A Few Good Links (vol. 20)

Classes are out for summer, but soon the summer semester starts. I've been kept busy as a result.

1. Bill Nye the Science Guy has launched a kickstarted to launch a solar-sailing satellite. I guess that it may well be possible to keep going into space (albeit unmanned) while the government cuts funding from one of the few things that they've done reasonably well.
2. While I don't like his generally anti-religious tone, Ace is on to something with this post. Leftism, statism, Marism...these are all religions for Godless people. I would add Progressivism, but there are a few people who are genuinely religious, God-loving (if not God-fearing) and yet progressives. In other news, I dislike that "religion," "dogma," and "doctrines" are terms which are often imbued with such negative connotations. All three are essentially good things which have been ill-used and thus sullied.
3. Crisis Magazine has published an excellent essay by Mr. Tyler Balnski about the state of sexuality in the current culture. The rise of the homosexualists is linked to the rejection of the nature of sex as an inherently fruitful interaction.
4. Great advice from Fr. Mike Walsh for recent high school graduates and other soon-to-be college students
5. Some miracles are only apparent in hindsight.
6. Much is being made of that recent Pew Poll about the decline in religion in the US. I'm just going to round up links without further comment today. Ok, one comment emerges: largely, this is a movement of "nominals" to "nones," though I have noticed that it is a small (and all-too-easy) step from "faithful" to "creedal," and from there to merely "nominal," "spiritual," and at last to "none." It's this gradual change which these polls don't, even can't, measure; but a gradual change is often just as bad (and far easier to swallow) than a sudden one.

Also, please pray for the soul and family of my boss, the late dean of my college. He died unexpectedly this last weekend. I didn't know him well, but never had an unpleasant interaction with him. And those who have been here longer than I have been mourning his passing this week.