Terrorism Is A Part Of All Religions

Today is the day that the fear mongers in America get their biggest wish. And it isn't even an action that took place here in the United States. The event that I am talking about is the Canadian Soldier shot in Ottawa. The fact that a soldier was shot guarding the National War Memorial isn't the biggest news to them. It is that the person who shot the soldier is a Canadian citizen that recently converted to Islam. A home grown terrorist.

Given that we are in the final stretch of the 2014 elections, I can see the political ads already.

Candidate X is willing to allow terrorists to cross our borders because they will not allow the authorities to keep the terrorists out.

Candidate Y cut Spending on the border patrol and the terrorists are flooding across our borders ready to attack.

And you know the one thing that you aren't going to hear from any politician though? This is the act of a single person and does not represent what the religion of Islam teaches. To say the previous sentence is political suicide. It shouldn't be, but it is. Why is that? Because we Americans have demonized any religion that is not what we believe is mainstream Catholicism. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many more religions have been looked down upon from Catholics that populate the country. Why? Because we Americans are arrogant and we know exactly what is best for everybody else. Even if we have no clue what their circumstances are.

But this isn't an argument about religion or which religion is correct. This is an argument against what we are going to hear in the coming weeks. We are going to hear that we need to protect our borders even more than we do, that new restrictions on American's personal freedoms need to be enacted, and that the terrorists are infiltrated our country and will pop up in every state to start killing who they see as infidels.

More Religious Hypocrisy From The Right

North Carolina in it's infinite wisdom has passed a law banning same-sex marriages again. That is not news. What is news is that there are criminal charges that can be used against the person performing the religious ceremony. Well, a lawsuit has been filed arguing that the state is infringing on religious freedoms of the clergyman who performs the ceremony.

Now you would think that this would be a simple case for everybody to figure out. A person who is performing a religious ceremony that is performed elsewhere in the state being arrested for that act is being denied their religious liberty. But, like everything that has to do with religion, we have to see it through the prism of the Catholic, God Fearing people that believe that they know what religion should look like.

Here are what some people that are against gay marriage have to say about this:

"I'm not sure if this is a religious freedom claim or a publicity stunt," said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been one of the loudest religious voices against gay marriage. "This isn't the institutionalization of one particular religious viewpoint, but an idea that virtually every civilization has defined as being between one man and one woman."

Well, this isn't about religion anymore here. It is culture. One man, one woman for marriage. It is our culture and heritage. It is the survival of the Human Race. Fuck religion because if we allowed different religions to practice what they believe, then we might have problems.

Moore, along with other religious conservatives, argued that when it comes to recent laws regulating same-sex marriage, religious liberty is a right that should be reserved for those who disagree with gay marriage.

"Religious liberty is something different," said Moore. "It's when there is an infringement that happens on people's right to dissent to same-sex marriages. We are concerned with people being forced to participate in those ceremonies, which we see with cases of florists, photographers and others across the country."

This is great. Because they don't believe in what you do, they don't get the religious liberty that you want? If the UCC says that according to their beliefs in the Bible that same-sex marriage is legal, they don't deserve religious liberty, but the people that follow your teachings that same-sex marriage is an affront to God deserve that religious liberty. That is a violation of 1st Amendment rights if I have ever heard one.  And that means that the North Carolina State Government has broken Federal Law yet again. This is becoming an every year sort of deal.

Tami Fitzgerald, director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, the group that led the charge to pass the state's ban on same-sex marriage, echoed Moore's sentiments, saying the beliefs of the clergy from the United Church of Christ are "errant."

"These individuals are simply revisionists that distort the teaching of Scripture to justify sexual revolution, not marital sanctity," Fitzgerald said in a statement.

Where are the laws in North Carolina that say that raping your wife and then forcing her to marry you is OK. That is in the scripture. Where are the laws in North Carolina that say that you cannot mix fabrics. That is in the scripture. And I don't want to hear about the civilization has advanced argument or that things have changed. Because according to the argument above, the UCC is distorting the teachings of Scripture, but yet almost each and every Catholic Church in America are willing to have parishoners in their churches that are divorced for reasons not mentioned in the Bible for the only reasons that you should be divorced. They have remarried people in their ranks. And their former spouse is still living and have not been put to death. So to you, Tami Fitzgerald, you have distorted the teaching of scripture. You and your church. But yet, there is no law out there that says you should be criminally charged with a crime.

And sexual revolution is the thought that there is one man, one woman. The base nature of any living organism isn't based on attraction to the different sex. It is the primal urge to have sex, the primal urge to find love and companionship, the primal urge to be safe. And the animal kingdom shows us that. The one man, one woman concept is based upon what humans think is the best for us. It might be the best for us, but it is not natural law.

For you religious liberty people, it just cannot be for those who believe in the traditional Catholic way. For religious liberty to be true, everybody who has a deeply religious belief has to be allowed to practice that as long as it does not interfere with the base laws of society. And marriage is not one of those base laws. Besides, the Catholic Church of America has violated their own teachings for the past century to try and gain more power. I am tired of hearing the religious people in this country say that we need to follow God's law. I would rather follow the mentally ill and try to remake the country in their way of thinking. Why? Because I know that they are insane. But to follow what God's law is would be trying to follow two contradictory paths at the very least. And if we follow the Catholic teachings, we violate the 1st Amendment and lay waste to everything that every conservative out there says they want to follow.

The pushing of religion out to every issue in the public square that is up for debate cheapens that arguments that religion and the teachings of religious scholars and books can make and help decide what might be good for the country. Sometimes, religion needs to be taken out of decisions, or at the very least the particular viewpoint of the Catholic religion. Because it is just another way to divide us. And we don't need that.

The quotes in the post are from this story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/30/north-carolina-gay-marriage-lawsuit_n_5235474.html

The author of the post, in full disclosure is an Ordained Minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Oh, Tell Me What You Would Do

Yesterday, I was watching the Senate C-SPAN channel and listening to the Senators argue whether or not we should pass the resolution about loaning Ukraine money. There were people like Senator McCain, Reid, and others ready to pass the resolution and others were arguing that they didn't like the IMF role in distributing money and that it might take money out of the defense budget. And while I understand both arguments, it is the ones that oppose the resolution that I want clarification from.

The ones that are fighting this, are also the ones that are screaming in the media that we need to stop the Russian aggression in Chrimea and Ukraine. That Vladimir Putin is the current Joseph Stalin and is invading countries to rebuild the Soviet Union. That we need to intervene militarily to stop Russian incursions because after Ukraine will be the Russian speaking Baltic States and then he will continue to move west into neighboring states that declared their independence from the Soviets back in the 90's. While I don't believe that this is going to happen, let's say for arguments sake that you are correct. That everything happens above. What should we do?

Religious Freedom Legislation And The Problems Ahead

Arizona missed an opportunity to become the 1st state in the union to openly discriminate against everybody who isn't a Christian and didn't follow the Bible, thanks to Jan Brewer's veto of the bill. SB 1062 would have been the first shot in the dividing of the country by religious sects. And we will get there. I am almost positive that the "Moral and Virtuous" Christians out there will figure out a state legislature and governor to roll over and get this passed in their state. Believe me, Arizona might be the one in the news, but there are other states out there that are thinking the exact same way as the people who pushed SB 1062. Although there will be nothing within the next month that will get passed, later this year, the ball starts rolling again in the states.

The Arizona debacle has stopped other states in their tracks. In Kansas, the Senate decided not to consider the bill. Of course, the House there had passed the measure. And I am sure that the Governor there would have signed it into law. I am ashamed that South Dakota had this legislation even considered. It was tabled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. In Tennessee, the sponsor had withdrawn his support of the bill there. In Ohio, the bill put forth was withdrawn. In Georgia, they had one each for the Senate and the House. The Senate bill had been withdrawn. The House bill is proceeding but it won't get through the Senate even if it does pass the House. In Indiana, lawmakers abandoned a constitutional amendment that would have protected religious schools and charities from discrimination lawsuits. Utah tabled the resolution there.

The Christmas Day Hit Job

Once upon a time, I used to pronounce UPS as "Oops!". They would knock on your door, then leave one of those delivery notices almost immediately so you wouldn't have a chance to meet them before they drove off. Or if you were (un)lucky enough, they would toss your package onto your balcony, contents be damned. Oops.

To be fair, UPS has really cleaned up its act over the past few years. You can now sign up for UPS My Choice for free and digitally give them a shipping release to leave your packages at your front door so you no longer have to visit their regional center at 8pm to pick them up. Through that service, they also send you email alerts to let you know a package is on its way. From my experience with UPS My Choice, they have never lied about when a package was going to be delivered. And this holiday season I used them a lot. They even delivered my new work computer in two business days just before Christmas -- as promised.

The same can be said about FedEx. They were a frequent visitor to my lair during the past month, and only once did I have a package delivered late. Even then, it was only one day late and it was attributed to the weather delays both companies experienced about two to three weeks ago. So you can imagine how upset I was when I read this poor excuse for journalism hit piece on both companies on MSNBC.com.

Both companies are The Grinch? They are to blame for customers not having a Christmas? Bullshit.

Common sense tells (most of) us that buying last minute gifts via the Internet is a tricky proposition. In order to receive those gifts on time, a lot has to go right. The retailer has to pack and ship the order in a timely manner. The carrier has to pick the merchandise up and deliver during said deadline. The weather also has to cooperate, which rarely happens. The buyer also has to input the correct address and payment information into their computer. Any deviation in that chain of events will cause deliveries to be late.

Maybe Tony Dokoupil and MSNBC should put the blame where it really belongs: consumers and the companies that enabled them to buy at the last minute and overstress these carriers beyond their capacities to service customers?

To read comments written by people who put so much value into the consumerism part of Christmas makes me sad. Christmas should be a time to reflect on what you're thankful for, not what you don't have. If you have a warm home, food on the table and reliable transportation, be thankful you have the basic necessities. There's a lot of people out there who rely on food banks, Section 8 housing, WIC and/or public transportation to get by, and that number is not diminishing. Nor do they care if their precious new tablet/laptop is under the tree on Christmas morning.

This was a great Christmas for me, and I'm grateful since there have been others in recent years that didn't go as well. The holiday season when I had to spend my last $120 to euthanize a beloved pet still haunts me. Then there was the one when I wasn't sure where I was going to live after January 1st, and I had to ask my father for a loan to pay rent -- a loan that I wasn't 100% sure I could pay back as promised. There was one Christmas where I was wrongfully terminated from a job three days prior, and then another one where I didn't get to spend Christmas with anyone. And I'll always remember the holiday season when my mother was in the final stages of terminal cancer and was taken by ambulance to a hospice center on New Year's Eve.

These are some of the reasons why I have no sympathy for those individuals who ordered their gifts online at the last minute and then bitch that the CEO of UPS is getting paid $9 million a year to run the company and had the audacity to let his employees have Christmas off. When you put consumerism and your selfish interests over the true meaning of Christmas, you cease being a Christian in my eyes.

Who cares if a package gets delivered a day or two after Christmas? Whatever happened to "It's the thought that counts"? Or forgiveness?

Imagine That: There Is Greed In Major Cities

Perhaps most interesting is the map on greed, which compares average incomes with the number of people living below the poverty line.

If you are in a red area, then you are in an area that submits to this "sin". If you are in blue, well, greed doesn't appear to be in the water.

For the rest of the maps of the 7 deadly sins, here is where you can see them:

http://memolition.com/2013/12/12/maps-of-seven-deadly-sins-in-america/

Nelson Mandela & Americanized Apartheid

We all knew this day was coming, and Heaven (if you believe in one) welcomed another angel today when Nelson Mandela died at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 95 years old. Tonight I'm going to do something different. Instead of telling you how great he was like everyone else, I'll give you a few thoughts about him that no one else is saying. 

There are people out there who say he was a Marxist. They will also tell you he was a terrorist. While all of this is technically true, I don't hold it against him one bit. 

Mandela protested against white supremacist policies for what seems like his entire adult life. At first he fought apartheid non-violently, and when those protests didn't work (read about the Sharpeville Massacre) he fought back in a way that I can appreciate. MK, an abbreviation for a name that translates to "Spear of the Nation", was formed to be the armed wing of the African National Congress, and they lauched guerilla attacks on government installations one year later. From that point forward, the fight against apartheid was on.

I completely understand if what Mandela did makes him a Communist and a terrorist in some people's eyes. But he fought an injustice that was in some ways nearly as horrible as what the Nazis did to Jews, gays, and anyone else they saw as less than them. Apartheid wasn't just about racism. It was some seriously fucked up shit you should take a few minutes to read about to understand why Nelson Mandela and his fight against it is such a big deal.

I live by the rule, "By any means necessary". Even if you don't agree with my methods, at least appreciate the end result. That is why I do not blame Mandela one bit for what he did or how he did it. Get the job done. That is all that matters.

If someone stripped me of my citizenship, attempted to move me from my homeland, and force me to carry ID to venture into white-owned land, I'd be fighting mad. Whoops! I forgot that has already happend to me and my family members.

Consider the following:

• I have to carry my birth certificate with me if I ever visit Arizona.
• Some of my ancestors live on the Mexican side of the border due to Mexican Repatriation that occurred in Texas just before World War II. Legally, they could be American citizens and have every right to be here just like noted anchor babies Michelle Malkin and Mitt Romney.

So when I see people on the right calling Nelson Mandela a Communist and a terrorist tonight, I have every right to call them the American version of the Nationalists because deep down they are no different than the white minority that made living in South Africa a living hell for people of color for half a century.

That is why we have to continue that fight here in America. It is the right thing to do.