God Won't Let Global Warming Happen

I love reading the Liberal Values blog, because Ron likes to cover the amazing things the Republicans do and say. It turns out that according to Rep. John Shimkus, we don't have to worry about Global Warming since the Bible said that God told Noah that,
“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

Yes, it is absurd to use the Bible in place of a scientific argument. Ron also writes about the growing mainstreaming of replacing science and reason, with biblical belief. The Republican Party has become the supreme water-carrier  for the interests who want to undermine science for their business plan or religious alignment. Adding to the absurdity, Rep. Shimkus wants to be the chairman of the Energy Committee which makes policy on the energy and the environment. This midterm election makes his appointment more likely.
 
Sir, if God controls what happens on Earth, him letting 230,000 people die around the Indian Ocean is a big message that life is cheap and there is no escaping the consequences of Global Warming. Personally, I do not think there is a God controlling what happens to our planet. We just happen to live on a planet with tectonic plates floating and crashing and gnashing against each other from time to time. We have tons of recorded history that proves God doesn't deliver us from ground cursing or life destructing events. People, animals, crops, homes, waters, nature gets wiped out all over the world. God did not sweep up and save people from the scourge of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, so God isn't going to deliver us from the effects of Global Warming.

Another thing to consider is that Global Warming won't necessarily destroy the planet, just make the planet drastically unable to maintain life on earth. Once the consequences wipe out the planet of humans, the earth will bounce back beautifully without us.

Exploiting Children to "Save" Marriage

Why must folks who claim to be for family values exploit children to protect their narrow and religious vision of marriage? Why do their appeals to fear always feature children? Do they have no shame?

A new way of thinking? Goodness, who thought new ways of thinking was so dangerous? If "new thinking" is that families come in many sizes and types, what is the danger in that? If "new thinking" is to celebrate differences, what is the harm in that? Promoting love and commitment between any two people is a good thing.

The only confusion is created by people who refuse mind their own business and let gay and lesbians enjoy the same rights as they freely exercise. Confusion is caused when parents think that the worst thing that could happen to a child is to either have no opinion about homosexuality, are okay with homosexuality, or becomes homosexual. They are so afraid that acceptance would turn their little darlings gay, when most gays I have known came from strict, conservative christian families.

There is no confusion when you say that many men and women meet and fall in love with each other. Some men fall in love with men. Some women fall in love with women. There is no confusion when you teach your children that there are all kinds of families. Confusion happens when a narrow view is taught to them, and it conflicts with reality. Most families are not typical, traditional nuclear families.

It is far better for our kids to be brought up respecting all parents regardless if they are gay or straight. Our kids classmates will have same sex parents, single parents, mixed race parents, foster parents, and divorced parents. All of those families have equal value, and that is the lesson kids need to pick up.

I think it is terrible to implant in a child's mind that "new thinking" or acceptance of the reality is somehow dangerous. I hope my son entertains a lot of new thoughts and challenges traditional assumptions. I hope he has better things to do than work to deny a group of citizens their rights, and will work to protect the rights of others.

One of my measurements of being a good mom is to raise my son being comfortable enough with himself to be able to make others feel good being themselves. He will know his mother supports gay and lesbian rights (as I support rights of workers, women, immigrants, children, and those of color) even though she is a straight, married mother because fighting for equal rights for all citizens is the right thing to do.

Reality-based thinking hold that gays and lesbians being able to marry will have zero effect on heterosexual marriages or the institution of marriage. The result will be more couples will choose committed relationships and that is a good family value.

Jury Rules Against The Phelps Family Scourge

I am loving the fact that Rev. Phelps was ruled against in a civil trial for 10.9 million for invasion of privacy and inflicting emotional distress by picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I hope that this trial and others like it shut down Phelps, but somehow I am skeptical since this type of hate can survive financial ruin. Regardless, it does send a good message that regardless of one's political or social cause, a funeral is a sacred place where there is an expectation of privacy and a modicum of decency that needs to be enforced.

I only wish that these people were taken to court and stopped when they were picketing funerals of people who died of AIDS. It takes someone so void of humanity and soaked with evil that one could even think of desecrating a funeral to add emotional pain for those who suffer with grief. If there is a God and a Heaven and Hell, there must be a special place in Hell for Phelps and his family who join him on these things.

I have said it before and I will say it again, "Reverend" Phelps needs to have his minister status striped as he makes a mockery of Christ and God. He and his family need to have their citizenship stripped because these people are not Americans.

The Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor (for yours is the kingdom of God.)
Blessed are the poor in spirit (for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)
Blessed are they that mourn (for they shall be comforted)
Blessed are ye that weep now: (for ye shall laugh.)
Blessed are the meek (for they shall inherit the earth)
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness (for they shall be filled).
Blessed are ye that hunger now (for ye shall be filled).

Blessed are the merciful (for they shall obtain mercy.)
Blessed are the pure in heart (for they shall see God)
Blessed are the peacemakers (for they shall be called the children of God)
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake (for theirs is the kingdom of heaven)
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake (Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.)

In the late Kurt Vonnegut's article, "Cold Turkey", Vonnegut notices that our current christain-based presidential administration hardly could be seen to embrace the teachings of Christ, the Beatitudes. He says the Beatitudes are, "Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff." For all the talk of posting the 10 commandments in school rooms and courthouses, Kurt has never seen the same furvor towards the Beatitudes.

The bulk of organized Christianity (sans the Quakers and the few progressive progressive wings of denominations), especially those who are active in the culture wars from the right, ignore the Beatitudes. The will exercise more the more hail and brimstone parts of Deuteronomy or Leviticus and choose to interpret passages in the most demeaning and judgemental way. How is any of this consistant with the Beatitudes, the very teachings of Jesus? This current administration and the republican can hardly be described as being meek, instead they approach their sense of certainty with not a shread of humility.

For all the claims of this country being Christain-based, we are most certainly a country who don't like to be bothered by the actual teachings of Christ. Gays and Lesbians have long been persecuted in the name of Christ and the poor have been maligned and blamed. All that are blessed are the weak and maligned in society and this is backed up by Christ's actions.

I am looking for a religious faith to follow that reflects the real values of Christ: anti-greed, anti-hypocracy, anti-war, pro-equality, anti-death penalty, pro-poor, pro-weak, pro-civil and human rights, and resists the literal translation of the bible. If none exist, I may have to start my own church.

Quote of the Day

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." - John Adams

So much for the idea that our country's founders intended this to be a Christian Nation. The men who wrote our constitution were men of the Enlightenment period. Recently, I read the book,Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism . The author really shatters the myths propagated by the religious right that this nation's birth was guided by Christianity. The biggest clue this was not true is that no where in our Constitution does it mention God, or "divine power". It was the first "godless constitution" which was a amazing in a world where there was still a divine right of kings or of government. Another innovation and clue to our secular founding is that the constitution spelled out quite plainly that there would be no religious tests to hold public office.

At the time of the drafting of our constitution, each state had its own laws regarding who could hold office based on religious affiliation. Some would allow Jews to hold office, but no Catholics, some were vice versa. Yet, the constitutional authors based their document on the state constitution of Virginia, which allowed rights for all beliefs and even those without belief.

One thing that informs secularism of that time was the history of religion and government in Britain and Europe. Princes of Europe would hold one sect as official and demand fidelity by force only to switch religious alliances to make former adherants into heretics. Much of the instability of government ruled by Churches and religion drove our ancestors to the New World. Religious and non-religious alike wanted to be left alone.

The key to freedom of belief and conscience is having a secular government which doesn't choose sides and treats all of its citizens equally despite what they believe. An American citizen needs to walk into a courtroom, city hall, or the halls of the legislature believing that they are represented and accepted regardless of their religion. Christians would feel out of place if there were Quotes from Allah in Arabic inscribed in stone as the walk through a courtroom, city hall, or the legislature, wouldn't they? The same holds true when citizen non-Christan citizens are confronted with Christian inscriptions or a post of the 10 Commandments.

I am currently reading The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason , it brutally argues that religion is failing to be a positive influence in the world. He argues that supporting moderates in religion do not help matters because moderates are just unfaithful to the original texts of their religions. In other words, moderate or progressive Catholics are bad Catholics because they ignore many of the brutal and backward parts of the bible and reject some of the dogma of their church. To truly believe in a religion, you must accept the notion that people who believe differently are condemned as the texts of each religion preach. The moderates and progressives among us are enabling those who interpret their texts literally and see us as misguided, unfaithful, and even condemned to be punished by their god. This book forces one to question whether religion is worth it for our world given that it causes so much conflict and violence. I have yet to finish this book, but it doesn't look good for religion.

Creationism: The Back To School Edition

"This is a great set of resources to prepare to for the School year. Complete with Dr. Hovind's award-winning seminar video number 4 (Lies in the Textbooks), this package will teach you how to defend your faith, and do so effectively. Also included "Are you being Brainwashed?" - a book designed to help students quickly and effectively defend Science from the attacks of evolutionism in their public school classrooms. The Gap Theory is also included, which will debunk the compromising idea of a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 allowing for millions of years to be inserted. And finally, Claws Jaws and Dinosaurs will be included in this limited-time offer. This insightful book covers many interesting stories of cryptozoology and other fascinating stories!"

This extensive "Back to School Preparation Package" is now available from Creation Science Evangelism, a website I found when I went to Rapture Ready's Blog on Yahoo 360. Rapture Ready says, "The Bible is the only truth in this corrupt world. And the Bible tells us the age of the earth quite plainly, about 6000 years old. Man wants to make the Bible fit into his own flawed thinking, so he interprets and believes what other men have told him."

Why would anyone take a document that was written by people who did not know that the Earth was round and consisted continents far beyond the Mediterranean? A thinking Christain would interpret the bible as documents that are limited by what men knew and believed at the time they were written. These documents were written for contemporary, pre-literate humanity in terms they could understand with the intent to grow a religion. These documents can be interpreted differently based on various translations of the original texts. This particular man, Rapture Ready, chooses to believe men who believe that everything in the bible is to be interpreted literally even if it contradicts a huge body of evidence and common sense. You can be a follower of Christ and believe in evolution and in science that is evidence-based rather than belief-based.

It is disturbing that there will be a generation of kids that will be learning to reject evidence-based science for belief-based science. This will certainly add to the trend of America falling behind in science globally. This ignorance education serves to undermine real science being done in global warming, stem-cell research, safety standards of our food, water, drugs, and other products we come in contact with. Planting doubt in the scientific method and the scientific research allows for the acceptance of propaganda that there is faux controversies about global warming, second-hand smoking causes cancer, mercury in our fish, etc.

The People You Meet in Heaven, Hell, and the Purgatory of Poor Fools

The Hell: Paving the Road to Hell by Convincing US it is going to Heaven

Red Rove'r, Red Rove'r send insane evil right over! Somewhere in Texas an arch-demon, MC Rove, re-enters his demon-cave from whence he spawned. I wish I could report that our long national nightmare is over now that this creature has retreated into his fiery liar with his "family" or demon-kin of fear-sprites, bible-twisting fire-imps, and oozing oil sludges.

We are still fighting this impossible war, which "Manchurian Candidate" McCain insists we are winning, when everyone agrees that a political solution rather than military might is far from being accomplished. There are no guarantees that we can prevent full blown calamity regardless if we stay or go. People will continue to die and be maimed with or without our assistance.

Then we have the economy that has been lauded as Bush's creation that is going downhill due to overly-permissive lending practices that will have far reaching consequences for all of us. People who were lead to believe that they could afford their no-interest or adjustable loans because the value of homes would continue to go up are going to lose their homes. The day-traders of the nineties turned into real estate flippers of the aughts have returned to the stock market creating the false illusion that the stock market can only go up. Due to recent volatile dips in the stock market, people will simply not know where to invest if they have any money left to invest. If people have trouble getting loans or refinancing they will be unable to afford to remodel their homes, effecting all the contractors: plumbers, electricians, furniture, landscapers, appliance makers, masons, home builders, and all the service providers that were making the economy seem to hum. Due to home values declining there is less incentive to make improvements even if the money is there, because there is no guarantee that you will get that money back on the resell of the home.

Oh...and we can also talk about our indebtedness to China, that seems to want to poison our kids with lead paint and pets with bad pet food. In fairness we cannot lay that on the laps of the pantheon of demon-kin that is the Bush Whitehouse alone. We can blame them though for our spiraling debt.


The Heaven: Coffee and Art

In the past days, I have been able to compare side by side Peets Coffee against Henry's House of Coffee, and we have discovered that hands down -- Henry makes better coffee. We have one of those Krup Carafe coffeemakers and often we reheat what is left over from the day before in the morning. Peets coffee turns rancid tasting if left over night, but Henry's tastes like it did when it was first brewed. I am telling you that with the free shipping Henry offers, there is no reason why you shouldn't be drinking his coffee. Walk in his San Francisco shop while he is roasting his beans and it is surely what heaven must smell like. You will be dizzy with pleasure. I promise.

Stop right now and dial: 1.800.578.5282 and order his coffee. I prefer his 1/2 french roast and 1/2 mocha java blend and Henry's Blend Decaf. He has a wide variety of beans. Do it. Do it. Do it.

I came across a wonderful art blog called dear ada, there are countless wonderful finds from the art world. It is my heaven when i want a fresh dose of art to discover.

Purgatory of Poor Fools: Pig Biting Madness In Print No More

I remember in my sophomore year in high school, my friends and I took a train to San Francisco from Menlo Park and we bought a Weekly World News. We were astonished by various tales of genetic mishaps of Batboy and Ed Anger telling us that he would would join the troops in Lebanon if it weren't for the fact that he had a steel plate in his skull.

The Weekly World News has recently announced that they will be going web only and ceasing to kill trees to bring us news of pending Armageddon or new mutant babies.

While I like saving trees for real news, I somehow feel like it is an end of an era of buying this rag and using it for wrapping paper for kitchy gift giving.

This paper lives in a space between heaven and hell. It is uniquely American, haven for Photoshop hacks, and provides empty calories of useless, false information (which FoxNews takes to a high art). I will miss the appropriately seedy and tactile experience of having the newsprint bleed on your fingers -- something a website just can't do.

Supernatural History Museum

Now creationists have an "educational" place where they can take their kids and not have to worry about pesky facts, evidence, or even common sense. Dick and Jane know that the beginning of the earth 6000 years ago has far more in common with the Flintstones than once thought by those darned scientists.



From their website:

"We’ll begin the Museum experience by showing that “facts” don’t speak for themselves (click here for a proposed drawing of this exhibit). There aren’t separate sets of “evidences” for evolution and creation—we all deal with the same evidence (we all live on the same earth, have the same fossils, observe the same animals, etc.). The difference lies in how we interpret what we study. We’ll then explore why the Bible—the “history book of the universe”—provides a reliable, eye-witness account of the beginning of all things."

From the brain of Kirk Cameron actor from Growing Pains and from the Left Behind movies, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Board Game counters "the brainwashing of an entire generation" with more brainwashing via the blessed three E's: Evangelistic, educational, entertaining.



From their website:



"Intelligent Design vs Evolution" is unique in that the playing pieces are small rubber brains and each team plays for "brain" cards. Each player uses his or her brains to get more brains, and the team with the most brains wins. It has been designed to make people think . . . and that's exactly what it does."

Sounds like Zombies...BRAINS!

Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican

I have been feeling cranky lately. My husband has been turning the radio dial over to Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, and my dad likes to watch Fox News. The thing is as I surf around the Internet I hear the same spin and parroting of the Bush administration that defies logic. They continue to blame liberals for everything, forgetting they had a monopoly on power till the 2006 election. You can see this in Nerdman's blog entry, Defending America by not defending America . Watch how he never really questions Bush's incompetence except for the lame excuse, "We NEEDED to get involved. Iraq HAD to happen. Not in the WAY it was pursued, but it HAD to happen." I understand he NEEDS to believe that, because otherwise he has to face the fact that he was horribly wrong. If you read enough about warfare, every war seems inevitable at the time with the drums of war a pounding, you pull back and look at the motivations, the missed signals, poor intelligence, and poor decision making and you can see that no war is inevitable or only has one way it could go.



The only movement to accomplish anything was the act of Democrats sweeping out the screw-ups called republicans. Republicans didn't have the guts to reign in their incompetent President and the American people responded.

Then I come across Becky with lots of hearts. She too likes to blame liberals for everything and attribute positions to liberals that have no evidence whatsoever. She sees Rosie O'Donnell bring up a conspiracy theory and automatically that all liberals believe it and totally ignores that her side of political belief have come up with some whoopers too in WAY TO GO POPULAR MECHANICS!!. She also misses out in having a enlightening discussion about religious literacy to blame liberals for pedophilia, incest, and if you let her go on that we are responsible for Sanjaya still being on American Idol.

The whole concept of a "liberal conspiracy" also makes me laugh. I am a liberal who has over the years worked with other liberals, our "democratic" decision models make it impossible to decide any one conspiracy to focus on. Believe me, we wouldn't get as far as deciding whether to free Mumia, Tibet, or lab animals. I have been trying this novel idea of picking one thing to protest on per protest event, I am still waiting.



Then I found Conservative Voice's blog where he/she states quite boldly in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that global warming is a hoax. Heck, a huge majority of Americans believe in Angels and UFOs.

Don't mistake me, I will defend all these people in the right to believe and boldly state their opinion, but I have the equal right to argue against them and demand that they defend their beliefs. It is their right to question my beliefs. That is how the marketplace of ideas are supposed to work.

I get cranky because I have all these conservative bloggers, talking heads, and politicians telling the public about what I as a liberal believe -- they are absolutely wrong. I am a liberal, if you have a question about what liberals stand for I can tell you. I will give it to you straight because I am not ashamed of being a liberal. I was a liberal feminist in the Reagan era where feminazis and liberalism was attacked all the time. Don't listen to Ann Coulter, Rush, Dr. Laura, O'Reilly, or the Bush administration what we believe because they all have their bread buttered defending a particular ideology. I don't even get shells and shiny objects for sharing my opinion.

If liberals screw up, I will tell you. If I screw up I will tell you.

I am liberal, but I am an independent liberal. I am registered "decline to state" for a reason. Politicians have to earn their vote.

I don't have a problem with traditional economic conservatives, I may not agree with their ideas, but I understand where they are coming from. I do lean towards libertarian instincts, but think you can take libertarianism too far. Religious right folks have the right to believe what they believe, but my tolerance ends when they try to get government to reinforce their religious beliefs. To those who want to snoop in our bedrooms, I say, "Shoo! Get your own life! Mind your own morals!"



I love and live for political debate with people who disagree with me, because I get bored preaching to the crowd. Every once in awhile I get enormously cranky when I hear people parroting the Bush administration or Fox News. People I really try to get my sources through relatively unbiased sources...work with me here.

Re-Education Friday, Comrade!

http://www.conservapedia.com

Did you know that Wikipedia hates Jesus and America? Did you know if you use or read spellings of the British Isles, you are anti-American? Not using A.D. is a rejection of Christ? You would think that the defenders of Christ and America would not have such a slow server. How else are we to get all these truthy-like morsels?



http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/



Language alert! Intelligent design is morphing to Origins Science. Take note, comrades!



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13206572/



The FDA approves of a vaccine to protect young girls from getting the virus that causes cervical cancer. Focus on the Family argues against blanket availability to girls because they believe that abstinence is the best way to avoid the HPV and STDs. Who cares if studies show that abstinence education at best delays sexual behavior by 18 months and then when those kids do have sex they have unprotected sex.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/23/ap/tech/mainD8NF8JTG0.shtml

If you read The Austrailian article on this story, they appear to speculate from this incident that early women may have invented weapons. Of course, you would have to be anti-God and believe that we evolved from primates to even go there. Me, I think the chimps just watch too much violent teevee.

Anna Nicole Smith -- isn't it just time to let the poor girl rest in peace? We turn on FoxNews for my dad and it is wall-to-wall Anna Nicole. Gee, there are people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, global warming, Nuclear proliferation issues, and all sorts of really pressing issues -- so glad FoxNews has its priorities straight.

Religion

Religion.

I have been thinking a lot about it lately. It is hard not to when you see the direction the world is taking.

Religion is great when it creates a compassionate community that records and celebrates human rites of passage. It is also helpful when it provides a sense of peace and well-being in the lives of individuals. Religion was used to a tremendous effect by Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement or farther back in the Abolitionist movement.

Much like all human institutions and inventions, religion can be a positive force or a negative force. Sadly, there seems to be more misery and ill effects from religion these days. More people are taking what is beautiful about their belief system and skewing it to exclude, divide, and treat their fellow human beings as lesser peoples. In this country, "Christians" are actively working to single out a group of citizens for unequal treatment under our laws by excluding gays and lesbians from marriage and adoption. It is un-american and immoral, since it is immoral to ask one group of citizens to suffer a law that you yourself would chafe under. These "Christians" want to re-institute a culture of shame in our society and give birth to extremists like Rev. Phelps who protest at vets funerals saying that they deserve to die because their country tolerates gays. Crazy immoral!

Sure, the first settlers were crazy witch-burning puritans, but can't we evolve? Oh, wait. They don't believe in evolution! (that is another post)

In other parts of the world religion is used to keep down and abuse women, kill innocents, and carve out territories to fight over.

To the folks who use their religion to hurt, exclude, and generally being a prick, you do not bring honor to your religion and you are a toxic presence in the world. If there is to be shame in the world, the shame should be reserved for these people. Mind your own business! Spend the time taking care of your own spiritual journey and leave the rest of us alone.

Persons of faith are under the obligation to speak out and fight against those who do dishonor to their religion.

Hazzuh Patriot Guard Riders

I am a staunch staunch First Amendment supporter. That means that I support the First Amendment when it is speech that I hate. It is always unpopular thought and people in our country that need protection most of all -- popular beliefs do not need protection.

One group that really puts my beliefs to the test is the group headed by Rev. Fred Phelps. Phelps and his group has gotten their yahoos from attending the funerals of AIDS victims with offensive anti-gay hail and brimstone protest signs. They get off on terrorizing grieving family and friends during the darkest times in their lives.

Now this group is going to military funerals saying that US soldiers deserve to die on IEDs as God's punishment for the United States "harboring homosexuals." Again, Phelp's group completely violates the tradition of giving grieving family and friends the dignity and space to say goodbye to their loved ones. All human beings deserve that -- it is just common decency.

I was against the invasion of Iraq and are appalled by the gross negligence and incompetence of the planning and direction of the conflict in Iraq. My ire has been always directed toward the civilian leadership of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and crew, never the troops. The troops have been put in an impossible situation where they feel an overwhelming duty to serve our country and their fellow soldiers in being in Iraq. They go in our name, regardless if we agree with the policy that sent them there. So, we are obligated to receive all who serve with the dignity they earned.

Phelps and his group have constitutional right to speak and protest peaceably, but they also earned the right to be scorned and have their so-called Christianity called into question. Personally, I believe Phelps doesn't deserve the label of reverend, because nothing he does resembles what Christ would want.

This is why I praise the bikers, the Patriot Guard Riders, who are using their first amendment rights to drive to all the funerals to protect friends and family of the fallen from Phelps harrassment. I say HAZZUH to the Riders. Good for you!