Category: Religion

Yup, Joe Dirt thinks about this from time to time.

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The Ayatollah Rick Perry

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

21 Reasons Rick Perry’s Texas Is a Complete Disaster

Meet the Christian Dominionist ‘Prayer Warriors’ Who Have Chosen Rick Perry as Their Vehicle to Power

The Biggest Little Hypocrite in Texas

Texas to America: Our Miracle Is Bogus and We’re So Sorry For Everything

The article below was one of the scariest things I have read in a while.

What Did You Learn in School Today? (The Texas Version)

Meet the Shady Dallas Mega-Billionaire Industrialist Pouring Money into Rick Perry’s Coffers

Beware of Rick Perry, the French cuff cowboy

Do we really need another  C student in the White House?

‘The 61-year-old Perry, a fifth-generation Texan, was born near the city of Abilene and graduated from Texas A&M University in 1972 with a 2.2 GPA and a BA in animal science. He went on to fly C-130s in the Air Force and attained the rank of Captain before returning to Texas in 1977. “

Rick Perry:  Too big to fail?  from Aljazeera

Rick Perry as Nero, Texas burns as he fiddles around with being President.  The following article details how Perry slashed the budgets for rural fire departments.  He may be counting on pray, but the rest of us are counting on the tangible help of firefighters.

Is Rick Perry’s Budget Feeding Texas Wildfires? Local Fire Departments Suffer $23 Million in Cuts

 

 

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Harold Camping Predicting World Ends May 21, 2011

I’m not buying it thank you very much.   But if you do… Please donate all your worldly goods to me.  Contact me and I will give you the particulars on how to do so!!!!

Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, The Bible Guarantees It.

Rapture Day Parties by American Atheists

iPhone Rapture Detector App

It is funny. Apparently, it is really hard to shed oneself of the vestiges of one’s upbringing. The Southern Baptist religion I was brought up in is full of guilt and damnation with nearly every human action sinful. In it the vast majority of humanity is going to suffer eternal damnation in a fiery pit. I know they talk about Christ’s love and all that, but that is not the message I took away.

I think this Harold Camping fellow is totally bonkers, as I do of most religions. I understand the impulse to be religious, but IMHO opinion none of the religions hold up under scrutiny. YET, I feel a tinge of guilt or fear making fun of Camping and this rapture mania in general. The human mind is a strange critter at best.

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A New God Given Document

A friend sent me the following link: Scalia: Women Don’t Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

The gist of the article is this.  The 14th Amendment, specifically the Equal Protection clause,  requires the states to provide equal protection to all people within its jurisdiction.  Scalia is arguing that the Constitution and this amendment does not prohibit the passage of laws discriminating based on gender or sexual orientation.  Continue reading “A New God Given Document”

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First Cause Argruments

First Cause Argument:

Something caused the Universe to exist and this cause must be God.

Arguments Against:

  1. What caused God?  How far back in the causality chain do you go?
  2. Assuming from our limited experience that all things have a cause.  This is a logic fallacy of extrapolating from limited experience. Thus causality for the universe may or may not be true. Continue reading “First Cause Argruments”
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The Secret to Happiness

What is the secret to happiness?  In the adult education Spanish class I am taking, we are reading the book, El Alquimista (The Alchemist) by Paulo Coelho.  The book touts itself as a fable about following your dreams.

Within this fable is a parable about a merchant sending his son off to consult the wisest of wise men on the secret to happiness.  After a long and arduous journey the young man arrives at the abode of the Wiseman.  He is sent off for two hours to tour the magnificent structure, but with a teaspoon of oil in his hand and an admonition to not spill the oil.  The young man returns to the Wiseman who asks him what he had seen. Continue reading “The Secret to Happiness”

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Show Down at the Shariah Corral

Oklahoma is generally thought of as a backwater by the rest of the country and I suspect big parts of the industrialized world.   Oklahoma State Question 755 passed with 71% of Okies voting for it.  It bans state judges from considering Shariah or International law when deciding cases.  I’m not sure what problem they were trying to solve…even preemptively.  It is currently in suspension awaiting legal action.

In this Bible Belt state you have got to wonder where acceptance and tolerance  have gone.  My reading of the Bible leads me to think that they should be the backbone of Christianity.

Shariah at the Kumback Café Frank Rich Editorial at The New York Times

From the article:

‘To understand U.S. politics today, try “It’s the fear element, stupid.”’

This seems to be part of a bigger movement to breed fear and paint our President as “un-American”.  I’m not sure what an “American” is except one of a group of immigrants living in a common land, hopefully with some shared goals.

Apparently tolerance for differences is not one of those goals.

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For Whom the Law Tolls

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew- or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you – until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

-Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960

The local Jewish community newspaper in  St. Louis ran the following editorial.  It was triggered by Oklahoma passing a constitutional amendment banning judges from considering Sharia (and international laws) in their judicial opinions.  The editoralist does not see a lot of legal danger from this amendment, but finds the attitude behind the passing of the amendment very dangerous.

The link: For Whom the Law Tolls

I’m just so proud to be an Okie…not.