Political Tidbits and a Religion Tidbit

1. Donald Trump entered the 2016 presidential race yesterday.
2. This article, Rachel Dolezal, Bruce Jenner, and how we’ve solved all the really hard problems, was worth the time I spent skimming it.
3. This article, Studies Show: Conservatives are More Tolerant Than Liberals, made me smirk. A Conservative website is going to say that liberals are more tolerant of Conservatives? Is MSNBC going to criticize President Obama? Is a Catholic website going to post an article about how great Atheism is? Of course not! The readers of Redstate.com want to read articles about how great they are and how awful "those other guys are" - which is short-sighted. There should be a dialogue, not global dismissals of an opposing point of view.

Finally, the religion tidbit. I heard a point of view about Catholicism that has me thinking on this morning. Why do you have to follow all of the teachings and all of the customs of the Catholic church? For example, who decided at what age you no longer are required to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent? Answer: humans.* Were the humans that made that the "teaching" or "custom" of the Catholic church any different from me? This person said, "No, the men that decided that were human." All of the customs of the Catholic church were created by men, so what makes them better men than anyone else? What this exchange has me thinking and pondering is the lack of "study" in my life because I am not "up" on the reasoning behind a lot of customs of the Catholic church. If I were, I would have been able to provide counterpoints as the above points were made. Sounds like I have some homework to be completed.

* For what it's worth, here is some quick research about the the question, followed by an explanation.