Wednesday, April 11, 2012

How NPR Marks Holy Days

On Palm Sunday, NPR interviewed an atheist about the historicity of Jesus and told a story about how James Brown was "born dead and miraculously brought back to life". Super-classy.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/04/03/npr-anchor-lauds-atheist-author-palm-sunday-says-hes-bought-his-tapes-yo
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=149702511

Thankfully they had the better taste to lay off of religion on Easter Sunday.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Breast Cancer, Artificial Birth Control, and Procured Abortion

Breast Cancer - Artificial Contraception Links


A Case-Control Study of Oral Contraceptive Use and Incident Breast Cancer (2008)
"These results suggest that [oral contraceptive] use is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer diagnosed in recent years."
"After control for breast cancer risk factors, the multivariable odds ratio for 1 year or more of OC use, relative to less than 1 year of use, was 1.5[-fold]"


Risk Factors for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Women Under the Age of 45 Years (2009)

Study found that of a pool of women afflicted with breast cancer, artificial birth control use appears to be linked to a much greater incidence of a deadlier form of the cancer:
"Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer...Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater for triple-negative breast cancer than non-triple-negative breast"

Effect of [injected] depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate on breast cancer risk among women 20-44 years of age"We found that recent DMPA use for 12 months or longer was associated with a 2.2-fold (95% CI: 1.2-4.2) increased risk of invasive breast cancer."


Breast Cancer - Procured Abortion Links

Women With a Previous Induced Abortion Had a Significant Increased Risk of Breast Cancer
Researchers led by Ai-Ren Jiang reported a statistically significant 1.52-fold elevation in risk for women with IAs [induced abortion] and a “significant dose-response relationship between (the risk) for breast cancer and number of (IAs),” meaning that risk climbed with number of IAs.

"The results support the inclusion of induced abortion among significant independent risk factors for breast cancer, regardless of parity or timing of abortion relative to the first term pregnancy. Although the increase in risk was relatively low, the high incidence of both breast cancer and induced abortion suggest a substantial impact of thousands of excess cases per year currently, and a potentially much greater impact in the next century, as the first cohort of women exposed to legal induced abortion continues to age."

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Defense of Pope Pius XII Against Charges of Anti-Semitism

"Then Pope Pius XII said: ‘You have done well, my Jewish friend, to come to me and tell me what has happened down there in the Italian islands...You are Jewish. I know what that means in these times we live in. I do hope that you will always be proud to be a Jew!

And then the Pope raised his voice so that everybody in the room [where German officers were present] could hear it even more clearly: ‘My son, whether you are worthier than others, only the Lord knows, but believe me, you are at least as worthy as any other human being on our earth before the Lord. And now, my Jewish friend, go with the protection of the Lord Almighty, and never forget: Be always proud to be a Jew."

"In the early months of 1944 the inhabitants of the Castelli Romani were worn out by the war. Pius XII lodged twelve thousand people in the papal Villa. Thirty six babies were born in the apartments of the pope in that period. We met two of them, the [Jewish] twins Eugenio Pio and Pio Eugenio Zevini" [named after Eugenio Pacelli: Pope Pius XII]

Archives Show Church Excommunicated Nazis
"The documents indicate that any Catholic who joined the Nazi party, wore the uniform or flew the swastika flag would no longer be able to receive the sacraments."

"Zolli devoted an entire chapter in his memoirs to the German occupation of Rome and praised the Pope's leadership: '... The people of Rome loathed the Nazis and had intense pity for the Jews. They willingly assisted in the evacuation of the Jewish population into remote villages, where they were concealed and protected by Christian families. Christian families in the heart of Rome accepted Jews. There was money in the treasury for the support of destitute refugees thus hidden. The Holy Father sent by hand a letter to the bishops instructing them to lift the enclosure from convents and monasteries, so that they could become refuges for the Jews. I know of one convent where the Sisters slept in the basement, giving up their beds to Jewish refugees. In face of this charity, the fate of so many of the persecuted is especially tragic.'"

"Apparently breaking with a taboo among critics of the Catholic Church and of Pope Pius XII – who reigned during the Second World War and the Holocaust – Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican has recognized that the pontiff did actually save thousands of Jews during the years of Nazi predation."

Pius Protected Roman Synagogue under Papal coat of arms...
...to make it Vatican property and so to protect it from confiscation and desecration by the Germans.

In the words of Albert Einstein: Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly. (Time Magazine, Dec. 1940)

"In Rabbi David G. Dalin's controversial [2005] book, he explodes the newly resurrected, widely accepted, yet utterly bankrupt smearing of Pope Pius XII, whom Jewish survivors of the Holocaust considered a righteous gentile...Rabbi Dalin explodes the myth of Hitler’s pope and condemns the myth-makers for not only rewriting history, but for denying the testimony of Holocaust survivors, hijacking the Holocaust for unseemly political ends, and ignoring the real threat to the Jewish people."

"In reviewing the play in 1964, The New York Times stated that its 'facts may be in dispute; the history imperfect; the indictment too severe.' America condemned the play as 'an atrocious calumny against the memory of a good and courageous world leader occupying the Chair of Peter during one of the great crises of humanity.' Cardinal Francis Spellman called the play 'an outrageous desecration of the honour of a great and good man, and an affront to those who know his record as a humanitarian who love him and revere his memory:'"

"Renowned scholar Professor Ronald Rychla: The important aspect of this document is that it shows what many of us have been saying all along: efforts that appear to have been directed to protect only converted Jews actually protected Jews regardless of whether they had converted"

"All of these allegations and others against the pope have now been carefully identified, dissected, and answered in this book by Professor Ronald Rychlak using citations, argumentation, and documentations which in the end are not just irrefutable but are overwhelming. It turns out that there never was any case against Pope Pius XII, none. "

Shoddy Scholarship in the Study of Pope Pius XII Suggests He Helped War Criminals
On the contrary, this is false and "Pius even provided evidence to use against Nazi defendants and assigned a Jesuit to assist the prosecution team."