America’s Most Dangerous Threat

During the Presidential debates both John Kerry and George W Bush agreed that the most dangerous threat to the United States of America is nuclear terrorism. The difference between the two men was how to handle the problem.

How will the terrorists get a nuclear weapon? Terrorists have many different ways to obtain a nuclear weapon now than they did ten years ago. This is because stockpiles of enriched uranium have grown in North Korea and Iran. This is also because the security of Russian stockpiles of weapons has been reduced. But, by far the most vulnerable place on the globe is Pakistan. Pakistan has built and testing nuclear weapons. Pakistan is occupied by a growing number of fundamentalist Muslims. And, Pakistan’s government is vulnerable to a coup d'etat.

If Pakistan’s government was to fall to a Fundamentalist Regime there could be any number of things this group could do. They could give nuclear weapons to terrorist groups to do God’s will. They could sell the weapons to like minded governments. They could use the weapons on Islam’s enemies. No matter what happens this is a very dangerous place.

Since North Korea has built from 6 – 8 nuclear weapons already, then what will they do with them? In the past North Korea has sold their mid-range ballistic missiles to Iran and anyone who will pay them. This is because North Korea needs money. The capitalistic west has been successful in isolating North Korea. Making North Korea desperate has forced them to sell missiles to nations on the dark side. Will North Korea be desperate enough to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists?

But, terrorists don’t need a ready-made nuclear weapon if they are willing to risk their lives. This is because slamming two pieces of enriched uranium into each other can create a simple nuclear weapon. If the total mass of the two pieces of uranium exceed the critical mass an explosion will occur. The only difficulty is obtaining enriched uranium. Russia, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and many former Soviet nations have stockpiles of enriched uranium. Crime gangs in the former Soviet countries are always looking for an easy way to make some extra cash. If they could steal some enriched uranium from poorly guarded stockpiles they would certainly have terrorists for customers. Since the amount of uranium required would be less than the size of a soda can it could easily be smuggled anywhere in the world. The final device would be slightly larger and could be smuggled into any major city in many different ways, including shipping containers, train cars, rented trucks or even a commuter plane.

The world is certainly more dangerous today than when President Bush took office four years ago. George W Bush has turned his back on the dangerous developments by focusing his efforts on an unnecessary war in Iraq. George W Bush has taunted North Korea into building more nuclear weapons than they really wanted to build. President Bush has antagonized fundamentalists Muslims in Pakistan with the war against Islam (As it is viewed in the Arab world.) President Bush has failed to talk to Iran on issues of nuclear weapon development. (Fortunately the EU has made an independent effort.) And, President Bush has refused to help Russia and the former Soviet countries to secure their nuclear weapons.

Genealogy

In the days of yore....

Back in the late 1980s when the Internet was very young people communicated on news groups. I subscribed to several newsgroups including the genealogy newsgroup. I always wondered if I could find my ancestors, because my name was relatively uncommon. The only other Forbushes I knew were related in some way. When I traveled I would look in the foreign phone book just to see if there were other Forbushes listed. When I did find one, however, I was too shy to actually call the number and ask them questions.

So, on the genealogy newsgroup I posted a question asking if anyone knew of any Forbushes and to whom they may be related. Days past and I didn’t get a response. After almost a month I did get a response referring to a book entitled “Forbes and Forbush Genealogy The Descendants of Daniel Forbush” by Frederick Clifton Pierce.

At the time I was working at a University, so I could order the book and check it out. As it turned out, the library could only get a microfiche copy that wasn’t in the best shape. However, I copied the entire book at a Xerox machine in the library. I tried my best to find a tie to my known ancestor, but I just couldn’t. However, I did send a copy of it to my dad and he took the next step. He went to my great grandfathers home town and found out who his father was. And, then he found his father, who was a person actually in Pierce’s book.

Of course this was exciting. Then I thought that I should publish this information on the Internet. I also found genealogical sites where I could share this information. Eventually I found another person who was interested in the Daniel Forbush line. She took it upon herself to type the complete Pierce book into Family Treemaker. Then, this information could be converted to a text file that could be posted on the web. I posted all of this information on the web. Now, every few weeks I get an e-mail from someone who has discovered my web site and sometimes they even send me information to update my web site.

Now, I know my ancestors back to 1654, and perhaps a bit further based on a couple of assumptions. In doing a bit more research I now know the reason that this ancestor, Daniel Forbes, came to this country. He was actually a Scottish prisoner of war in the War against Oliver Cromwell. Then Daniel Forbes was sold into a type of slavery, indentured servitude. For several years Daniel worked without pay to earn his right to become free.

Now, I continue to carry on my ancestor Daniel Forbush’s fight against Fundamentalist Christians and for Freedom.

The Message of the Counter Culture

We are about forty years hence from the Counter Culture. Of course the counter culture actually began after the Second World War and continued into the present. The counter culture began as a small group of people opposed to the way things were being done in the standard American culture and to this day there are still people who find themselves in this group. However, during the second half of the 1960s the counter culture grew in size and power to fight the basic evil in the standard American culture.

Evil in America? Yes, there was and still is evil in the American culture. The first evil to be challenged by the counter culture was racial inequality. The next challenge was the war in Vietnam. The next challenge was the equality of men and women. The destruction of the environment became another challenge. Every where the counter culture looked it found evil in the system.

So, it is quite interesting that the backlash to the counter culture has come with the same religious implication. The attack on the counter culture is coming from those effected by the counter culture movement, but they are using the same type of moral argument to fight back.

Who were the people effected by the American Cultural Revolution that took place in the 1960s? Basically those who had acquired power before the 1960s had some of that power taken away from them during the 1960s. The children of these people what their power back. We need to remember that the power in much of America was passed down through families in the form of wealth, but also in the form of favors and pats on the back. Like the old adage goes, “It isn’t what you know it’s who you know.” Many of America’s most powerful people got their jobs through family connections. Since many minorities were not in positions of power in the 1960s it was unlikely that minorities would ever acquire power in almost any way. Since women had very little power before the 1960s they would most likely not acquire much power in the future. In short, the system had evolved in such a way that those who had power had the highest probability of retaining and passing on the power.

Power comes in many different forms. There is political, financial, and intellectual power. All three of these groups work together in order to keep themselves in power and to propagate their power to the next group who will inherit the power. The counter culture disrupted the system by promoting the idea that the system was broken and some people had no say in their future. Since the American culture had always promoted the idea that hard work will produce prosperity, this message motivated many to act. That action changed the way the culture looked at society and the rules many people had taken for granted.

History goes on and the people who lost their power became angry. Could you imagine a wealthy family eating dinner in a mansion in the wealthy area of town. The father tells stories about how life was when he was growing up. He tells about the servants and drivers who made his life easier. He talks about the respect he had and the job he got when he graduated from school. The kids may have some of these things, but it is most likely that the kids need to be more accountable for their lives. They need to do fairly well in school in order for their father to justify giving them a top position in the company. The father is held accountable by the board of directors and wouldn’t easily agree with a huge salary for one of the executive’s kids. The kid’s servants needed to make a living wage, so they may not be able to justify a driver or a stable hand for the kids. In short, the kids have grown up thinking that the counter culture had robbed them of their perfect lives.

These children of the wealthy have now risen to power in America and they are determined to put things right. But, the old argument for a wealthy American Aristocracy doesn’t work any more. The counter culture had exposed the evils of the wealthy. Instead, the wealthy realized that they could fight back by using their own brand of morality. They began by vilifying the counter culture by painting them with the anti-social behaviors of the counter culture. They painted them as the hippies who wouldn’t go out and find work. They painted them as the hippies who sat around all day smoking pot, and listening to rock ‘n’ roll music all day. These hippies became the symbol of the evils of the counter culture movement.

But, the hippies went away and the counter culture hid behind plain clothes of everyday people. The counter culture grew up and got jobs and raised families. But, they took their counter culture ideas with them. Laws continued to be passed to fix the broken American Culture. The wealthy continued to loose power as they methods of retaining power were exposed to the general public. The counter culture lived on in the people who demanded fairness for the poor and minorities. They demanded fairness for alternative life styles and alternative religions.

The children of the wealthy fought back again by using religion. The wealthy found that growing Christian movement could be manipulated to fight to win back their power. This is because both groups had lost something in the 1960s. When the American Culture was examined the power of the church was being examined in the same way in which the power of the wealthy was being examined. People had automatically given reverence to the religious and to religions. There was a mystery behind religions that many people recognized. People didn’t question religious power, because it would be like questioning God Himself. But the counter culture no longer gave religion carte blanche. Religion became optional. When people didn’t attend church, they were no longer under the thumb of the church. Religion lost its power.

So, we find ourselves in the culture wars once again. This time the wealthy are armed with religion and the counter culture only exists in the back of some people’s minds. The youth of today don’t know any difference. They don’t what life was life in the “old days” and they don’t understand how life could be changed if we were to go back to the pre-counter culture days. They do see some of the problems of today and they hear the religious right tell them that those problems could be solved with more religion. They are told that the counter culture, or the hippies or the liberals had ruined everything.

Go To Rome, Loose Your Faith

I was eating dinner with a priest I had met a few months earlier. He seemed to be a friendly, thoughtful and interesting person. He was quite knowledgeable and taught at a nearby university. He had invited me by to eat and talk several times and we had quite a bit from each other.

I had known that priests quite often traveled to Rome either to meet with other priests, get further education or simple tourism. I had visited Rome a few years earlier, so I was interested in knowing what this priest had thought about Rome.

I was completely surprised by his response. He said, "You know what they say, go to Rome, loose your faith." At first I didn't know if I had heard him correctly. He told me that he had a fear of going to Rome, because he may loose his faith.

Well, I had been to Rome and I had thought about my visit. There were priests and nuns everywhere. Surely they had not all lost their faith. What could it be about Rome that may cause a person to loose their faith? Why was this priest fearful of loosing his faith?

I think that the problem lies in the expectations. Some people have an understanding of the world that they rely on which is based on a romantic idea and not reality. To them, Rome and Jerusalem and other places have a mystical aura. This aura is bright in their minds and it gives them an understanding of the magical place. When one has never traveled to the actual place anything can be substituted for the reality of the place. One can create at romantic idea of what the Catacombs would be like, and then they would be disappointed when they actually see the reality of the place. When the reality ends up different than the expectation, then one might begin to doubt more of what was once thought to be reality.

When I was in Rome I had a surprising experience that some people may not have thought to be very agreeable to their expectations. In every Catholic Church there is supposed to be a remnant of the saint for which the church is named. It could be a small piece of bone, or a piece of cloth from the clothes that they wore. So, when I saw an actual foot in a jar on an altar I was taken aback. I don't know how old the foot was and I don't even remember which saint it had belonged to. But, it was a bit strange. So, this experience came back to me when I heard the priest tell me about his fear.

The Age of the Universe

If someone has some measurement that would prove the Earth was less than 10,000 years old it would be great for you to submit it to scientific scrutiny. Many fundamentalists have tried to make measurements to prove that the earth is only 5000 years old, and every attempt does not live up top scientific standards. It would take a great deal of evidence to turn the ship around, but remember that 100 years ago scientists had believed that the earth could likely have been 5000 years old. There were many scientists that had been biased toward the 5000-year-old earth, hence the beliefs 100 years ago being biased that way. So, that answers would be different today is no surprise, since the measured age of the universe has been getting older and older since that time. Most measurements assumed that the age of the universe should be somewhere around 5000 years old. So measurements would be designed with this in mind. Usually the result would be greater that the maximum on the scale. So, the result would be: greater than 10,000 years, for example. The next measurement would be designed to measure something around 10,000 years perhaps going up to 20,000 years. The answer would then come back as: greater than 20,000 years. These experiments kept pushing the measurements higher and higher over the years until we have the age that we currently have: between 10 and 14 billion years old.

Actually, these are bounds on the measurements of the age of the universe based on different experiments. We have measurements that say that the age of the Universe is older than 10 billion years based on the expansion of the Universe from the time that hydrogen first formed. What happened before the formation of hydrogen could be subject to other experiments. There are many different ideas about what happened before that, but God only knows at this point. But we certainly know that the Earth is at least 4.5 billion years old based on other experiments. We know that there were animals millions of years ago, not 5000 years ago based on other measurements. Scientists have looked at many different things in many different ways and there has never been a result that suggested that everything be suddenly created 5000 years ago. There are radioactive decay rates and the amount of radioactive material left. Each and every measurement points to something other than a 5000-year-old earth.

One of my favorite political people who will never get the popular backing is Arianna Huffington. She understands both sides of the issues and often comes down on the most reasonable side. She has a new piece out:

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Enjoy.

Questioning God’s Creation

Why shouldn't everything be doubted until you understand it? Well, you need to make your way through the world and having doubts at times makes it difficult to do your daily tasks. However, why should you accept exaggerated and metaphoric stories in the Bible as being true? Jesus taught tremendous lessons even without the miracles. If we appreciate the lessons he taught and worked them into our lives the human race would be far better off, but demanding that people believe in non-sense doesn't further the cause of Jesus.

When you begin to tell people that things should not be questioned, then you are either telling them that you don’t know the answer, or the answer isn’t important. It’s fine if your religion doesn’t have an answer, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t an answer. And, the person that is asking the question believes that the answer is important to them.

God may have given us the Bible, but he gave us much more. If you ignore other sources of information then you are denying the answers that God has offered to you. God created the Universe and his creation offers the clues to its history. Denying the history of the Universe is just as bad as the scholar who uses only one source to research a topic.

God gave us our inquisitiveness and I assume that he meant for us to use it. I strongly believe that the more you understand about the universe the more in awe of the Universe you are. Every detail of the Universe and the life that inhabits it is amazing. Denying oneself the knowledge of the universe is denying yourself the knowledge of God’s creation. It’s too bad that Fundamentalists deny themselves this knowledge. And, the sad thing is that they deny it because they want the Book of Myths to be regarded as truth.

But this means that you must question God’s creation in order to support Genesis as truth. Every fact that God gives us to tell the true story of the creation must be doubted to support the Book of Genesis. How can any religion justify doubting God’s creation. I suggest that an honest religion can not doubt what God has created. I also submit that if the clues left in the Universe are false, then God is guilty of deception. However, how could any “good” God deceive? This would lead us to believe that the deceptive spirit, Satan created the Universe, or God is not “good.” Either of these conjectures could not possibly be true to any Fundamentalist.

So, in the end the Fundamentalist is forced to deny his own knowledge of the world and remain ignorant in order to believe what he is taught.

What Has God Given Us?

When people argue that the Bible can not have mythical stories in it then they are arguing that the earth that we have has false information buried in it. If they argue that the universe was created in seven days, then they are arguing that God left us false clues in the soil in the form of fossils. God created the universe, and God does not deceive us. Then how can we reconcile the issues in the Book of Genesis with the discoveries that modern man has made? The most reasonable solution to this problem is that the Bible is intended for us to be instructed on a deeper level. The Bible was not written to tell us how the earth was constructed. The Bible was not written to tell us how God decided to create the human race. If he decided to do it in three days, seven days or 12 billion years why does it matter? It only matters to those who think that what is written in the Bible can not be untrue in any way.

Well, the Bible has many truths in it. And, any scholar of the Bible can tell you that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. Why is this true? Did God change, or did the people who were writing the Bible evolve in some way? God gave us the clues and we need to understand what we can. We own it to God to understand our world that God has given to us in a gift. God gave us the Bible and he gave us the Universe.

If we were to sit and only study the Universe we might understand quite a bit about it. But most religious people must agree that the study of science alone does not tell us the whole story. So, why do the Fundamentalist Christians think that if they only study the Bible they will understand the will of God?

The answer is that God gave us more than just the Bible. God gave us our life and our brain and he intends for us to use it. God gave us the universe with all the clues intact. And, God gave us the Bible. If you are not able to pull all the information that He has given us together, then you are missing some of the information that God has given to us.

Although I do not know everything that God intends for us to know, no one does, I do know that if you only rely on one piece of information you are bound to be lacking in knowing what God meant for us to know.

Fundamental Disease

Fundamentalism is a disease. It begins with ignoring reality and believing that the book (be it the Koran or Bible or Bhagavad Gita) has all the information that you need. Then a leader is able to influence the Fundamentalist into whatever view they believe to be important for them. The leader faces no resistance, because the follower has been taught not to question.

Whether it is al Qeada using the Koran, or George W Bush using the Bible the manipulation is the same and the leader can make the followers do what they want without questioning him.

Pentecost

The Event which happened on Pentecost is a very important development in the Church. The power of the moment was that the group gathered in the room suddenly realized that Jesus wasn't dead, because his ideas lived on in them. It may seem mundane to many people, but this realization enabled each and every person in that room to have the responsibility to pass Jesus' teaches along. The concept used to explain this was a metaphor for the teachings of Jesus' being spread around the world as spirit. They believed that the spirit engulfed everyone who had the message.

I understand this personally from a religious experience that I was privileged to have. I don’t know if you have heard of this before, but there is a movement called Cursio, which means little course. It is a short course on Christianity that is taught by giving each person a most special Christian experience, which is difficult to explain. You need to experience it. Once you have this experience you feel an uncontrollable need to pass this experience on to someone else. In fact you would like to pass the experience on to as many people as you can. I believe that the early Christians must have had this type of experience and needed to pass it on.

When the Pentecost experience is described in the Acts of the Apostles the writer is trying to express the fever that engulfed the Apostles. In writing we communicate ideas, and we also communicate emotions. The effective way to communicate emotions isn’t to just use the emotion in a sentence. Instead it is much more effective to describe the experience so that the person relives the experience himself. However, sometime the details of the event are not adequate to communicate the emotion. When this happens the writer needs to find a way to get the feeling across. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke used metaphor to transfer the feeling of the mysterious spread of Jesus’ teachings to the spreading of a fire through the crowd. People know how fire spreads, because they most likely have seen it spread at some time. But he calls it a spirit, which has been used in many ways through out history. Spirit is a feeling. So, Luke is telling us that the feeling is spreading like a fire through the Early Christian community.

Science and Religion

I’ve written on this topic before, and I’ll write on it again and again.

Religion and science both arose from the human need to try to understand the world. We can look back to the tribal origins of humans by looking at primitive culture. This means having anthropologists whom traveled to the remote areas of the world and learned about the primitive culture that had not yet been influenced by modern culture. We have been able to learn quite a bit about these early human cultures. In addition to this, we also know quite a bit about the ancient Middle Eastern cultures at the times of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

Based on what anthropologists have learned about ancient cultures and modern primitive cultures we can understand what the Bible was all about. Every primitive culture had myths that were used to explain the creation of the world, the greatness of their ancestors, the difference between good and evil and the meaning of life. This is because as humans became aware of their personal place on earth humans longed for meaning. Humans had a sense of purpose that may have been given to them by God, or may have evolved with them. This sense of purpose was expressed by humans through out all times by stories that were told orally and passed down from generation to generation changing along the way as each person felt the need to weave his idea into the tapestry of the tribal culture.

As time went on the clan treasured these stories, and the stories spread wide as the human population spread outward. When writing was invented these stories must have been one of the first things to be written down. The stories remained revered and yet fragile. Memorized stories could be lost if the people who had memorized them died suddenly before they had the chance to pass the story to the next person. Written stories also were revered and fragile. The scrolls or tablets could be destroyed almost as easily as the human who memorized the story could. But if they survived, the story is preserved exactly as it was written down. The idea became frozen in time. Suddenly it became important to reproduce the stories exactly as it had been written in the first place.

The Old Testament begins with a collection of myths telling the stories that had been passed down orally before they were written down. For example, the myth of Noah and the flood is also told in Mesopotamian culture. There are similarity and differences in the two versions of the story. The Hebrew version of the story emphasizes the idea that there is one God and Noah saved everyone by following the orders from God. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the Mesopotamian myth where the god Ea destroys a city with a flood. This flood was only seven days long. The Hebrew myth exaggerates both the extent of the flood, and the length of the flood, but this is to be expected when a myth is passed down from generation to generation orally.

The point here is not to say that the Bible is wrong. The point is to understand the meaning of the Bible. If the stories of Aesop were written into the Bible as part of the myths that were valued by the culture as a way to teach morals, do you think that people would be telling us that in ancient times animals could talk? Yes, there would certainly would be a group of people who would hold this opinion, but does it mean that it is true? No, it doesn’t.

Dr. Forbush has studied religion for sixteen years and for many years after graduation. In addition to this Dr. Forbush has a Ph.D. in physics and enjoys learning whatever he can from any of the sciences.

Paulians

Maybe we should have a distinction between those who follow the teachings of St. Paul, and those who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some of the teachings of Paul that come directly from the teachings of Plato and are not referred to by Jesus are:

1) The idea that there is a natural way of things. That doing some things is against nature. And, that we should want to do things that go along with nature. This is referred to over and over again beginning in the first chapter of Romans. He uses this idea to support many of his views.

2) The idea that human pleasure is somehow wrong. Plato preached stoicism, which basically revered those who put up with suffering. Paul repeats this same idea by emphasizing that carnal pleasure should be frowned upon. This whole line of thought lead monks and nuns to wear hair shirts and flagellate themselves in an attempt to get closer to God.

3) Also, Paul uses Plato’s theory of forms to describe the supernatural. He talks about the invisible and the visible. Jesus never taught us about the supernatural in any way other than the Holy Spirit. But the spirit that Jesus talks about is different than the spirit that Paul talks about. Jesus refers to the idea of the community as a whole as the spirit.

Fortunately for Paul there was no authority in the early Christian Church, because Paul was constantly contradicting Jesus’ teachings. Usually the contradiction of religious teaching is considered heresy. Paul knew how to work the system, so he was able to assign his ideas to Jesus even though Jesus never said many of these things. In this way he protects himself from accusation of heresy. He also credits Jesus with these ideas and he appears to have figured out what Jesus meant. This is very deceptive, yet St. Paul is able to change the direction of the church.

Fundamentalist Christians Should Heed What Jesus Taught

The majority of fundamentalists ignore Matthew’s Gospel chapter 23. That is because this entire chapter tells us what Jesus thought of the Fundamentalist Jews of the time. It isn’t pointed out by fundamentalists, but the Pharisees of Jesus’ time were obsessed by Jewish law. This is very similar to the Christian Fundamentalists of our time. So, when Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are bound to go to Hell it is quite remarkable. Jesus only mentions hell in the Gospels 14 times. Two of those times are when he tells us what is going to happen to the Pharisees who put the law before love of their neighbor.

Too bad that the Christian Fundamentalists don’t see themselves in this reading.....

Bush is Revving Up for Iran

The Bush administration has decided that Iran is their next stop in the War on Terror. They are spreading propaganda and trying to make sure that the American people are in agreement with them. At least they want the 51% that voted for them to be on their side so they can claim to have a mandate.

The Bush administration is making sure that everyone understands that Iran has nuclear capabilities. They are trying to make nuclear weapons and even though they have claimed to have stopped production we can not be sure that that has already happened or if it will ever happen. The Bush administration is making sure that Iran is continually being painted as the second member of the axis of evil, and there is almost nothing that Iran can do to change that. If Iran stops making nuclear weapons, then the Bush administration will claim that they are lying. If Iran lets UN weapons inspectors come into their country to verify that they are no longer working on weapons then the Bush administration will claim that they have hidden the weapons in some secret location. Iran is in a no win position, and I am sure that there is no stopping this freight train.

After the elections in Iraq the US will pull out some troops and reassign them to Iran. And as the deceased Conservative Republican Sonny of Sonny and Cher would say: The Beat Goes On....

Jesus was a Rebel

The story of Jesus Christ the Messiah is the story of a young man who questions the Jewish religion. At first he goes to the Temple and he spends time questioning the rabbis and learned men. He wants to understand how they come to the conclusions that they do. He also read the Laws of the Jewish religion. Based on this information he formulated a way for the Jewish people to live together. His conclusion was that the attitude of the people was the key for the people to live together in harmony. He told people that they should praise God above everything else, and that everyone should love one another. With these two laws everything else that we understand about religion falls out.

The key as I have said is the attitude of the community. If the people assumed that the community was going to treat each other fairly, then everyone could live together without worrying about how the other guy was going to rip them off. If everyone agreed that final authority be given to God, then they wouldn’t be quibbling about who was going to benefit from the social politics. Taxes needed to be paid to benefit the local infrastructure, which benefited everyone. Jesus was a smart guy and he pointed to the flaws in the system indirectly in order to avoid being condemned by the authorities.

This worked for three years, until the authorities attacked his movement by killing him. But, the authorities could only kill the leader and not the idea, which propagated like a virus from person to person. The strength of the Early Christian movement was its lack of central authority. However, this lack of central authority lead to slightly different interpretations of what Jesus taught. This lack of coherence was the result of having people whom only heard what Jesus preached without trying to understand the vastness of his teachings. Since most people didn’t understand the ramifications of different actions it wasn’t always clear how Jesus’ ideas should be implemented in the details of everyday living.

Jesus was a rebel. He reacted to the obsession that some of the Jews of the time had with the religious law. He told his followers that the letter of the law wasn’t the most important aspect of Jewish culture. Instead, finding the love of one another and the love of God was more important.

When Saint Paul came to the Christian church he recognized the lack of coherent thought on many different issues. He understood much of what Jesus had taught, but he also was grounded in the works of Plato and the Greek Philosophers. He successfully melded the philosophy of Plato and the teachings of Jesus. When it came to laws and authority he emphasized Plato. But, he used the romantic image of Christ the messiah to give authority to his views.

What this means for us today is when Christian Fundamentalists quote the Bible and begin preaching fire and brimstone one should be wary of the origin of these thoughts. If the quote comes from one of the letters of Saint Paul, take it with a grain of salt. Ask the person where Paul gets the idea from Jesus. Why would Paul say this? Would Jesus have said it, and in what context? Christian Fundamentalists need to think about what they say, and they won’t unless they are asked these questions. Sometimes they take these hard questions back to their preachers who also can’t answer them. But at least it gets them a little bit closer to thinking about what they say.

Questioning your religion is in the spirit of Jesus the rebel!

Picking a Category

Here on tblog everyone is encouraged to blog. Blogging as we all know is journal writing. When I blog I first write about what I am thinking about, then I need to decide what category to publish the blog in. Sometimes this is quite easy. Before November 2, 2004 most of my blogs were related to the US Presidential election. However, even then there were topics that could be placed in both science and politics, or both religion and politics.

So, the question becomes what category should a blog be posted in?

For example, if I were to write a blog on “my pet fish,” should it be posted in science, because fish are biological creatures and biology is a science? Well, no, it should be posted in fine literature. Unfortunately, tblog doesn’t have a category entitled fine literature, so I guess miscellaneous is the best category.

I guess, when it comes right down to it I just need to look through the categories and figure out which ones it doesn’t belong in, then I need to post it in one of the categories that is left.

Well, so where should I post this nonsense?

Focus Factor

When one watches late night TV all types of strange products are advertised. Focus Factor is one of those products. The claim is that this product increases your focus power. Somehow the commercial eludes to the fact that people have extremely short attention spans and they need to take a drug that will increase their ability to focus their attention.

This was quite humorous for me when I first saw the commercial.

First of all, if all these people with short attention spans suddenly were able to focus their attention on something what would they be focusing their attention on? Well, we already have an experiment that was done in the 1960s that will tell us what these people will focus their attention on. Most likely they will focus their attention on sex, drugs, music and more TV. Well, maybe if these people are the group of people that are watching late night TV they will probably focus on watching even more late night TV.

What was this experiment that was done in the 1960s? It was the mass smoking of marijuana. It turns out that we now know that one of the major effects of marijuana is how it decreases ones distraction factor. What I mean by distraction factor, is that it is difficult to distract one who smokes marijuana. In fact, we now understand this system quite a bit more than we did in the 1960s. So, when you think of the stereotype of a pothead as a person that sits and counts the hairs on the back of his hand, or listens to music with incredible concentration, or stares into space contemplating the universe the marijuana has decreased the distraction factor. The pothead is sitting there contemplating one idea for an extended period of time. These long periods of contemplation have lead to bizarre ideas, but it had also lead to creative imaginative ideas and new music. But like anything moderation is the key. If one continues concentrate on music for twenty years then the person in this deep concentration may never be distracted from it enough to get a job and grow up.

So, it’s really funny how this Focus Factor is being sold to do something that marijuana has been doing for quite a while. However, the people who purchase Focus Factor may not even use it to concentrate on anything useful if the supplement actually works.

It’s all in the marketing....

East Texas Homophobes Get Their Way

The Sadie Hawkins dance is a tradition that goes a long way back across most of the country. The idea is to have one dance a year where the girl asks the guy to the dance. In this way girls who are frustrated about not being asked out have a chance to ask that guy they had their eye on out on a “date.” In our current “progressive” culture girls ask guys out all the time and Sadie Hawkins dances are not as common as they once were. Except in back woods places like East Texas.

In Spurger, Texas the Sadie Hawkins tradition was called TWIRP Day, where TWIRP means: “The Woman Is Requested To Pay." However, with the macho East Texas attitude, they couldn’t leave it at that. They also made the day into a cross dress day, so the gals (dressed as guys) asked the guys (dressed as gals).

Now, you throw in the East Texas fundamentalist Christians and suddenly TWIRP day is promoting homosexuality. They explain the homosexual effect as: “It’s like experimenting with drugs. They experiment with cross-dressing and suddenly they become homosexual.” So, the school is now viewed as encouraging homosexual behaviour. And, we all know how we all want to become homosexual if we only had that first hit...

If this keeps up maybe we should consider banning the Bible, because it promotes stupidity. (That’s a joke.) When we start thinking that the existence of something in ones environment will cause the persons behaviour to change then we are claiming that we no longer have freewill.

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What tops the whole story is that the school decided to change the sex reversal day to camouflage day, where students were encouraged to wear hunting gear. Ya, lets encourage the kids to bring guns to school and maybe even grab the women by their hair and drag them back to the cave too.

More Republican Hypocrisy

The House Republicans changed the rules in the house today. In 1993 the Republicans had decided that when a leader in the house was indicted he should be removed from a leadership position. Of course this was when a Democrat leader, Dan Rostenkowski, had the possibility of being indicted for mail fraud and the Republicans were in control of the House. The Republicans argued that someone under indictment was not the type of person that should be in a leadership position. Of course, the thought of a criminal, or potential criminal passing the laws that our country holds so dearly to our heart just makes one ill.

Suddenly the Republicans have changed their tune. They now believe that a man is innocent until proven guilty. American justice is again safe. The Republicans have decided to “flip-flop” on this issue because Tom Delay is about to be indicted on election fraud charges. Tom Delay, the house majority leader needs to remain in power until he is proven guilty. Or, at least long enough to change the laws so he will be found innocent.

Republicans only care about getting and maintaining political power. Morals do not matter to the Republican Party. Now that they are in charge they will work to change the system until it ensures that they will retain power until the American public awakes from its political slumber.

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The BCS College Football Ranking System

It is funny how the Computer ranking in the BCS system gives different results from what the News reporters and the coaches give. Funny or not, it is quite important to know why there is this discrepancy. Of course I don’t have the definitive answer. Instead, I have a hypothesis that can be tested. I believe that the coaches and reporters are emotionally tied to the football games in a way the computer can’t be. For the computer it’s Sgt. Joe Friday saying, “Just the facts mam.” The Reporters have watched some of the games and they have seen the video clips of the ones they didn’t get a chance to see. If they are dedicated they would also be able to look at the statistics from the game. But, the average reporter can’t keep all that information in mind when they are ranking teams. So, the teams that have good video of amazing plays will most likely get ranked ahead of teams that don’t get TV coverage. If the team is remembered the reporter is more likely to rank the team higher. For the most part the issue isn’t so dramatic because the overall record of the team is at hand. But, this isn’t always a fair assessment of the team because one team may have lost three very close games to top ten teams. That would suggest that the teams would have a nearly equal strength, but they still lost three times.

So, when people complained last year when the top two teams didn’t agree with the computer’s top two teams I thought it was funny. It just means that the coaches and the reporters got caught up in the emotion of the time. It meant that the coaches and reporters were weighing the last few games higher than the first few games. (This could be a valid method if everyone agreed on the method.) The computer could also find the same two teams if there was a logical reason for the reporters and coaches voting decision process.

When the computer method and the polls didn’t agree last year the BCS ranking system was changed so that the polls had a higher weighting than the computer method. Even though the computer method was better thought out and more evenly used than the coach or reporter polls.

Religious Education

Our children are taught to be religious by many different sources. If we bring our children to Church they learn by listen to the priest, rabbi or preacher. If we bring our children to church it isn’t long before someone encourages you to enroll them into the religious education program at the church. Depending on the church there is more or less pressure for you to have your children getting educated from the religious education staff. Children also get religious education from home. Finally, children get religious education from outside sources. These outside sources include TV, radio, books and friends.

The goal of each religious denomination is to make sure that they are the one and only religious point of view that the religious community knows and understands. This means that increasing the religious instruction and attendance at church will ensure that these are the dominant sources of religious information. Many faiths discourage other points of view in many different ways. One way is to claim that the church’s point of view is the one and only point of view. Another way to claim that the churches point of view is best interpretation of what we know. There is a subtle difference between these two statements. The first point says, “don’t argue with me, because I know best.” The second point says, “No one knows the answer for sure, but many wise people have studied this and the church understands the problem the best way and therefore we have the best solution.”

The power of the first point of view is that the church can not be wrong and you shouldn’t question it. The second point says that the church could be wrong, but it isn’t likely. And the key is that questioning the church makes it stronger. The more the church is questioned the better it can understand all the points of view and the better it can respond to each individual problem. So, when someone questions the church not only does the child (or adult) learn more about the problem, but the church itself learns more about the problem and better understands the answer. Not only this, but the church community better understands God’s relationship with the community and the world.

George W Bush's Hitmen Kill Wounded Unarmed Iraqis

George W Bush has put an even more dispicable face on America. In the latest fighting in Falluja soldiers just shot at anything that moves. This is either because they have been ordered to be heartless thugs, or because they lack the ablity to restrain their actions. Obviously sending less than fully trained troops into Iraq is the fault of the leadership at the top. Cutting taxes to pay his wealthy friends instead of funding the training of our troops is at issue here. This is just pure stupidity....

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Sanctity of Marriage

After the November 2, 2004 election everyone knows that moral values are on the mind of the country. But what moral values are important to Americans? There hasn’t been a publicly released poll asking more specific questions, so it isn’t clear. However, we do know that marriage is near the top of this list. We know this because the Republicans are trying to pass laws to save marriage all the time. They even want a constitutional amendment to save marriage.

We also know that the states in Middle America are the “Red” states that are even more concerned about marriage than other parts of the country. So, you would expect that those who are in the reddest of the red states would cherish marriage with the highest respect. So, when the people in the reddest of the red states pledge marriage together they must stay together longer than those evil secularists that live in the bluest of the blue states.

Well, if you thought this, then you thought wrong. A new study out tells us that the divorce rate in the red states is higher than the divorce rate in the blue states. It is not only higher, but it is twice as high.

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So, why would this be?

There are several different answers that could be true.

1) People in the red states get married earlier than in the blue states because they are trying to wait to have sex until they are married and they can’t wait any longer.
2) People in the red states get married earlier than those in the blue states because they don’t use contraception and the father pulls a shot gun out of the closet and fixes the problem.
3) People in the red states are just ignorant and they don’t realize what “until death do us part” means.
4) People in the red states just get tired of being yelled at by preachers, so they don’t go to church hence turning toward the devil who tells them to get divorced.
5) People in the red states are just more difficult to get along with, so they can’t live with another person for more than a few years.

Another Sad Day for America

Collin Powell was one of the few sane heads in the Bush administration. And, today Mr. Powell has resigned. Maybe the administration would have done everything the same had Collin Powell not been there. He seemed to be on the loosing end of almost every debate. However, at least there was a debate. Without Collin Powell in the White House one wonders what the American international policy will be like. After all, Collin Powell was the person that convinced George W Bush to make his speech to the UN. Without Collin Powell the US would have gone into Iraq without seeking UN support.

So, the question remains will George W Bush find a diplomat to replace Mr. Powell, or will he find a Republican ideologue?

Reminiscing

When I was younger, much younger, many different adults told me many strange things. Of course I was a kid and I didn’t know any better. So, I can understand why parents want to make sure that their kids only hear what they want them to hear. But, not everyone agrees what his or her kids should hear. In fact, many people don’t want their kids to hear the truth.

Maybe it’s because not everyone agrees on what the truth is. Maybe it’s because not everyone believes that the truth is what the kids should hear. So, we have kids hearing all kinds of non-sense and these kids turn into warped adults. This is the exact problem that the parents were trying to avoid in the first place.

As an example I will tell you a little story from my past. When I was about nine or ten years old I had a vivid imagination. I watched quite a bit of TV and read lots of books. When I read books they were generally informational. When I watched TV it was generally entertainment. So, it wasn’t long before I wanted the entertainment I watched on TV to become reality.

My family was a fairly religious Catholic family. This meant that going to church was a good thing and praying was a good thing. So, when I heard about a way of insuring that your prayer would be heard I thought that that was a good thing. I was told that if you prayed 1000 Hail Marys on the first Friday of the month of May then whatever you prayed for would come true. Obviously the thing was meant to be difficult because when it didn’t work the number of disappointed people would be very small. Or, maybe the disappointed people would think that they didn’t remember the complexity of the prescription correctly. Or maybe I didn’t remember the prescription properly. Whatever the problem it did not work for me, and I can almost guarantee that it would work for anyone if they prayed for the same thing that I prayed for.

Because when I was 9 or 10 years old I remembered on the first Friday in May to pray 1000 Hail Marys. And when I finished I prayed that I would be the Captain of the Starship Enterprise. And, I was surprised when it didn’t come true. Can anyone imagine?

This little episode demonstrates the danger of religion in a child’s world. Well, some of my readers may be thinking that prayers are always answered, and in this case the answer was no. And some of my readers may be thinking that children should be taught to how to pray, and this would include telling them not to pray for outrageous things. And, there are most likely hundreds of other solutions to this problem. But, the point is that many children are taught that praying is good. They are taught that God is all-powerful and He can do anything. Children are taught many unrealistic ideas about God that a young child can warp into their own ideas about what God may or may not do for them.

In fact, there are adults in our country who think outrageous things about what God will and won’t do. They believe that God created the Universe so that he could destroy it any day now. They believe that there are prophesy in the Bible that tells them when the world will end. They believe that signs are all around us and the end is near. They believe that when Jesus said to love one another he didn’t really mean for us to love gays or Arabs or divorcees. They believe that the Bible says that we should treat women as inferior to men. It is just amazing how messed up some people can get in what they believe to be “true.”

New Global Warming Study

Global Warming is real and it may be happening faster than even the scientists have predicted. A new report “The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report” will be released November 23, but the summary was released at a conference today. This report is the most comprehensive study of Global Warming yet. And, the results show that the Arctic Ice is melting much earlier and Arctic permafrost is thawing. They call it permafrost because it never thaws, but now it has. These issues are already having an impact on life in the Arctic, include Alaska. Many structures in Alaska make use of the fact that the permafrost is a solid structure which can be used to braise support structures for buildings and other construction. The unusually thin ice has already claimed many lives of people who hunt on the ice.

However, the Bush administration once again feels that the market should dictate the control of global warming. It isn’t clear how this works, mostly because the Bush administration hasn’t explained how it works. Maybe the price of oil goes higher and higher and this causes the oil companies to make more money and the poor unable to operate their vehicles. If anyone knows please let me know, because that statement is the only thing I could find on the Bush administration policy.

The Alaskans overwhelmingly voted for Bush so if their houses fall down they just need to fix them. President Bush shouldn’t help them with money to fix the consequences of his ignorant Global warming policy.

It even looks like following the Kyoto protocol would be to little to late. So, it isn’t clear if this problem will be fixed. Of course Bush doesn’t care, because he believe that the floods and famine that will result from his ignorance is God’s hand in the prophecy of the End Times.

Four more years of this ignorance may teach the American people how ignorant the Republicans are, but it is more likely to prove to the Fundamentalists that God’s Prophecy is coming true. The rest of us with a brain in our heads are forced endure, and endure, and endure....

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Being a Moral American

Since President Bush has been elected my portfolio has grown by nearly $20,000.00. Obviously this will help in the long run, especially if the Republicans wipe out Social Security. This money is in my IRA account, so I don’t have to pay taxes on it until I take it out after I retire. This is good for me. The increase is more than any Bush administration tax cut would be for me. So, if I were the good capitalist American wouldn’t I be pleased with the re-election of George W Bush?

Of course not! Being a moral American I believe that the amount of money that I am bound to make on the election of George W Bush isn’t as important as the lives of the American soldiers fighting in Iraq. Even if the soldiers there were voting overwhelmingly for George W Bush they are still voting against their best interest. It is extremely disheartening that our country believes that starting a war and fighting it in Iraq is a “moral” thing.

Being a moral American I believe that the amount of money that I am bound to make on the election of George W Bush isn’t as important as the disaster that we currently call the American health care system.

Being a moral American I believe that the amount of money that I am bound to make on the election of George W Bush isn’t as important as getting jobs for those who have been put out of work from the last recession.

Being a moral American I believe that the amount of money that I am bound to make on the election of George W Bush isn’t as important as the education of our children.

Nation’s Poor Win the Election for the Nation’s Rich

This is from the Onion. It is tongue in cheek, but it also has a grain of truth in it.
-----------------

WASHINGTON, DC—The economically disadvantaged segment of the U.S. population provided the decisive factor in another presidential election last Tuesday, handing control of the government to the rich and powerful once again.

"The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite—would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office," Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. "You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you."

Added Rove: "You have acted beyond the call of duty—or, for that matter, good sense."

According to Rove, the Republicans found strong support in non-urban areas populated by the people who would have benefited most from the lower-income tax cuts and social-service programs championed by Kerry. Regardless of their own interests, these citizens turned out in record numbers to elect conservatives into office at all levels of the government.

"My family's been suffering ever since I lost my job at the screen-door factory, and I haven't seen a doctor for well on four years now," said father of four Buddy Kaldrin of Eerie, CO. "Shit, I don't even remember what a dentist's chair looks like... Basically, I'd give up if it weren't for God's grace. So it's good to know we have a president who cares about religion, too."

Kaldrin added: "That's why I always vote straight-ticket Republican, just like my daddy did, before he lost the farm and shot himself in the head, and just like his daddy did, before he died of black-lung disease in the company coal mines."

Kaldrin was one of many who listed moral issues among their primary reasons for voting Republican.

"Our society is falling apart—our treasured values are under attack by terrorists," said Ellen Blaine of Givens, OH, a tiny rural farming community as likely to be attacked by terrorists as it is to be hit by a meteor. "We need someone with old-time morals in the White House. I may not have much of anything in this world, but at least I have my family."

"John Kerry is a flip-flopper," she continued. "I saw it on TV. Who knows what terrible things might've happened to my sons overseas if he'd been put in charge?"

Kerry supporters also turned out in large numbers this year, but they were outnumbered by those citizens who voted for Bush.

"The alliance between the tiny fraction at the top of the pyramid and the teeming masses of mouth-breathers at its enormous base has never been stronger," a triumphant Bush said. "We have an understanding, them and us. They help us stay rich, and in return, we help them stay poor. See? No matter what naysayers may think, the system works."

Added Bush: "God bless America's backwards hicks, lunchpail-toting blockheads, doddering elderly, and bumpity-car-driving Spanish-speakers."

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To read the entire article: http://www.onion.com/news/ind...

What’s the Bible All About?

The Bible is more than a collection of fictional stories. The Old Testament is a collection of ancient Jewish culture. It begins with the stories of the creation. These stories exist in every culture even though the exact story varies from culture to culture. These stories were handed down from generation to generation before they were finally written down. For example, the story of the great flood exists in the Ancient Mesopotamian culture as well, but there are also differences in the two versions.

In addition to these basic myth stories there are the laws. Just like any government or organization there needed to be a place to write down the rules, because a society without rules is chaos. Some of the rules changed over time, and this is why there are inconsistency in the rules.

Next, there are collections of poems and psalms. These are meant to be prayed or sung in order to praise God. As many people know it isn't always easy to find the right words when you pray, so writing them down to be used at another time makes sense.

There is also history of the Jewish people. But ancient historical records did not always follow the same strict historical policy that modern history does. Ancient history told stories of events that actually happened, but it also put a positive light on the "good" guys. From the writer’s perspective the Jews and then Jesus and the Christians were the "good" guys. The point of the story usually took precedence over the facts. This happened in much of ancient culture. This is because if the ruler didn't like what you wrote you wouldn't be writing any more.

Finally, we get to philosophy. Paul’s letters are mainly preaching a philosophy about the meaning of Jesus' life. You can look at Jesus' life without Paul's interpretation and you might come to a completely different conclusion. Many of the Fundamentalist Christians use Paul's interpretation of Jesus' life, as a means to subvert Jesus' own teachings.

Lacking American Soldiers

The Battle for Fallujah continues on, and the American Soldiers don’t understand it. They just want to go into the city and blow up everyone they see. This isn’t going to solve the problem. They don’t even understand the problem.

One frustrated soldier being interviewed on the radio said, “Why don’t they come out here and fight us head on?”

Well, that shows the problem quite clearly. It isn’t in the guerrilla soldier’s best interest to come out and fight head on. The enemy isn’t that stupid. Guerrillas have fought by jumping out of hiding, doing damage and jumping back into hiding since the American Revolutionary War. The Indians taught the Americans how to fight this way. They outnumbered Americans succeeded in defeating the occupying force with fewer men and fewer supplies. With this history of the success of guerrilla warfare, why would the American soldiers expect anything less? I would suggest that our soldiers have not been educated in the history of warfare. Instead they have educated in the use of weapons and they expect the enemy to use the same tactics against them.

Unfortunately experience is the best teacher. And, this experience is deadly.

Israel vs. Palestine

Times do not look good for the Israel vs. Palestine conflict. Some have suggested that without Yasser Arafat in charge the road is clear for a drive to peace. This most likely will not be the case. The problem is Hamas. Because of Arafat’s death the Palestinian law mandates an election in 60 days. If this is followed polling has shown that 40% of the people would vote for Hamas. This terrorist organization is more dangerous than the PLO. There would be no chance for peace with Hamas as part of the government. On the other hand, if the temporary government succeeds in putting off elections then Hamas will become restless, which would most likely result in more violence against Palestinians and Israelis.

How Much Error is in the Election of 2004?

This is old news, but it’s the first time that I have seen it. It’s amazing how the internet enable stories to live on longer that they might have in an earlier time. I don’t know what it really means. It doesn’t mean anything in terms of the 2004 presidential election. But, it means something in terms of holding a valid election.

At least one machine in Columbus Ohio was rigged to give Bush 3,000 extra votes. Imagine if this had happened just 50 times. Only 50 voting machines could have been the difference in the election. This is only one machine and it seems insignificant, but just do it 50 times....

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The Insidious Nature of Money

During the 1960s the blacks in the American South fought to regain the civil rights that they had won during the Civil War. These rights had gradually been taken away from them through the insidious racism that followed the Civil War. After World War II the eyes of many Americans had been opened to the world around them. They had seen the horrors of war in many different ways. They had been indoctrinated with the belief that America was the land of the free and therefore these things could not happen in America. However, reality and idealism met head on when many Americans met people from around the country and around the world.

As I pointed out in a previous blog, Jack Kerouac described those years right after the war and the thoughts that had been going around in American culture. Many young men had been given the opportunity to get a college education through the GI bill. In fact, many of these men were the first in their families to graduate from college. Since so many of the men from working class backgrounds had their eyes opened to the inequalities in America they began to question the structure of American society. They had been told that everyone had an equal chance to succeed, but this rhetoric did not match what they had seen.

These thoughts began to circulate in the extremes of American culture, but the questions finely reached mainstream America in the early 1960s. John F Kennedy had stoked the fires of idealism in his few short years in office. Lyndon B Johnson continued this effort with the “Great Society” legislation. People wanted to make things right, so they flocked to the south to help blacks earn back the right to vote.

Instrumental in this fight was the black churches. The preachers used their churches for places to meet and organize their attacks on the white dominated south.

Now, George W Bush has worked hard to pass his faith based initiative. This may look good on the surface. Churches get federal funding for helping the poor. But there is a tentacle of government control whenever there is funding to any project. Most of the time it doesn’t really matter. But the control is there when it needs to be.

An example of this control is the federal funding of highways. In the 1980s the federal government used this control to change the drinking age from 18 to 21 across the country. In law the states have the right to make what ever drinking laws they deem appropriate. However, in the 1980s the federal government decided that they would no longer give federal funding for highway improvement to states who had an under 21 drinking age. By using this approach the drinking age was raised to 21 across the country.

Now if we look at the Faith Based Initiative again with this and the Civil Rights struggle in mind you can imagine the problem. If in the 1960s churches were receiving federal funding to feed the poor. And, they were organizing an uprising against the white establishment. It isn't hard to imagine that the federal government could threaten to cut funding to churches that were supporting this effort. Maybe there would be churches that would not take the money and remain focused on principle, but the federal government would have and effect none-the-less.

The point is that money effects policy, so do you want your organizations to be influenced by the Christian Fundamentalists?

Fear of the Fundamentalists

Now that the Fundamentalist Christians have taken over our government Television stations all over the country are fearful of what they can broadcast. ABC had planned to broadcast “Saving Private Ryan,” a patriotic story in order to honor our veterans. The movie is rated M for mature because there are some “F” words in it. These words could be covered up with beeps or what not, but it really effects the artistic quality of the film. Unfortunately the way that the FCC operates the FCC can not make a ruling before a broadcast. Instead the FCC can get complaints after a broadcast and then they would make a ruling on the broadcast. As we used to say: “This is ass backward.”

The real problem here is that we are letting the religious fundamentalists determine what should and what should not be broadcast on television. This means that the most prudish of our population determines what the rest of us get to see. If one ultra-fundamentalist is on a jihad they can call in and force an examination of every television show broadcast. I don’t believe that free Americans should desire the government to become our nanny. Parents should protect their children, not the government. (At least as far as the family television is concerned.)

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While Children Are Present

One striking thing that I noticed when I first moved to California was a difference of how the school zone speed limits were posted. They would announce 25 MPH when children are present. My wife and I thought that this was a very odd law. What exactly did that mean?

Well, a couple of years ago three children were hit by a car as they crossed the street on their way to school. The accident didn’t kill anyone, but it shook up the community. There were several meetings in order to determine how the situation could be improved. Several ideas were proposed and only two have been implemented. The first was to increase the length of the school zone and the second was to install a stop sign where the children were hit. At the time of the argument I spoke about the speed limit extension alone. I said that without any other improvement the school speed limit would continue to be ignored. I said, “People would continue to do the nominal speed, 40 MPH, and look the other way when ever they saw children, so they could claim that they hadn’t seen any children present.

Just the other day I was driving past the school a few minutes after the school day had begun. One child was running to school, but quite a ways away from us. I slowed down to 25 MPH and drove past the school and continued home. My wife chided me for driving 25 MPH when there weren’t really any children present. I told her that I was just being cautious. To which she replied, “and you are going to be hit from behind while you do it.”

Which brings us to this morning. My wife called me and said, “you are never going to guess what just happened to me.” Well of course I had no idea. I bet you, the reader, has a much better guess because of my wonderful fore shadowing. My wife had been pulled over for doing 40 MPH in a school zone. It was during the school day, but there were no children outside the school. So, my wife pointed out to the officer that there were no children present. The cop said, “There are children inside that school and I determine whether there are children present or not.” So, I guess we now know what “when children are present” means.

However, after my wife gave the cop her license and registration he came back to the car and said that he was going to use his personal discretion and let her off. She should be careful about speeding in school zones from now on. So, now we don’t know if the cop realized that he was wrong and he was trying to save face, or if he was right and he was just trying to be nice. Either way, we won’t be doing 40 MPH through the school zone much any more.

Insanity in Washington

When you didn’t think that it could get any worse, Bush picks Alberto Gonzales as New Attorney General. This is the guy who argued that the Abu Graib torture was justified. Why do we need to have an Attorney General with a flawed thought process? Only Bush knows for sure, as the Republicans will tell you. We don’t know the whole story, Bush knows what he is doing, so don’t question him.

Insanity has hit us full force, and we need to endure another four years.

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Good News for Those Who Care for Justice

John Ashcroft has resigned. But don’t get so happy just yet. Don’t forget that there are plenty of rats were that one came from. Chances are Bush will go down into the sewer to look for some more.

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Hey Jesus,

I realize that abortion is a really important issue. But, how important is it? Most people don't actually have abortions, so abortions don't really effect their lives. Women usually have abortions as a last resort. Women would much rather use birth control in order to plan when they have children.

Instead, isn't it more important to worry about the poor who have no health care, food or housing? I know that when you were here on earth you had a special place in your heart for the poor. Our society isn't even helping these people, so when one of them becomes pregnant and they don't have any way to take care of a new life the take the responsible approach and get an abortion instead of dragging a new life through the horrors of street life. Most women would not option for abortion if they had access to birth control. However, birth control is so expensive and difficult to get. I know that you wouldn't want anyone to have sex out of marriage, but many of these women are forced to have sex by their boyfriends or other men off the street. These women don't always have a place to go and hide from the evils in the world. Some women just make a mistake and find themselves pregnant. Making a mistake should not be a reason to punish a woman who knows that they are not ready to be a mother.

So, Jesus what is the Christian thing to do? Isn’t the right thing to do to make sure that the poor get health care, housing and maybe a bite to eat?

Gravitation is Just a Theory

In another attack of the ignorant evolution is again under fire. Apparently the victory of George W Bush an avowed Christian Fundamentalist has emboldened the School Board to place a sticker on the Biology text books that reads that evolution is "a theory, not a fact." Of course I have written before that a scientific “theory” is much more serious than what the common person calls a theory. In fact, Gravitation is a theory as well. So, how many would dismiss Gravitation as “just a theory” and up and float away. Since Gravitation is “just a theory” some Fundamentalist Christian could start flying around the neighborhood or over to the mall. In fact, perhaps this is why George W Bush doesn’t care about running out of oil. This would be because once we are out of oil we will just fly around in our cars, because theory of Gravitation is just a theory, and not a fact.....

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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/ world/10128212.htm?1c" title="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/ world/10128212.htm?1c" target="_blank"http://www.mercurynews.com/ml...

And for those of you who might say that Gravitation is a law and not a theory:

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/theory" title="http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/theory" target="_blank"http://www.hyperdictionary.co...+of+gravitation

And you should notice how law and theory are used interchangeably here:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theory" title="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theory" target="_blank"http://www.thefreedictionary....%20of%20gravitation

Jesusland

Don't forget to check out the new map of Jesusland.

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Here's a link to a great (funny) website:

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On Media and the Election
By Robert W. McChesney

Perhaps the most important function our media serves is to provide voters with the information they need to make sound decisions in the voting booth. If people don't know what they're voting for, our democracy is in serious trouble.

Unfortunately, it appears that we're in serious trouble.

This election was marked by a staggering amount of voter ignorance. Polls show that voters -- especially Bush supporters -- were grossly misinformed about their candidate's position on a broad range of issues. Surveying supporters of the President, a University of Maryland PIPA/ Knowledge Networks poll found:

* 72% still believe that there were WMD's in Iraq.
* 75% believe that Iraq was providing substantial support for Al Qaeda.
* 66% believe that Bush supports participation in the International Criminal Court.
* 72% believe that he supports the treaty banning land mines.

The catch? None of these statements are true.

How do we know who our candidates are and what they stand for when the media fixates on polls, controversy and spin instead of the issues? How do we have meaningful elections when people don't know what they're voting for? Our Founders understood this; that is why they inscribed freedom of the press into the First Amendment of the constitution.

Our media are responsible for giving us a balanced inspection of all claims, careful fact checking, and reasoned analysis. But that was all but abandoned in this presidential campaign. And it is exactly what we would expect. As a result of media consolidation and pressures to cut costs, media corporations have gutted investigative journalism and hard-hitting analysis. Hence we get hours and hours of coverage of the baseless and idiotic "swift boats for truth" story, and barely a look at what the actual policies of this administration are, and how they affect the people of the nation and the world.

The complicity of our major media in subverting public discourse runs even deeper. The handful of enormous media corporations that own most of our major local TV stations and networks raked in $600 million from presidential TV ads alone, shattering previous records and subjecting voters to half-truths and distortions from both sides. Political ad revenues now constitute well over 10 percent of commercial broadcasting revenue, up from less than three percent in 1992. Overall, federal elections cost nearly $4 billion this year, representing a near 30% increase since 2000.

An iron law in commercial broadcasting is you do not do programming that undermines the credibility of your sponsors. The result: more political ads and little-to-no critical journalism that exposes the spin and lies in these TV ads. A more brash insult to our intelligence can hardly be imagined. This also explains why the corporate media giants are as enthusiastic about campaign finance reform as the NRA is regarding gun control.

Lastly, media companies have a conflict of interest; they benefit from seeing the re-election of George W. Bush and his industry-friendly policies. Viacom owner Sumner Redstone made it clear when his CBS was enmeshed in "Rathergate" that he was a supporter of the president -- because the president would allow Viacom to get much larger and face less competition.

All in all, we face a situation that could scarcely have been imagined by our nation's founders. Our "fourth estate" is hardly an independent sector in service to the citizenry. It is a massive industry dedicated to serving the needs of its owners. It is a central tension in our democracy, and one that we must address if we are to get off this downward spiral of misleading political campaigns driven by massive contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals. Reforming the media is not the only issue that faces our nation, but it is an unavoidable one.

So what are we going to do about it? Reform means giving citizens more outlets of independent news and analysis that isn't beholden to the bottom line. It involves giving citizens more access to their own airwaves to let Americans know what's really going on in their cities and neighborhoods. It involves making sure that access to information is equitable and affordable.

For the most part, the Bush Administration is no friend to media reform, but there is cause for hope. Liberals and conservatives alike oppose letting big media corporations get bigger, and we are going to work hard together to prevent further consolidation of our media. Liberals and conservatives alike favor journalism over spin and dislike the commercial marination of our culture. There was a reason President Bush did not brag about his plans to let media companies get bigger and have less competition on the campaign trail -- he knows Americans from all walks of life oppose the idea. For him, this is an issue best kept behind closed doors.

Intelligence

There have been quite a number of comments and posting in regard to the intelligence of the Right wing in America. Of course the argument from the left is always more complicated and nuanced than the argument from the right. This is a problem that the left needs to learn to deal with over the next four years. However, it is quite ironic that the right is arguing as a black and white issue the discussion of intelligence itself.

In my comments I have pointed out that there are many different recognized types of intelligence. One attempt to classify intelligence looked at seven types of intelligence.

Thurstone’s 7 group factors (PMAs):
Verbal comprehension
Word fluency
Number ability
Spatial Visualization
Associative memory
Perceptual speed
Reasoning

Guilford realized that intelligence was even more complicated, so he proposed this model:

Guilford’s Structure of Intellect Model
Dimensions of the theory:
Content = what is being thought about (5)
Visual
Auditory
Symbolic
Semantic
Behavioral

Operations = type of mental action taken (5)
Evaluation
Convergent Production
Divergent Production
Memory
Cognition

Products = the form of the information (6)
Units
Classes
Relations
Systems
Transformation
Implications

5 x 5 x 6 = 150 facets/factors


But, the latest model goes beyond mental intelligence:

9 types of intelligence (1997):
Logical-mathematical
Linguistic
Spatial
Bodily-kinesthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Musical
Naturalistic
Leadership (charisma)

This means that there are several ways to look at intelligence. In the early years memorization is emphasized, and reasoning is not considered necessary. This can be seen in Thurstone’s 7 group factors. Six of the seven factors that claim to be measures of intelligence are basically remembering vocabulary, math facts, and how fast you can do it. It turns out that school is based on these same measures as are the college admission tests. But knowing how to repeat what you are told is not everything.

A person can be told false information over and over until it becomes the accepted “truth.” This is because people don’t want to go through the rationalization every time you hear something. A lazy person accepts what they are told, because it takes much more effort to think about it. So, when people are being bombarded with false information how you handle that information says something about your mental ability. Some people don’t want to think about it, so they accept the falsehoods as truth. The brighter people who hear the falsehoods of the campaign are able to understand what the candidate is saying and realize that it is a lie. This shows that these people having more reasoning skills.

So, it turns out based on the facts. Those people who voted for George W Bush did not have a realistic grasp of the facts. They thought that the war on terror was the same as the war in Iraq. They thought that there were WMDs in Iraq. These things were proved completely false. So, the election proved to be a filter of intelligence and who someone voted for proved to self select how intelligent one was.

Except of course for the people who had self-interest in the campaign. Those who are at the top of the Republican Party are basically wealthy people who want to reduce their obligation to fund the Republic. These are basically greedy people want society to produce large numbers of poor people. These people will become the cheap labor for the wealthy corporation owners.

Satan Does Not Play By the Rules

Karl Rove started his political career working on a Democratic campaign. I know, you are thinking how could this staunch conservative have started out with the liberal ideology. Well, think again. It turns out that Karl Rove began his political career “working” on a political campaign by sabotaging the campaign. He stole letterhead from the campaign and set out obnoxious letters to dissuade contributors from contributing to the campaign. Karl Rove was born to be a cheater.

But, the Democrats need to realize that Satan does not play fair. And, the only way to defeat Satan is to cheat right back at them. The Democrats have four years to develop ways to cheat the system. In fact, on Chris Mathews this weekend revealed that John Kerry was set up by a heckler to make the famous statement claiming that he voted for the 87 million dollars before he voted against it.

This is why George W Bush required loyalty oaths before anyone is admitted to one of his rallies. Karl Rove assumed that the Democrats would copy these techniques from the master himself. So, they put up one of the toughest defenses in World Politics since Adolph Hitler. So, if the culture of America is to survive the Democrats need to learn to play as dirty as the Republicans do.

On the Road

Since the recent election has demonstrated that we are back to fighting the culture wars I thought that it would be interesting to learn about the origin of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Perhaps if one could understand how it came to the fore in the 1960s then it would be easier to understand what has happened since.

One of the earliest books describing the anti-establishment mentality was “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac. This is a story about Sal Paradise, a war veteran who had returned from World War II and was using the GI bill to fund some education while he tried to become a writer. In order to become a writer he knows that he needs to learn about the world in order to have something to write about. He travels across the country four times in order to meet up with friends who have also traveled around the country in attempts to make a life for themselves. The story begins with Sal idolizing Dean Moriarty, a drifter who was born into drifting. Sal admires Dean because Dean seems to encompass freedom. He is a free spirit who doesn’t consider feeling guilty about any of the damage that he has done to his acquaintances. What isn’t usually described is how Sal’s admiration of Dean declines over the years.

The spirit of the book however is in the spirit of the “beat generation.” The Beats were bohemians who wrote poetry, played jazz or explored the world through art in one way or another. They were the precursors to the spirit of exploration of the 1960s. What the Beats did was to create a vocabulary to discuss these abstract ideas.

In the book “On the Road” Sal Paradise has quite a few experiences that would not surprise us in 2004, but in the 1950s they would be considered on the edge of society. Sal comments several times about wanting to know what people really thought. He wanted to know what the old Negro man could have been thinking as he toiled in the field. Then when Sal made it out to California he hooked up with a Mexican immigrant girl and he worked in the field picking cotton. He describes how he had high hopes of making lots of money, but soon finds out that it takes quite a bit of skill to pick cotton efficiently.

This book seems to lay the framework of the modern liberal ideology. Sal is an intellectual that travels around the country and tries to imagine what the plight of the common man is. He doesn’t come up with solutions, but he establishes that there are problems that need to be fixed. In fact, he almost hits every liberal issue of 2004 as he travels the country in 1947 through 1953.

Something Good About Bush

It turns out that George W Bush has effected America’s image abroad so negatively that America’s company esteem has been reduced. This means that Coke and Pepsi no longer have the cache that they once did. Levi Strauss, Nike and other American brands are doing poorly as well. No one wants to buy American products, because they are associated with American imperialism.

So, this means that French culture is no longer in danger of being destroyed by the over abundance of American goods. Irish, German and Spanish cultures are more protected than they have been before.

Finally, there is a positive outcome of the Bush presidency.

59 Million Dumb People

A beautiful front page displaying the attitude of the rest of the world.

Bush Ignorance Prevails

The US doesn’t understand the World – or at least Bush doesn’t understand the world. And worse yet, George W Bush just doesn’t care. The Daily Mirror has a string of quotes to shed some light on the Bush ignorance:

U.S. ELECTION DISASTER: THE WORLD MOURNS..

Nov 4 2004



"I'm not sure in the light of the last four years whether the Bush team have got the skills to heal a divided America.

"Not only do we have a divided America but also we have a president who is highly polarising in his approach to world politics"

FORMER FOREIGN SECRETARY, ROBIN COOK

__________

"Almost all nations, with about three or four exceptions wanted a change.

"There is a basic lack of understanding, which is lasting and deep, between the American people and the rest of the world and it goes in both directions. The world no longer understands very well what America is."

FORMER FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER, HUBERT VEDRINE

__________

"The Americans have voted for a militarised Rambo rather than someone who appeals to their reason"

FORMER NIGERIAN FOREIGN MINISTER BOLAJI AKINYEMI

__________

"Sweden and Europe will continue to criticise Bush the same way as earlier.

"But I do not believe that he will be more willing to listen to it during the second period than during the first."

SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER GOERAN PERSSON

__________

"It is a bad day for the environment."

TONY JUNIPER, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

__________

"I think that people in the United States still don't understand how much Bush is hated all around the world"

SHIN HO-YUN, A 30-YEAR-OLD OFFICE WORKER IN SEOUL

__________

"We are going to see more extremism come out of the U.S. We are going to see even more isolation where Americans will not bother about the United Nations. To me that is a very sad affair."

KENYAN VICE PRESIDENT MOODY AWORI

__________

"Bush is the most hated man in the region. His mentality is naturally against Islam and Muslims. Kerry would have been better for the plain reason that he is not Bush."

HEAD OF NASSERIST PARTY IN EGYPT DIA EL-DIN DAWOUD

__________

"The temptation for Europe to define itself as 'Not America' will be increased."

TIMOTHY GARTON ASH PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN STUDIES AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY

__________

"Bush will interpret victory as a validation of his policies. I don't expect a second term to be any more moderate - on the contrary."

RAFAEL BARDAJI, ADVISER TO FORMER SPANISH PRIME MINISTER JOSE MARIA AZNAR

__________

"We have a dangerous killer on the loose with a mandate to mount further wars. He has threatened Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Many people will feel that his re-election will make the world a more dangerous place."

STOP THE WAR COALITION CONVENOR LINDSAY GERMAN

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Religion in America

America was a place to go to escape religious persecution long before the United States of America was a country. But today religious persecution is back and it is taking place in the United States of America. But, it is taking place in ways that are deceptive.

This isn’t new. In the 1920s religious groups successfully used religion to make alcohol illegal. No where in Europe could such a law ever be passed. On the other hand in repressive Muslim cultures this is a standard law. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise when the Fundamentalist Christians attempt and succeed in passing religious laws into the common law.

In the last election Fundamentalists have succeeded in passing laws that take away the rights of gay and lesbians to marry who they choose. Writing discrimination into law should raise red flags, but America seems to be ripe to be exploited by these extremist groups. Americans should be worried when moral issues rank so high the importance in exit polls on Tuesday’s election.

Library Music

I while back I experimented with sharing mp3s by using the file sharing program KaZaA. It was an interesting experience and I was able to burn CDs of albums I had already bought at some time earlier in my life. I figured that the record companies were making all kinds of money every time they change the format because people tend to replace the music that they like with the new format. I reasoned that I had bought the music once and I shouldn’t need to buy it again.

I worked hard trying to find the music that I wanted and I was able to download quite a bit of it. I was pleased. However, there were many albums were I was unable to find one or more songs that belonged on the album. So, maybe I had 80% of the album, and even the best songs on the album, but I was frustrated that I couldn’t find the entire album. So, obviously KaZaA was not the perfect solution. And, the record companies should find hope in that statement. However, I have found an even better solution than KaZaA. It is called the library.

It turns out that our county library has a huge supply of music of all kinds. It includes rock and roll, jazz and country as well as many types of music that I don’t regularly listen to. But the point is that I can find almost as much music at the library as I could find on KaZaA. I can check out 10 CDs at a time and I can copy them if I choose. So, I can actually create a CD much faster using the library than I ever could using KaZaA, and I don’t have to worry about the cops breaking down my door and seizing my computer. So, in the long run borrowing the CDs from the library and copying them is much safer than KaZaA.

Maybe I should be worried about how ethical this practice is. Personally I don’t feel too bad for the record companies. They have been greedy in the way they sign record deals with artists. They promote pop music to excess turning American music culture into a bubble gum music culture. Using the library to sample music from a wider variety of styles may lead me to attend concerts performed by these groups.

The Destruction of America

God tells us in the Bible that we should use our brain. We should remember to use the gifts that God gave us.

"Unintended ignorance can destroy a nation, however, and God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

"It is intentional, willful, or malicious ignorance in the absence of the fear of God that brings culpability" (Proverbs 9), and of this I fear many professing Christians are guilty in their endorsement of George Bush in spite of the abundance of evidence of his bad fruit.

The Danger of Desperation

When people hate what a president does in the name of their country people take it personally. With the election approaching all through 2004 there was hope at the end of the long tunnel. Now, with the defeat of John Kerry there is no hope. Everyone already knows what a Bush White House is and what a Bush agenda is. Bush will continue to destroy America and the American Dream. It is really sad.

But, I hasten to warn those of you not to get desperate. Desperation breeds desperate acts and those could lead to even worse situations. For example, if someone was destroy the President it would mean that Dick Cheney would become the new president. And that would be much worse for all Americans. So, remember in your times of despair refrain from making hasty decisions.

The Nightmare Continues

It’s a sad day in America. It’s a sad day for America. Not only did the majority of Americans choose to have George W Bush pretend to govern our country for four more years, but they have also voted to increase the power of the Republican Party in both the House and the Senate. It is a sad day for sure, because there is little hope of preventing the Republican Party from destroying the America that we know. Republicans will certainly use every opportunity to take away our civil rights. They are determined to turn America into a religious state.

Some of the more naive readers out there may believe that religion is good. How could religion be bad? After all, religion is the worship of God and God is good. How can that be a terrible thing? The answer is in the question - which religion? Not all religions believe uniformly in the same things. Some religions are more liberal and other religions are more conservative. So, if you believe that conservative fundamentalist religion is the only religion then you are in for a picnic. However, if you are like me and believe that God meant us to use our brains and think about religion, then we are in for a nightmare.

In the next two years we will discover how far the republicans are willing to push religion into the government. If the last four years is any indication we are in for something we haven’t seen since the religious wars of Europe.

Religion and Politics

This is an enormous topic, so I’ll be writing on it for some time.

So, I can begin by alienating any fundamentalists by saying that I am a Catholic. Hopefully now all the fundamentalists that think that they know the truth about Jesus Christ have left this blog. Ok, lets just wait a minute until they leave.

OK, now that we are in the peace and quite of those who admit that they don’t know all the facts of religion. If there are any blog readers in here that truly believe that they know everything about religion God and the meaning of life then you can excuse yourself and go outside with all of the fundamentalists.

Now, we should be left with people that believe in God (or, maybe not) but they are at least interested in learning about God, the Universe and the meaning of life. Well, the truth is that no one in the world knows anything for certain about God or the meaning of life. Some people and fundamentalists like to tell you that they know everything about God and the meaning of life. But when you finally get them to tell you what they know they tell you that everything you need to know is in the Bible and you need to have faith to believe that it is all you need to know.

Of course a man of science is not convinced by this argument. Because a man of science knows that we have learned quite a bit more about the world around us by studying the actual universe instead of the Bible. So, we can add to our knowledge by studying the universe. In fact, we can learn things that were not known when the Bible was written. For example, we know that the earth is not flat. We know that there is no such thing as a firmament filled with water where the stars reside. We have learned that the earth is not the center of the Universe, or the center of our galaxy or even the center of our solar system. We have learned so much about the book of Genesis that we can not call Genesis historic document. We could call it a myth, or a metaphor, but certainly not a historical document. The fundamentalists say that if you have faith you can believe that this is a true document depicting the creation of the world and written by God. Not only do you need to have faith, but you need to be ignorant as well.

But, can a religious person except that any portion of the Bible is a myth or metaphor? Of course a religious person can believe in God and also realize that at least the beginning of the Bible could be a myth or a metaphor. A metaphor as most of us know is a story that is told to help us understand how the complications of reality can be explained by the simplified version of the story. A myth of course is a fabrication that simply explains something that could not be explained at the time the story was written.

How can a book that is supposed to tell the truth about how to live life have a myth or a metaphor in it? The answer to this is in the purpose of the Bible. The purpose of the Bible is to get people to live productive and meaningful lives. The Bible is not a book of answers. The Bible doesn’t tell us about chemistry, physics or biology. The Bible isn’t even a book of geography or even history. The Bible tells a story of a limited history of one tribe of people and their interaction with the people around them in the Middle East. Some stories in the Bible are modified to create the illusion of enormous strength of this one tribe of people.

So, tangled in this history are poems and prayers. There are also laws. So, the Bible is a collection of writings of one tribe of people. The writers of this book truly intended the people to read this book and pass the information down to each successive generation. This is because this book contains the essence of the culture of this one tribe and culture is the only thing that survives from one generation to the next after the previous generation had died off. This one tribe of people realized this and they want their culture to survive no matter how tragic an event could happen to them.

Red States for War

We live in a divided country. No matter who is elected the country will still be divided tomorrow. So, what is the solution? What will be the way to bring the country together?

If George W Bush is elected we all know that nothing will change. Things may actually go more to the right. So, if you come from a red state you should sign up for the military. We are going to need more soldiers to fight in Iran and North Korea. Why should the people in the blue states pay for the stupidity of the red states?

If John Kerry is elected, then we can still sign up more soldiers from the red states. Obviously these people have violence in their blood and they just need to kill something. If we send them to Iraq we can quell the hostilities in Iraq until we are able to change the course that George W bush has chartered for us. Hopefully John Kerry will be able to straighten out the ship of state and get us on the right course. In the mean time we need to throw more bodies on the funeral pyre and they should be from the red states anyway.

Voting

The day is finally here. I got up early, took my son to swim team practice and began to look over some of the more minor issues on the ballot. Living in California the people have decided that the legislator doesn’t pass controversial laws, so the laws are taken directly to the people. I have studied several of the propositions, but there were a few that I just looked for the first