Grandma and Grandpa Moore are in town this weekend, and Lisa is out of town at a church ladies' retreat. Elliot's soccer game this afternoon was in 50 deg F and rainy weather. After losing the first two games and tying the third, the Kickin' Chickens (in the rain today, they were known as the Ducks) finally won one today. 5 to 0. Elliot scored three goals!

As you've probably heard, the pope stirred up a hornet's nest with comments about Islam. Roger McShane's Today's Papers column in Slate provides a nice summary of events and drips with irony:

The pope's suggestion that compulsion and violence are inherent features of Islam has outraged the Muslim world. In Afghanistan, where apostates are subject to execution, the parliament and the Foreign Ministry demanded an apology. In Yemen, where religious conversion is punishable by death, the president has threatened to sever diplomatic ties. In the West Bank, Palestinians attacked four churches with guns and firebombs. And a Somali cleric added his two cents: "Whoever offends our Prophet Muhammad should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim."

Andrew Sullivan analyzed the pope's comments (here, here, and here) and linked to the transcript.

Other papal comments also made the news. From an article by Tracy Wilkinson in the LA Times titled "Pontiff Admonishes Catholics Not to Lose Their Souls to Science":

Under glorious skies in this Bavarian capital where he once lived, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned Roman Catholics against letting modern concerns drown out God's word, adding that technology alone could not solve the world's problems.

An overreliance on science has made too many Catholics deaf to the teachings of the church, the pope said in a homily that scolded Western European societies for an increasingly secular focus. Faith is needed to combat diseases such as AIDS, he said...

"Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God -- there are too many different frequencies filling our ears," he said. "What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age."...

"Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable," the pope said. "When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little.

The Week magazine is usually right-on with their TV recommendations.

Here are some for the coming week:

• Paris, Texas, Mon Oct 3, 1 AM, Fox Movie Channel
• NOVA scienceNOW, Tue Oct 4, 8 PM, PBS
• Frontline, Return of the Taliban, Tue Oct 4, 9 PM, PBS
• The Street, Tue Oct 4, 10 PM, BBCAmerica
• The Fountainhead, Wed Oct 5, 8 PM, Turner Classic Movies
• The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sun Oct 9, 8:15 PM, Turner Classic Movies

I watched the pilot of Heroes on NBC. I'm going to pass on that one, but I did get a kick out of the scene in the Japanese karaoke bar. No, not the idea of teleporting myself into the women's bathroom. The guys singing. They were clones of the Backdorm Boys...the caste, the head band, the red basketball jerseys, and...they were singing "I Want It That Way!"

A couple new shows we're watching but haven't decided on yet:

• Six Degrees
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

And, season 3 of Battlestar Galactica is coming soon.

From an article of the same title by Cathy Lynn Grossman in USA Today:

The USA calls itself one nation under God, but Americans don't all have the same image of the Almighty in mind.

A new survey of religion in the USA finds four very different images of God — from a wrathful deity thundering at sinful humanity to a distant power uninvolved in mankind's affairs.

Forget denominational brands or doctrines or even once-salient terms like "Religious Right." Even the oft-used "Evangelical" appears to be losing ground.

Believers just don't see themselves the way the media and politicians — or even their pastors — do, according to the national survey of 1,721 Americans, by far the most comprehensive national religion survey to date...

Though 91.8% say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God's personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods — dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant — tell more about people's social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state.

For example: 45.6% of all Americans say the federal government "should advocate Christian values," but 74.5% of believers in an authoritarian God do.

Sociologist Paul Froese says their survey finds the stereotype that conservatives are religious and liberals are secular is "simply not true. Political liberals and conservative are both religious. They just have different religious views."

There was also a nice summary in The Washington Post.