I'm not sure what's happening with the weblog. I had been checking it, but just tonight got into the composing screen and saw all these postings that failed to get posted to the website during the past week. I'll see if I can figure out what is preventing them from getting published. I find that my first attempt at publishing now fails and then I exit the blog window, get back into it, and try again and it works. After I did that tonight all the postings that had been sitting in the composing window for nearly a week have now been posted.

To answer Ann Marie's earlier comment about my observation that we didn't really discuss alternative spiritual viewpoints in school, I think it's necessary to remember that one of the meanings of the word 'parochial' is: "Narrowly restricted in scope or outlook." So it would have been difficult to have a class on comparitive religions in a Catholic school without implying that our religion was the 'best'. And when we'd address the subjects of Buddism, Hinduism, Islam, etc., there might be a temptation to discuss them in terms that might lead us to believe that Catholicism was superior to them, which isn't really healthy for promoting world peace. Who knows, we might have even referred to those who disagreed with us as 'pagans' or 'infidels'. If we were to think that our religion was the one true religion, we might also feel compelled to go out and attempt to convert the world to our viewpoint or, alternatively, kill them if they could not be converted. Christians already tried that approach several times between the 11th and 13th centuries with the Crusades and it didn't succeed. Perhaps it's natural for Islam to go through the same evolution now that their religion is in its own 13th century.

And now, I too, shall get off my soap box, much to the relief of many, I'm sure.