The fall is a VERY busy time for me. I usually try to limit myself to three hobbies at a time:

Winter:

• RCIA
• Religions ed (2nd grade this year)
• Catholic blogging

Spring:

• RCIA
• Religions ed
• Catholic blogging

Summer:

But fall, I bust my limit:

• RCIA
• Religions ed
• Cal football
• Catholic blogging

The result is that something falls off the radar and it’s often the Catholic blogging. Add to this that this year I’m taking a all-day Saturday class once a month and I definitely busted my limit this fall, so the blog has been entirely stagnant.

In any case, now that football season is over, sadly too soon with no bowl game, but that’s a post for my other blog, it’s time for me to pick this back up. Here’s some of what you can expect:

• Chapter by Chapter review/rebuttal of Hitchen’s “God is NOT great”
• Daily ‘quick hitters’ like before
• Reflections on politics
• Reflections on the global Church

Please keep tuned in!

In a comment recently someone mentioned a concern about being welcome here as someone who disagrees with me. I want to make it clear that everyone is welcome here, both to read and to comment. In fact, I really have no interest in keeping this blog just to discuss matters with those who already agree with me. What’s the point of that?

My sincere hope, and the whole reason I keep this blog, is that I want to provide an insight to how an intellectual Catholic thinks and believes for those who do not have a lot of exposure to a person like that. That includes responding to comments and criticisms. So whether you got here from excusemeformyvoice.com (my college football blog) or from a link from a atheist website or what have you, know that your comments are welcome.

All I ask is that you keep your comments respectful in the sense that you’re making arguments about my posts and not just attacking me personally. Please also abstain from profanity. I promise to respond in kind.

Well, I knew I was taking too long to read TGD. I was unable to renew the book this week because someone else has reserved it. So, I’ve got to wait somewhere between 10 days (if the person never picks it up) and 4 weeks (they pick it up towards the end of their time and then the 3 weeks for their reservation).

I’m going to start looking for it at other area libraries as well, so I might have it sooner rather than later.

In the mean time, consider the comment section the place to recommend the next Atheist or anti-Catholic book that you’d like me to read and review.

I’ve been blogging away wondering why nobody has been commenting because when I look at the page, it allows for comments. But I’m always logged in as an administrator. Fat, Dumb and Happy, that was me.

Until today.

Today I clicked through to someone who linked to the blog and he indicated he couldn’t comment. I realized my wordpress settings only allowed commenting from people who had accounts and there’s no way for people to setup an account for themselves (nor do I want that). Long story short (too late!) I’ve re-enabled anonymous commenting.

One request: please keep any comments respectful. Disagreement is allowed as is strong arguments, but there’s no need for name calling or ad hominem attacks. Unacceptably vulgar or rude comments will either be edited or deleted if there’s not a single savable sentence. If you’re respectful, I promise to respond in kind.

I’m assuming I’ll get a click from every one of his 394 followers that have to do his daily bidding, so welcome to all of you who have come here from Mark Shea’s blog. If you’re just interested in the review of The God Delusion as publicized on his blog, you can click on the category I have for it (Catholicism – The God Delusion).

But if you’re at all interested in my inane thoughts as well as that, I try to daily do a Quick Hitters post and then you’ll occasionally get a rant on some other topic like 50% proud a few days ago.

Welcome! I hope you come back often.

Update on 4/15: I’m going to keep this post on top for a few days. See below for new posts, including my review of chapter 1.

For anyone who’s tried to come to this blog (hi Mom!) in the last year or so they’ve seen that it hasn’t come up and has been displaying some cryptic error. I tried a number of times to fix it because I wanted to bring the blog back and be more active about posting on it. Last night I took the brute force strategy. I completely deleted the old one and installed the latest version. Then I attached the new version to the old database and…

IT’S ALIVE!?!

So, what to expect from this blog moving forward… The main reason for bringing the blog back online is that I’m going to read Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion” so that I can rebut it. I’ve heard from too many anti-religious circles how devastating it is to the idea that religion is a good thing and I’m curious to find out what his argument is. I’ll speak to what I expect it to be in a separate post.

I’ll also go back to posting on the political and religious news of the day when it’s worth reporting on. It won’t be as comprehensive as in the past, more just when I feel the need to rant. Finally, there will be more family stuff posted. Things we did, blessings received, pictures, etc.

Hopefully, you’ll be interested in visiting.