it’s christmas, c’est noel. noel. it’s also yule, mithras, chanukah, kwanza or festivus.
whatever you’re celebrating at this time of year, all the best to you, may you find comfort and happiness with friends and family and if you’re travelling get to and from safely.
now that i’ve got that out of the way i wanted to talk about respect. not everyone believes the same things and that’s what makes humanity interesting or it’s what should make it interesting. because we have differing opinions doesn’t automatically give you the right to belittle me or my beliefs. i was born and raised in methodist/catholic household and at one point considered joining the priesthood, not necessarily seriously, but i did consider it. i started having organisational issues with religion and started asking difficult questions, which in most cases still haven’t been resolved. you could say in my late teens i took my comparative religions studies and found they all had the same fundamental problem – the karma, was sound, but soon or later, the dogma over powered it.
i worship at UU congregation in nashville and last night we had our christmas celebration, just as we had our yule celebration last sunday, because the basic tenet of our faith is open and accepting of all beliefs. so it really chapped my ass to have a guest disrespect our minister and community last night. maybe my christian upbringing was different, but i believe the message we were given was to ‘love one another as i have loved you’ and i think part of that love is to be respectful.
i believe we assign our human foibles to our god, but it would do us good to remember that we’re made in the creator’s image not the other way around. i believe in a compassionate, understanding, forgiving god, free of hate, with a sense of humour, if that’s not your belief, i thank you to at least respect mine.
Posted below are ten quotes. read, digest, discuss, repost.
- “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”
- “The Quran teaches that [all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews]. Yes, it teaches that very clearly.”
- “I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans…. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that…. There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades…. The Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment.”
- “The military will have difficultly recruiting healthy and strong heterosexuals for combat purposes. Why? Fighting in combat with a man in your fox hole that has AIDS or is HIV positive is double jeopardy”
- “It [Gay marriage] will open the door to incest, to polygamy, and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
- “It is impossible to call yourself a Christian and defend homosexuality. There is no justification or acceptance of homosexuality…. Homosexuality means the death of society because homosexuals can recruit, but they cannot reproduce.”
- “Only a Spirit-filled woman can submit to her husband’s lead. It is the natural desire of a woman to lead through feminine manipulation of the man. …. Fallen women will try to dominate the marriage. The man has the God-given role to be the loving leader of the home”
- “I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
- “Gay sexuality inevitably involves brutal physical abusiveness and the unnatural imposition of alien substances into internal organs, orally and anally, that inevitably suppress the immune system and heighten susceptibility to disease.”
- “Only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age. The average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age. A lesbian can only expect to live to be 45 years of age. Homosexuals represent 2 percent of the population, yet today they’re carrying 60 percent of the known cases of syphilis.”
appalled? if not, then move on now. if you are, sit for a spell. quotes 1 – 7 are from pastor john hagee and rev. rod parsley. why do they matter is more important question. you see as the obama campaign continues to get flack for statements in or out of context by rev. wright, these fine gentlemen are apparently john mccain’s spiritual advisors and theoretically the same rules should apply. right?
vic and i have been listening to Neil Gaiman`s American Gods for about a week now. i had heard more of it before i convinced her to listen and now we`re listening to the last six hours of the unabridged version that i downloaded during a free audible trial.
i`d read the book before, but listening to it, is lending some more nuance to the tale. it`s also got me thinking, especially in light of the political and religious climate here, in this country and in this town. in the store there is a standing joke among those of us that work on a Sunday; find the Lord, lose all good sense and manners.
the worst behaved people that we have in the store are always on Sundays. it`s amazing how badly all these people in their Sunday best behave and how steeped they are in their belief that they have the right to talk to you however they feel like. this isn`t a rare occurrence, the store has been open four Sundays, i`ve worked three of them and without fail there is at least one person, still dressed for church and comes in and abuses us. and that is primary reason i loathe organised religion; the people.
every time my shift ends at the store i find myself more than a little surprised that it`s over. i`ve never really considered myself a people person but i spend at least 20 hours every week interacting with people, answering questions and giving them the best advice i can and at the end of the day i feel good about it. but i digress.
i think Nashville has more square footage allocated to churches than there is office space, this might be an exaggeration, but i doubt it. drive along any major thoroughfare and there is at least two churches per block or a strip mall. it`s all about what you worship, isn`t it? and all of them, churches and malls are massive erections screaming for attention. and i wonder where is the humility and couldn`t the money spent on building these gaudy displays be better served in helping those in need.
these are the sort of thoughts that i have that make me a `bad` person but i can live with myself.
i have a couple of thoughts on sex and religion running through my head and i`ve been trying to assemble them into something coherent all morning. i suppose the best place to start would be with my religious background.
my mother was a Methodist, not sure if that`s United or otherwise. at the time of my birth Trinidad was predominately Catholic and the best opportunities for school were at the parochial schools so my mother hedged her bets and had me baptised twice, once as a Methodist and once as a Catholic. Every weekend until i abandoned organised religion as a teen, i would go to mass on a Saturday night and to church with my mother on a Sunday morning.
i was as conscientious in church as i was in school, learned my catechism, learned all the bible stories, even at some point read the entire King James version of the bible for own edification and with everything else i`ve read it stuck. i made my First Communion at nine; which was early in those days; and became an altar boy soon after. i also managed to keep my saucy young ass out of the reach of errant priests until near adulthood and even then, that was my parish priest as opposed to any of those that interacted with on a daily basis. at age 14, i even seriously pondered joining the priesthood.
what`s the point of all this? i grew up in churches, literally and figuratively. i`m not unfamiliar with religion; specifically Christianity. and when i began questioning Christianity, i researched other religions as only a Type A personality can. and there is one fundamental similarity throughout; at some point, the karma; the basic ideals and principles thereof; gets superseded by the dogma. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, almost any religion you can name, all the fundamental beliefs are good and then somewhere along the line, it becomes politicised and the entire thing become corrupted.
i could go into a short history of the bible here, but it would be anything but short and start too many other tangents, so i`ll soldier on. with all this strong religious grounding i didn`t have any hang ups about sex, i have my mother to thank for that too. she taught me it was natural and tried to provide me with as much factual information as she could.
i`ve said this before and i`ll say it again, what two consenting adults chose to do in the privacy of their own homes is their own damn business. as for the sanctity of marriage, the institution as we know it is only 600 years old, because before that the church refused to sanctify marriages because the act of procreation was sinful. funny how the dogma changes but the basic principle of Christianity hasn`t changed; Love one another, as I have loved you; unconditional love.
how far is this going to go?
i heard about the Spongebob/Focus on the Family debacle yesterday and hoped if i ignored it, it would go away. but it`s been picked up by the news services and being replayed everywhere.
now i`m no longer a regular churchgoer but i doubt two thousand years of basic tenets of Christianity have changed overnight, feel free to correct me if i`m wrong. my next sentence was going to be; Christianity has always been about tolerance; but that`s completely wrong, Jesus` teachings were about tolerance and turning the other cheek and taking care of your fellow man. i guess somewhere along the line the fundamental message got lost.
these people need to get back to fundamentals.
with careful deliberation i tried to avoid the empty rhetoric of both conventions. in a season of empty promises, political conventions are loudest and emptiest.
however this morning, i happened to catch a bit of a recap from the just concluded RNC on NPR and i heard quite possibly the most idiotic utterance in my entire life. comedian Lewis Black has a sketch about the sort of utterances that cause aneurysms, i think this is one of them:
A vote for Republicans is a vote for God
so my question is which God is this?
no this is a serious question. let`s take into account the diversity of the current US population, the basic possibilities are myriad. Jewish, Moslem; although with this administration that`s almost suicidal; Hindu, Buddhist and last but not least Christian, and even they get sub-divided, because i`m pretty sure the Southern Baptist don`t believe they share the same god with the Catholics. and what about the agnostics and pagans and the atheists that want to vote Republican, doesn`t that raise some sort of philosophical conundrum? or is there something i`m missing? and i`m not even getting into the separation of Church and state argument.
what continues to frighten me, is that people where cheering. no one went, hmmmm, something is wrong with this statement. i mean wrong at a fundamental level. this election campaign becomes more and more divisive with every passing day and idiotic statements like that don`t help.
as the two bastions of modern morality; christianity and commercialism prepare to celebrate another holiday weekend, i find myself wondering if people have any idea about the origins of these particular feasts.
i mean what do easter eggs and bunny rabbits have in common with a crucifixion?
well it`s all about assimilation. as christianity grew, the early church; yes virginia there was only one church for a long time; realised that the best way to convert people before outright violence and torture became fashionable was to convert their holidays. so long existing pagan holidays became new christian holidays. so beltane a spring fertility rite [the eggs and the bunnies are symbols of fertility, get it?] got converted to easter.
so before you go slagging off non-believers, always remember from the old testament to mithras to converting pagan holidays christianity is about tolerance and acceptance of your fellow man and commercialism is about getting them to give your money.
have a great weekend all. whatever you do.
well this has been a 50 | 50 day, my job still sucks, but i just sent one of my best freelance pieces on it’s way to turkey. it’s beautifully printed.
so i’m pretty much cruising this evening. satisfaction comes in the simplest of sources sometimes.
in other news, i was listening to the radio in a taxi on the way home, and it was tuned to one of the religious stations and a pastor who shall be hereafter called ‘moreover’ rant about what a bunch of adulterous heathens all of us people who divorced and remarried but the kicker was about the woman’s role. basically, if your husband is beating you, stick around, it’s your biblical role to take some blows. i was in too good a mood to flip out, smack the taxi driver and demand he change that station.
which brings me to the question of the day, do people actually believe this? what sort of god would condone this?
this rant is brought to you by the letter M, used in words like magnificent, married, moral, mighty, moron, morose, munch, mental, mince, monday, meeting, mandate, more…
thank you and good night.
#AlternativeFacts [August 2017]
Collecting my posted #AlternativeFacts for August 2017
August 01: There are enough resources on the planet for everyone to use without having to worry about them running out.
August 02: There is absolutely no problem being completely reliant on fossil fuels because they will never run out.
August 03: Corporations desire for resources must always supersede any rights of people affected by the collection of said resources.
August 04: Loss of life while mining is perfectly acceptable and safety costs should not be allowed to affect profits.
August 05: Diamonds are appropriately valued based on their scarcity and difficulty to mine.
August 06: Jesus was incredibly supportive of money lenders.
August 07: Company profits should come ahead of all other considerations including environmental damage.
August 08: Financial institutions have never made any investment choices that have lost customers’ money.
August 09: CEOs are always penalized when their strategies cause companies to fail.
August 10: The rights of companies should be worth more than individual rights because companies donate more.
August 11: It is easy for someone to live comfortably on a minimum wage job in any American city.
August 12: Companies should only be interested profits regardless of impact.
August 13: Jesus believed people should be loved conditionally based on political and religious affiliation.
August 14: It is completely possible to use third reich symbols and gestures in a public demonstration in a non-racist manner.
August 15: Confederate flags and statues honor southern history and have absolutely nothing to do with slavery, rape and abuse.
August 16: Using symbols associated with slavery and genocide does not make your movement racist.
August 17: confederate statues have been around since the reconstruction and not installed as revisionist or intimidation tactics.
August 18: Black travelers never needed a special book to tell them where to avoid being killed while traveling.
August 19: The confederate flag is not a racist symbol especially when paired with a swastika.
August 20: Ignoring and further marginalizing the poor and disadvantaged are the basic tenets of both Christianity and Islam.
August 21: Interracial marriage was never illegal anywhere in the US.
August 22: Combining the US flag with those of former enemies does not desecrate it in any way.
August 23: Racism and bigotry are things of the past.
August 24: Class has never been used as a tool to perpetuate racial discrimination.
August 25: No successful black communities have ever been destroyed by angry white mobs.
August 26: Slavery kept tribespeople together to help build strong family, history, language, and community bonds.
August 27: Racial purity is one the basic tenets of Christianity.
August 28: No country has ever been invaded or had their government overthrown by a US administration to gain access to resources.
August 29: No US administration has ever supported brutal dictators or undermined legitimately elected officials.
August 30: US government policies are based on what’s best for the entire populace and not corporate profitability.
August 31: Government agencies are run at peak efficiency.