Tag Archives: Jesus

Oregon – 1 step forward & 2 steps back

Oregon is considering adding 2 items to the ballot this year.  1 is to allow non-heterosexual couples to marry, and the other is to allow bakers, florists, caterers, or any other business to discriminate against them under religious exemptions, in effect by stating that since their religious beliefs forbid gay & lesbian marriage, then they shouldn’t be forced to do business with them due to their religious beliefs.

If I were a retailer, couldn’t I use the same law to say that I don’t want gays & lesbians in my business?  If I were a developer or landlord, couldn’t I keep them out of my properties & neighborhoods?  And could a doctor refuse to treat them if they need emergency medical services?  What about keeping slaves, since the Bible, and therefore their religion condones slavery?  Acceptance of slavery is all over the Old Testaments & appears more than once in the New Testament as well.

If slavery is an antiquated Biblical idea that we’ve overcome, how about our negativity & discrimination toward gays & lesbians?

We can’t make laws to require everyone to come together as one in our society & care at least as much for each other as we do ourselves.  Besides being a hippie Utopian dream, we raise our young to be warlike, animalistic, reptilian-brained creatures who seem to have no compassion for anything but their own needs & desires, and we look at those ideas as being non-rewarding socialism unless we give it of our own volition in dribs & drabs of charity to make ourselves feel good, but we shouldn’t be making laws that continue to separate us from each other using standards applied unequally to segments within our society.  That is the definition of discrimination in a nutshell.

It’s hard to believe that in 2014, we’re still fighting that battle.  Besides, I’ve always said that gays & lesbians have the right to get married & be as miserable as the rest of us married people.

The 3 Commandments

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Forget the 10 Commandments — George Carlin has already downsized those to 2 anyway.  Here’s the 3 Commandments we Americans should adhere to — all Americans should have:

#1) Access to adequate & free medical care, regardless of income level.  Sure, those with money will have access to faster & better care, but that’s capitalism.

#2) Adequate & safe minimum free housing, if they can’t afford it.  Not slums, but decent accommodations.

#3) Free adequate & nutritious food, should they not be able to afford it.  Nobody in America should be starving or malnourished, but it’s happening.

I’m not saying they should live like kings, but they should have safe & adequate medical care, housing & food free of charge to some degree.

If they’re sheltered & working, whether in a rusty trailer, an old apartment, a suburban home or a mansion, they should have access to free basic medical care paid for by our government.  No, it might not performed by the greatest specialists in the world, but it’s adequate medical care & they should be able to get what they need, including any medicine or surgical procedure in a timely manner.

If they NEED shelter, whether working or not, they should have free (if unemployed) or low-cost access (if employed) to at least an apartment or trailer that provides the minimum adequate shelter for their family size, i.e., 2 people per bedroom & 3 people per bath.  I’m not talking about a high-rise condo or a home in your neighborhood (NIMBY, you know), but safe & adequate shelter somewhere, paid for by our government via our taxes, and also subsidized by deleting unnecessary government programs & other political “pork” projects that serve to help no one but the rich & privileged, who don’t need our help at all.  I’ve been a long-time advocate for a bipartisan government agency that is given a mandate to delete a certain portion of Federal spending each year.

If they don’t have food, they should have access to getting free meals when needed.  I’m not saying steak & or a premium vegan menu, just adequate nutritious hot meals 3 times a day.

Why?  Because we’re all in the same boat.  We’re all human, and we’re all Americans.  We all have compassion in our minds, but we seem to oppress it as much as possible.  “Hmmm”, as The Church Lady might have once said: What would Jesus do?

How do we pay for all this?  Simple — downsize the overblown military starting first with their ridiculous defense spending (we have more military spending than the next 10 kazillion countries combined) & their overblown worldwide presence (we don’t need air bases in many of these places we have them, including many in America); cut out all the “political pork” programs we subsidize annually (mostly hidden inside of bills that have nothing to do with them); heavily raise taxes on the wealthy & on corporations & remove their tax breaks that limit that tax; nail the large estates (I say that’s those over $2 million) with a hefty estate tax & disallow all the breaks they use to get out of it; levy a small flat minimum tax on all religions (I know — separation of church & state, but I can dream, can’t I?); eliminate the subsidies & expenditures we make for people & programs that obviously don’t need it (we have a National Helium Reserve that’s costed us billions that they’ve been trying to delete for appx 20 years now with no luck); and eliminate all those gov’t agencies that employ people with overblown salaries who do pretty much next to nothing but live off the gov’t teat, the same teat they don’t want the poor to partake upon.  And a final salvo the GOP-ers will like — pay the Earned Income Credit in 12 monthly checks instead of a big check they simply blow once a year — look at all the interest the gov’t will make floating it for a year.

After all, isn’t all of this what Jesus would do?  Funny how the right-wing chooses which of Jesus’ teachings to adhere to.  Of course, that assumes he really existed in the first place.  If he did, how come The Jerusalem Times (of that day) had all kinds of contemporary news reports & special editorials about all the other figures of history in that time, yet nothing about Jesus until 40 years after he allegedly died?  That’s a whole other blog entry.

As The Rev Charles once said, Luke is — not from New Jersey

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Let’s start this with something the far right can understand and appreciate — biblical scripture — Luke 9:51-56: “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face.  And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him.  But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.  And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’  But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’  And they went to another village.”

What this says to me is liking or hating anyone simply based upon their beliefs, race, or being different in any manner that they cannot change is prejudicial & wrong — end of discussion.  I know that religious beliefs can be changed, but that doesn’t mean they should be changed simply because they don’t agree with yours.  Heck, in my opinion, the fact that you embrace religion at all is a negative to me, but I respect your right to be ignorant as long & deeply as you want.

The biggest problem I have with the far right is that they believe their religious beliefs & their use of them for personal/financial gain & human segregation is beyond reproach, including the use of them to align groups of people against each other socially & professionally. This type of behavior is just a stone’s throw from radical Muslims who kill people whenever their religion is “blasphemed” in their eyes, or Hitler Youth for that matter — the Jews of yesterday are the social/political critics & “deviants” of today.

Intolerance seems to be the theme in many religions & politics, which tends to go against the intent of the founders of them, like Jesus, who would surely abhor the bashing of those who don’t believe the same as he did.  This is a (surely fictional) being who helped the poor, walked among the lepers, and threw out the moneychangers, all ideas that today’s Christians & Republicans don’t embrace, which is the true meaning of the work “ironic” if you ask me.

I understand that people are passionate about their religious beliefs, but I’m not, and I don’t like the level of intolerance they invoke when confronted by people like me who do not believe as they do, labeling me as a hatemonger when I point out the fact that religion is simply unproven theory and that I have no respect for the idea of it.  I don’t hate them; I simply have no respect for their ideology.

I find it hard to discuss anything rationally or intelligently with most people on the far right, especially those who consider themselves highly religious. I don’t agree with speech that demeans a person or a particular group simply according to their race, religious choice (or lack thereof), sexual orientation, or nationality without regard for any other issue thereof, nor do I support any group of people or any person who holds those views, and I don’t believe (the fictional character of) Jesus would have either. People have been using certain archaic notions written in the Bible for centuries to justify their hate for various groups and it will probably never end.

It’s a different matter entirely to not like an idea that is detachable from a person vs not liking that a person is gay, or black, or some other condition that they can’t & shouldn’t change.

Armed school security doesn’t work well & isn’t the answer

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History shows us that armed school security didn’t work at Columbine HS, which had an armed security guard who was a 15-yr veteran of the Sheriff’s office there, yet it didn’t stop the infamous rampage there.  Virginia Tech had an entire armed campus police force, yet 32 people were killed by a lone gunman.  Eliminating access to “assault weapons” & expanded pistol clips is a start, and though it will do little in the long run, it’s still a must as every little bit of effort counts.

More importantly to the issue is proper parenting & proper education, and even more important is teaching our children (and our adult peers) not to exclude & bully people that seem different or weak to them, as these societal victims are the ones who invariably end up on the front page for these horrific crimes — after all, it’s not the Homecoming King/Queen or the BMOC perpetrating these crimes, it’s the downtrodden souls who don’t feel they fit in because our society treats many people as social outcasts, especially those who don’t support the status quo.

Unfortunately, a few of these ill-fitting outcasts decides in their deluded mind that the only answer for them is to go out in a blaze of notoriety/glory & they take out a bunch of poor innocent souls with them, and then we wonder why it happens.

We need to show more compassion & tolerance with others & learn to incorporate everyone into our inner circle & not ostracize people, and provide quick access to help, counseling & treatment for those who don’t/can’t fit in and ask ourselves why everyone must conform to certain standards and why we must exclude people in order to make ourselves feel superior, and why must we strive to feel superior in the first place? Maybe there will be a future where people respect and love each other without demands, where people feel accepted, wanted & loved, and can get free & good mental help (and get real help from those in control in our society, like teachers & school counselors) when they feel they don’t fit in.

Like all cops, armed school security can’t be in all places all the time.  We need figure out what does work most effectively in securing the schools until we can make changes in our society to help rid ourselves of this phenomenon by getting to the core of it.  Stricter gun laws will help, but they aren’t the foolproof answer either.

The best answer we have to prevent mass shootings like this is rooted deep within our society in how we treat each other.  The people who do this are typically those who are alienated from mainstream society by socio-political forces within it.  The more inclusive we become of everyone in our society, the faster we heal those mental wounds.  We also need people to act more responsibly in parental guidance & teach their children to respect everyone & be compassionate — like Jesus.  

Funny how the religious crowd and those who have the money & power in our society are typically the ones who don’t show compassion for those who have-not or are on the outside. Those are the folks who would’ve kept & ate the 2 fish & 5 loaves of bread themselves.

Paranoia or not?

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Humor me for a minute . . .

What if I told you that I believe there’s a man who’s watching me all the time, no matter what I do.  I can’t shake him out of my mind as I’m always thinking about him & what he’s doing, and I’m sure he’s infatuated with what I’m doing & sees my every move.  He doesn’t show his face, he doesn’t call me or give me any overt signs that he’s doing this, though sometimes I feel he is & I sometimes see signs of his trying to communicate with me non-verbally (though sometimes I hear his voice), but I feel and I see the results of his stalking, subconscious personality in my own eyes and deep within my psyche.  I have no proof that he’s doing this and I don’t even know who he really is and I can’t even proof that he even exists with any physical evidence of it, but I’m telling you, this guy is watching me and I have faith in it, and what’s more, I’m absolutely certain that he’s guiding my thoughts & actions & heaping sorrow or joy upon me in seemingly random fashion like he has a voodoo doll of me, strictly based upon whether he feels like doing it or not; you might say at his will & whim.  I’ve whispered & even yelled at him & I get no physical or verbal response from him, and sometimes I feel like he’s gone, then sometimes I feel he’s not, that’s he’s there & in total control of me, protecting & guiding me, and I feel he will always be there even after I die, that he will control me & my thoughts throughout eternity.

Sounds like I’ve lost my mind, right?  What if I told you I thought it was an old white man — would that help or hurt?  You’d think I’m really nuts, right.

But if I tell you that this person is God, all of sudden, it seems rational to you.  But why?

My question is, if you had not ever been exposed to religion & had grown up to rationalize your existence & your fate on your own, wouldn’t you think this was nuts?

For a moment there, you weren’t thinking of religion, and in the context of this story, your “religious brain” didn’t exist for a little while & you used your rational thought to try and figure out why I seemed to be “insane”.

That’s what I’m thinking with all the people who say they are religious — they are totally insane, or they fail to use the brain that their God gave them.  Surely their mind knows that there is no evidence that there’s an afterlife or a supreme being/spirit, and if there is, there’s no way to obtain proof of it.  As George Carlin once said, the results we have here on earth are not worthy of the work of a supreme being who is all-wise, all-knowing & has mercy.

If there is a God who made us & all this, he surely simply doesn’t care to get involved except at random, at best.  Surely with all the billions and billions of planets out there to tend to, God has to be busy elsewhere most, if not all of the time.  Maybe this was just a science project of his that has continued to flourish unattended.  All you have to do is look at all the suffering & hate that permeates this world to know that if God does exist, it’s a hands-off approach at best.

“Miracles” are nothing more than fate/chance & have plenty of physical explanation behind them; at least they have no otherworldly explanation that they came true due to it.  Case in point — my wife’s purse fell off her closet shelf & somehow the strap caught the doorknob next to it & that’s where she found it hanging.  That probably wouldn’t happen again if she sat it up there & knocked off herself 1,000 more times trying to get it to catch the doorknob.  A miracle?  No — just luck, coincidence, nothing at all actually — it just simply happened.

And if there is a God, you won’t know until you die, and nobody has ever came back to tell us what it’s like.  If you’re thinking about the Jesus “story”, know that there are plenty of other religions that came before and after Jesus that purported to tell of a messiah sent to save everyone, and the first reports of Jesus came only some 40 years after his alleged death from someone who didn’t know him. When I found that out, I became extremely curious as to why the life or death of someone so great wasn’t even noted in his own lifetime/era?

Note that we have plenty of contemporary writings of other people who lived in that time, so people were writing things down then, although they didn’t have a ballpoint pen (or blog), and there are no writings about Jesus during his lifetime or in anybody else’s stories, at least those that were written during Jesus’ alleged lifetime.  There’s more evidence that Shakespeare exists & wrote all those plays than Jesus existed, and I highly doubt that as well (yes, I’m an Oxfordian).

We are all born atheists. It’s the stories we are told to believe as children that shape our beliefs and make us religious. We would have no need or desire for religion if it weren’t foisted upon us by our elders & the religious powers that be. We don’t need religion to be good to one another or show compassion. Being atheist helps you to understand what’s going on, that there are people & organizations who use religion to control and separate us. Atheists are smart people who use logic & common sense & are willing to take responsibility for their own actions and their own fate here on earth & don’t need to know or believe that there’s a higher power that’s doing that for them. They are brave people in that they don’t need the palliative psyche care that death is not the end, as they know that all we have is this life and we need to do better now.

When you get to the crossroads and find yourself choosing between theology & atheism, the facts & logic are all on the atheists’ side.  Being atheist, agnostic or non-religious doesn’t mean you aren’t a good person — it simply means that you don’t believe in the religious dogma of our existence or an afterlife.  A person can be kind, compassionate, trustworthy, righteous, charitable, loving, nurturing, happy — all things that are good — without religion.  The fact that religion has sold the opposite upon people is the travesty and why I’m so against it, that and that theology flies in the face of facts as we know them.

People ask why are we here and why does what we see exist, and refute any scientific reasoning of it. Scientists know based on factual study that the universe is expanding, which means that the universe we know began billions of years ago in what scientists term as the “big bang”. Yes, that’s a theory based on scientific evidence, but it beats a universe created by a white man in the sky somewhere. What created the white man? What happened before him, or before time & space began? These are questions we may never definitively answer, but throwing logic & science out the window and believing in something that makes no logical or scientific sense is an irrational 7 ignorant as it gets.

I prefer to believe that we all should help one another and I believe more in the faith of the goodness that is inherent in most of mankind that we can find love, happiness and help from our fellow travelers here on earth without a need to believe in stories written by people from 2,000 years ago who were ignorant to the basic principles & facts that we know today & who lived like many animals do now.

We don’t hold much of what people said as being relevant today only a generation or two ago — why should we believe & follow the words of people from 2,000 years ago?