alone, they were the salt of the earth, the light of the world - the deceitful Spaniards lied just to steal their gold" - so says the revisionist liberal historian. But we now have this annoying little thing called evidence.

We certainly know the aztecs were sadistic. According to anthropology professor Karl Taube, "We know the Aztecs did that level of killing. Their accounts speak of 20,000." But what about the "peaceful" ancient pagan mayan spirituality depicted in the movie Apocalypto?

Both mayan, toltec, and aztec cultures participated in barbaric spiritual practices. There was tremendous Aztec influence by the time of the late Mayan period.

"The Aztecs were clearly ruthless in their conquest and pursuit of sacrificial victims, a practice that spilled over into some of the Maya areas" (Archaeological Institute of America 2007).

In carvings and mural paintings, Harvard University anthropologist David Stuart (2003) said in an article:

"we have now found more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas – including a Maya ceremony in which a grotesquely costumed priest is shown pulling the entrails from a bound and apparently living sacrificial victim."

Associate Professor William R. Fowler states that for major favors, Mayan worshippers "offered the gods human sacrifice, usually children, slaves, or prisoners of war" (Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008).

Finally, here's an excerpt from an Associated Press article from 1/25/2005 and decide for yourself, was it the Spanish who performed the atrocities, or did the Spaniards encounter a shockingly savage and barbaric culture and deliver them from their own corruption?:

But there is no longer as much doubt about the nature of the killings. Indian pictorial texts known as “codices,” as well as Spanish accounts from the time, quote Indians as describing multiple forms of human sacrifice.

Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples. Children were said to be frequent victims, in part because they were considered pure and unspoiled.

“Many people said, ’We can’t trust these codices because the Spaniards were describing all these horrible things,’ which in the long run we are confirming,” said Carmen Pijoan, a forensic anthropologist who found some of the first direct evidence of cannibalism in a pre-Aztec culture over a decade ago: bones with butcherlike cut marks.

In December, at an excavation in an Aztec-era community in Ecatepec, just north of Mexico City, archaeologist Nadia Velez Saldana described finding evidence of human sacrifice associated with the god of death. “The sacrifice involved burning or partially burning victims,” Velez Saldana said. “We found a burial pit with the skeletal remains of four children who were partially burned, and the remains of four other children that were completely carbonized.” While the remains don’t show whether the victims were burned alive, there are depictions of people — apparently alive — being held down as they were burned.

The dig turned up other clues to support descriptions of sacrifices in the Magliabecchi codex, a pictorial account painted between 1600 and 1650 that includes human body parts stuffed into cooking dishes, and people sitting around eating, as the god of death looks on. “We have found cooking dishes just like that,” said archaeologist Luis Manuel Gamboa. “And, next to some full skeletons, we found some incomplete, segmented human bones.” However, researchers don’t know whether those remains were cannibalized.

Crying was considered a good omen

In 2002, government archaeologist Juan Alberto Roman Berrelleza announced the results of forensic testing on the bones of 42 children, mostly boys around age 6, sacrificed at Mexico City’s Templo Mayor, the Aztec’s main religious site, during a drought. All shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry.

“It was considered a good omen if they cried a lot at the time of sacrifice,” which was probably done by slitting their throats, Roman Berrelleza said.

Global Warming Alarmists Nixed . . . Again

Whenever the major media announces, in clear lockstep with liberal fear tactics, that global disaster is upon us, we should question such anxious claims with skepticism. This year was no different. The global alarmists including scientists modeling hurricanes in the US, announced serious hurricanes a-coming - and according to many liberal fear mongering globalists, "it's all our fault, if only there were less humans, if only there were less SUV's, if only families would be kept at one child per household, if only there were more, more, more regulation, we wouldn't have to fear the wrath of mother earth" - so says the anxious fear mongering liberal.

Today we learned yet another such prediction was foiled . . . by mother nature herself. Reuters today reported the following:

"* Despite dire forecasts, season has been benign for U.S.

* Atlantic weather turned many storms harmlessly north

* Pacific enjoys one of the quietest seasons on record

By Tom Brown

MIAMI, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season has been very active in the number of storms but is likely to go down as a non-event for most people in the United States, which has so far dodged a major landfall, the top official U.S. hurricane forecaster said on Tuesday.

Before the June 1-Nov. 30 season got under way, residents of hurricane danger zones were warned by many forecasters they faced a very high probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline."

If people would just calm down, subdue their restlessness, get a grip of themselves, and man-up in this age, we would see a lot less anxiety, bitterness, and turmoil than if modern man was practicing religion, was faithful to God, trusted in His goodness, got to know Him Who made us, loved Him with all our hearts, lived by His teachings, and hoped to happy with Him forever in Heaven, we would see less tyranny in the world, our freedoms wouldn't be threatened, China would nix its one child policy, and globalists would scale back their dire predictions of widespread death and destruction caused by so called 'global warming'. Although such predictions do come from a social conscience, from those that haven't killed it yet, that knows some restitution must be coming to mankind from the heavens for all the ingratitude, fist shaking, insults, and sin committed against our good God.

If we lived by some simple precepts by our fathers in Faith before us, the world would be a better place:

"Do not worry over things that generate
preoccupation and anxiety.
One thing only is necessary:
To lift up your spirit and love to God."

~ Saint Padre Pio, in a letter written to a spiritual daughter

"Pray, trust and don't worry."

~ Saint Padre Pio

"As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live. "

~ Pope John Paul II

"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."

~ Pope John Paul II

"The future starts today, not tomorrow."

~ Pope John Paul II

“The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.”

~ Pope John Paul II

"Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence. "

~ Pope John Paul II

Another Stem Cell Alternative Found

With all the trumped up hype and hasty rush to use embryonic stem cells for research, a new study now reveals major progress without employing the unethical attempt to derive stem cells from embryos. The temper tantrum from the left to hastily rush into funding embryonic stem cell research on the part of liberal politicians, secularists, and a sinister media, always sympathetic to promoting unethical medical practices, was all for naught.

Good things come to those who wait. A FoxNews article reported today that

"researchers in Boston announced Thursday that they have made significant progress in creating stem cells from human skin -- without using human embryos.

. . . The new approach is more efficient than earlier efforts and avoids tampering with DNA, said Derrick Rossi of Children's Hospital Boston"

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (June, 2008):

"Nature in fact provides ample resources for pursuing medical progress without raising these grave moral concerns. Stem cells from adult tissues and umbilical cord blood are now known to be much more versatile than once thought.

. . . Researchers have even developed new non-destructive methods for producing cells with the properties of embryonic stem cells—for example, by “reprogramming” adult cells. There is no moral objection to research and therapy of this kind, when it involves no harm to human beings at any stage of development and is conducted with appropriate informed consent. Catholic foundations and medical centers have been, and will continue to be, among the leading supporters of ethically responsible advances in the medical use of adult stem cells."

If only the proud left would listen to the Church, they would find themselves in a much more agreeable position in the world today. Here is the Church's position from the USCCB statement On Embryonic Stem Cell Research:

"Almost everyone agrees with the principle that individuals and governments should not attack the lives of innocent human beings. However, several arguments have been used to justify destroying human embryos to obtain stem cells. It has been argued that (1) any harm done in this case is outweighed by the potential benefits; (2) what is destroyed is not a human life, or at least not a human being with fundamental human rights; and (3) dissecting human embryos for their cells should not be seen as involving a loss of embryonic life. We would like to comment briefly on each of these arguments.

First, the false assumption that a good end can justify direct killing has been the source of much evil in our world. This utilitarian ethic has especially disastrous consequences when used to justify lethal experiments on fellow human beings in the name of progress. No commitment to a hoped-for “greater good” can erase or diminish the wrong of directly taking innocent human lives here and now . . . The same ethic that justifies taking some lives to help the patient with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease today can be used to sacrifice that very patient tomorrow, if his or her survival is viewed as disadvantaging other human beings considered more deserving or productive. The suffering of patients and families affected by devastating illness deserves our compassion and our committed response, but not at the cost of our respect for life itself.

Second, some claim that the embryo in his or her first week of development is too small, immature, or undeveloped to be considered a “human life.” Yet the human embryo, from conception onward, is as much a living member of the human species as any of us. As a matter of biological fact, this new living organism has the full complement of human genes and is actively expressing those genes to live and develop in a way that is unique to human beings, setting the essential foundation for further development . . . Just as each of us was once an adolescent, a child, a newborn infant, and a child in the womb, each of us was once an embryo.

Others, while acknowledging the scientific fact that the embryo is a living member of the human species, claim that life at this earliest stage is too weak or undeveloped, too lacking in mental or physical abilities, to have full human worth or human rights. But to claim that our rights depend on such factors is to deny that human beings have human dignity, that we have inherent value simply by being members of the human family. If fundamental rights such as the right to life are based on abilities or qualities that can appear or disappear, grow or diminish, and be greater or lesser in different human beings, then there are no inherent human rights, no true human equality, only privileges for the strong. As believers who recognize each human life as the gift of an infinitely loving God, we insist that every human being, however small or seemingly insignificant, matters to God—hence everyone, no matter how weak or small, is of concern to us.

Finally, some claim that scientists who kill embryos for their stem cells are not actually depriving anyone of life, because they are using “spare” or unwanted embryos who will die anyway. This argument is simply invalid. Ultimately each of us will die, but that gives no one a right to kill us. Our society does not permit lethal experiments on terminally ill patients or condemned prisoners on the pretext that they will soon die anyway. Likewise, the fact that an embryonic human being is at risk of being abandoned by his or her parents gives no individual or government a right to directly kill that human being first.

. . . It now seems undeniable that once we cross the fundamental moral line that prevents us from treating any fellow human being as a mere object of research, there is no stopping point. The only moral stance that affirms the human dignity of all of us is to reject the first step down this path. We therefore urge Catholics and all people of good will to join us in reaffirming, precisely in this context of embryonic stem cell research, that “the killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act” (Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life [Evangelium Vitae], no. 63)."

Pew Research Poll Shows that a Growing Number of Americas Believe Obama is a Muslim

According to the Pew Research Center, in the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Americans believing that Obama's religion is Islam has grown. The survey was completed before Obama's support of a mosque constructed at Ground Zero of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.

Pew Research Poll:

A substantial and growing number of Americans say that Barack Obama is a Muslim, while the proportion saying he is a Christian has declined. More than a year and a half into his presidency, a plurality of the public says they do not know what religion Obama follows.

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center.

Meanwhile the Government denies the reconstruction of a Greek Christian Orthodox Church that was destroyed during the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11. Now how could a growing number of Americans possibly think this way about Obama?:

Obama:

"Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation."

"What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith..." --in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos

"As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam."

"...I will stand with them [Muslims and Arabic Immigrants] should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." - The Audacity of Hope p. 261

“Therefore, the Bible isn’t common ground for all Americans.”

"Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace."

"The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

Compare that to the quotes from prominent leaders in our American history:

John Quincy Adams (6th President of the United States):

“The greatest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (served from 1812 to 1845):

“I verily believe that Christianity is necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations.”

Supreme Court Justice David Brewer (served from 1890 to 1910):

“This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation … We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth … These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.“

Source (ChristianWebsite.com)

Extreme Weather - Not All Pointing to Warming

Flooding in China, widespread wildfires in Russia, record below normal temps in California, earthquakes in Iran and Turkey, increased global volcanic activity - these aren't signs of a humanistic pattern of 'industrialist man' finally collapsing nature. After all, today we have the cleanest manufacturing, milling, processing, and energy producing plants than man has ever seen before. Is it past management that has finally 'caught up to nature' that we are now seeing the end results of? No, what we see today are signs of another human catastrophe.

Let's go back to ancient times. There was a happy little set of towns southeast of what is now known as the Dead Sea. Archeologists found that the ruins here were incinerated by a massive fire. Geologist speculate that a fault line positioned directly below the two towns had something to do with the event. They add that a petroleum based bitumen deposit ignited as it tore through the fault line during an eruption resulting in the raining down of fire.

The event is historically recorded in Genesis Chapters 18-19. The towns names were Sodom and Gomorrah. Several books in the New Testament corroborate this event:

"And the LORD said, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the LORD. Abraham came near and said, "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" - Genesis 18:20-23

"Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. And he said, "Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way." They said however, "No, but we shall spend the night in the square." Yet he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he prepared a feast for them, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them." But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him, and said, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly."

" . . . A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place; for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the LORD that the LORD has sent us to destroy it." Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, "Up, get out of this place, for the LORD will destroy the city " But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting. When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city." But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the LORD was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city. When they had brought them outside, one said, "Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away."

" . . . The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace. Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived." - Genesis 19

"As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire." - Jude 1:7

"And reducing the cities of the Sodomites, and of the Gomorrhites, into ashes, condemned them to be overthrown, making them an example to those that should after act wickedly." - 2 Peter 2:6

"dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." - 2 Thess 1:8

"But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." - 2 Peter 3:7

""Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;" - Matt 25:41

So as history proves, science and archeologists testify, entire towns and communities were laid waste - especially those towns in which the most grievous acts against nature and God were committed. A sin against nature isn't killing a United States Federal Government listed threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. No, the sin of Sodom is where we get our word today for sodomy. So as we can see, there is real danger in a California judge overturning the will of voters in this state. In fact, Americans know that a grievous act against nature (against basic ABC's and 123's of biology - again not talking here about the federally listed vascular, nonvascular special status plant species placed on a list by a bureaucrats - but rather, namely about homosexual acts) is a shaking of the fist at the heavens and taunting God for punishment. Or at least just wrong. This is why all 30 states that put the question to a ballot unanimously voted for NATURAL MARRIAGE and NOT same sex marriage.

A media reporting about 'unprecedented' increased volcanic activity, temperature drops and rises, earthquakes, flooding, etc. should hold their tongue before blaming SUV's and before campaigning for their favorite environmentalist dictator politician, take a short look back to history and see how and where similar events occurred that wiped out entire towns. Were the devastating St. Stephen's Day tsunami in 2005 killing 200,000 men, women, and children an occurrence that is normal everyday events? This after all, happened in the hub of the slave sex center of the globe and the platform for major radical Islamic persecutions against Sri Lankan Christians. But we can easily gloss over that and report instead on American Idol candidates and the pointless and wheel spinning Lost episodes. By the way, did they name the show Lost to describe what they would do to the audience? The media will push homosexuality down our throats and peddle shows to keep us in the darkness of error and away from the finding truth and God's heavenly desire for mankind.

Scientific Study Finds that Religion is Good for Kids

A Mississippi State University study made the following conclusion in a Live Science article:

"Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development."

An Explanation of the Latin Mass: EWTN Broadcast of the Consecration of Ss. Peter & Paul, F.S.S.P

We're reminded in this broadcast that Pope Benedict instructs the faithful concerning our disposition to the liturgy:

"It's really not primarily important that people understand in the sacred liturgy each and every word or phrase, but rather that they experience the devotion and reverence . . . and it's also true that the latin reminds us that we don't approach God even in language in a purely casual or everyday way. That when we come into His presence it has to be a communication filtered as it were, through the lens of reverence and devotion, and that it's not because the Mass is primarily about communicating bits of information. The Mass is not a lesson, it's not a class, it's not a news bulletin. It is the representation upon the altar of the Sacrifice of Cavalry."