Reza Aslan

I just finished reading both of Reza Aslan's books: "No God But God" and "How to Win A Cosmic War". The book No God But God is a good background on Islam; how it started and how it got to where it is now. How to Win A Cosmic War is about the current situation in Islam and the movement of Jihad. If you want to understand what is happening in one of the most pivotal events of our times, I recommend both.

A War on Terror

The natural response to violence is more violence. This was best exemplified on 9/11. We were bombed and Bush bombed back. Escalations in violence resulted in further escalation on our part. So it continues. But is this our best and only recourse?

As detailed in Oren’s book, “Power Faith & Fantasy”, America has been in conflict with the Middle East for over 233 years, with essentially no real change in policy or approach. This has not resulted in one stable government or long term peace in the region. The West’ policies have in fact greatly exacerbated the problems as has our unquestioned support of Israel and blind eye to its crimes. The West’ policies are in fact a large part of the current problem.

This is lack of insight into the Middle East has become more detrimental in the last 90 odd years with the rise in Islamist fundamentalism, onto today’s Jihadist. Instead of addressing the fundamental causes of the problem; poverty, education, the lack of equality, and meddling in the affairs of other countries, the West has continued with the same failed policies of supporting corrupt dictators, war, and religious incursion.

We simply cannot continue with failed policies and expect a different result.

There is one glimmer of hope today in the fact that President Obama has chosen to pause and consider his options, before sending more troops to Afghanistan, and is looking for a new approach. No doubt he will be derided by Hawks who fail to see the mistakes of the past and offer no other options for the future. But it is only through open dialogue and fair treatment of the Middle East and its people, can we ever hope to achieve peace.

The Jihadist continues to taunt the West into further military action. Their goal is global war to end all wars; a “Cosmic War” of Good vs. Evil as Reza Aslan has described it. And as Aslan has suggested, the only way to avoid a cosmic war, is not to engage in it. The only logical path before us is to step back from the abyss and find another path.

Please. Just Prove It.

I find it interesting that over the last several thousand years, the church (religion) has generally been running the show. They have worked hard to dictate our morals, our laws, and public life. Where society has failed, the blame is laid squarely at the feet of the disbeliever, secular disorder, or humanistic evils. Certainly, no blame is directed at the flawed theology of religion. Anyone who has disagreed is usually publicly humiliated, and in many places tortured and or executed. Even the briefest look at human history bears this out. It’s an undeniable fact.

In recent history, with the waning power of the church and enlightened thinking, some have dared to question the unchallenged rule of the church. Some have even dared to question the validity of the church itself. Today, many of us are asking for out right proof before allowing the church to run our schools, our government, indoctrinate our children, or influence the direction of the sciences.

So I ask, please, just prove it. It’s an easy question folks. You have these world wide religions who ALL claim to be "the only true religion", "the only means of salvation”, and who all supposedly speak for god. These religions all want to control every aspect of human life - thereby taking away the "free will" supposedly given to us by "god".

All I ask, all I have ever asked, is that you prove that what you say is true. I also ask that if you cannot, then you must listen to what I have to say.

The response thus far has been interesting. No one has offered one piece of convincing proof. None has answered any of my questions. Instead they accuse those of us who dare to ask of being “mean”, “hateful”, and “disrespectful of their religion". Is it because we ask for proof, or is it that they have no answer? When asked to respect other people and faiths in public settings, they play the victim and claim discrimination.

I think that after millennia of autocratic rule, presumptive authority, abuse, and murder in the name of god, it’s about time that some one demanded the religious world prove themselves. That’s right. Just prove it.

Until then, I would ask that you please keep your religion out of our government, our health care, and our lives.

You're Just Wrong. Get Over It.

Please explain?

There are simple things in the bible that anyone with a rational mind might question. I am thinking about the wholesale slaughter of anyone who does not believe in the one true god, for example. This is a loving and just god? Or verses that institute and support slavery, the subjugation of women and the treating of women as property and prostitutes. Or the really stupid versus that demand punishment for weaving with two different kinds of thread or touching the skin of a dead pig (does the NFL know this?). And my all time grand-daddy favorite, the verses that advise us that god has created us all for a specific purpose, some for eternal life and some for eternal damnation. Yes, that’s right, god created some of you to spend eternity in hell, just to prove he is right.

The list is long and mind you, none of these really fun things has ever been rescinded, apologized for, or explained. I am sorry, but “god works in mysterious ways”, or “only a fool questions god”, just does not cut it.

These are simple versus for one might reasonably ask, how in the name of all sanity can you believe that nonsense? By the way, that is the question that allowed me to drag myself out of religion.

But there are some real doctrinal issues I have with Christians that they just simply refuse to address. For example:

In Deuteronomy, the god of the Old Testament calls human sacrifice “detestable” and demands that all engaged in the practice be killed. But yet the god of John 3:16 offers god’s son as a human sacrifice for our sin. Did god just change his mind and is the “detestable” now okay? ? Explain this please?

In Deuteronomy, the god of the Old Testament says, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.” Yet again, the god of John 3:16 offers god’s son as a human sacrifice for all our sins. That's a complete reversal of doctrine mind you. Explain this please

In three of the four books of the New Testament, Jesus was asked how to attain eternal life. The fourth book does not record the conversation. Jesus advised the supplicant to obey the laws of Moses. Was Jesus lying? Explain please.

Jesus himself is quoted as saying, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the father but through me.” But Paul is quoted in Corinthians as saying that “those without the law are a law unto themselves, and will be judged according to their own hearts.” Was Paul or Jesus wrong here, because Paul says heaven is open to all of a pure heart.

Again the list is long and I am not even touching on the historical textual inaccuracies. But the doctrines of faith are simply riddled with contradiction. By the way, Christianity is not the exception by any means.

When you take it all into consideration, and add to that the fact there is not one single shred of evidence or history to support the doctrines of faith contained in Christianity, one can reasonably ask how can you believe any of this? I mean its just plain silly and inconceivable.

More importantly, since the answer almost always falls back on “it’s a matter of faith”, thereby admittedly not on fact, how can you force feed this nonsense to your children, to the public, or the world? How can you in good conscience stand in the way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with a belief system that is no better than belief in Peter Pan or Santa Clause (for whom there is some historical consistency)?

I mean really, your just wrong and its time to either make some reasonable factual answer or get out humanity's way. Because so far, your religion has just completely screwed things up.

Demacracy & The Court of Public Opinion

I once had an interesting conversation with a religious person, zealot actually.

For clarification, this was a person that I was employed by and who made it his mission to try and force feed me his Christianity every chance he got. This guy would deride my lack of Christianity out loud and in front of anyone standing by. This was a guy who's policy towards employees was, pay them as little as possible, work them to death, and then find another body. This was a guy who had his pastor acting as "Corporate Chaplin" and paid him under the table so his wife would not know. And finally, this was a guy on whose computer I found hundreds of cookies linked to gay sites. Go figure.

I was his operations manager and we had an employee in the security guard division who was thought to be gay. Never said anything or hit on anyone, but was a walking, talking, stereotypical gay. Well, this of course came to the attention of the employer who immediately wanted to fire this person. Mind you he was a good employee, he was just gay. So the employer decided to fire this person because his shirt was not tucked in properly and he presented a bad appearance.

You know me, even then I could not keep my mouth shut - and so to the point of this post.

We had quite the discussion / argument over this. My point being that firing some one for their sexual preference was just plain wrong, especially since that person did a good job and was not a problem. His point was that homosexuality was evil and against god's law. The conversation ultimately turned to constitutional protections, which for homosexuals do not exist.

My point on the constitution, was that the courts should protect the rights of everyone, just as they did for women, for blacks, and in many other situations, despite the personal prejudices of the people. His point was that homosexuals would never acquire constitutional protections because, "Christians held the majority opinion against such protections".

I've thought allot about that comment for many years - that the laws of our land, the rights of human beings, are not protected by rational decision or objective fact, but by the ever shifting whims of the public. That scares the shit out of me.

Lets take the rights of black people for example. It was a scientific fact many years before equal rights became the law of the land, that there are no differences between the races. Its was common sense even longer before that. yet we had to go through decades of building public opinion before equality was the law. The same was true of course for womens rights.

Consider the current effort to revamp health care. The conversation evolves around hyperbole and not around actual facts. The facts are there, we could talk about them and make an objective decision. But instead of facts we talk about death panels and screwing old people out of their Medicare. Again, fighting this out in the courts of public opinion.

Consider the plight of homosexuals. Every scientific fact there is supports their rights to equality. Do they have it? No. They are fighting for their rights in the court of public opinion.

We are way past the point in our evolution where we as human beings should be able to set aside public opinion & bigotry, to make objective, logical decisions for the public good. Instead of courting the opinions of the religious, the corporation, or the elite, we should be using our minds and resources to shape laws based on the benefit of the human race and long term goals. In the current state of affairs, America's conversation about homosexuals, health care, and public policy, is only one notch above that of Iraq, Afghanistan, and public beheading. Considering the insanity I see on the news, it might be less than a step.

Is democracy really only about public opinion? About who has the majority vote? Are we really only a vote away from Christian head scarves, incorporateing the bible into the consitution, and burning witches at the stake again? Are we that stupid?

Is it not possible to elect a government by the people and for the people, and make logical decisions for the people?

What If?

I think that just because you call something a religion, does not necessarily make it true. It just sad that people make a feel good decisions based on emotional impulse, and then lacking any fact, choose to enforce that decision on everyone else. Where would we be if Galileo had been supported instead of jailed? Where would we be if women had equality and blacks had freedom 100 or 200 years earlier? Where would we be if stem cell research had the full backing of the government 10 years ago? Where would the human race be if it was not shackled by religious dogma and misguided morals based on stone aged thinking?

How about we put “faith” where it belongs and get on with the business of making life better for our fellow humans?

LIFE by the DALAI LAMA

LIFE by the DALAI LAMA

This is what The Dalai Lama has to say on the millennium. All it takes is a few seconds to read and think over.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements, involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Enlightenment

An acient proverb, probably horribly misquoted, but essentially correct:

A student, searching for enlightenment, was walking the path one hot sunny day, when the student met a traveler walking the path down the hill and carrying a heavy load. The student at once recognized the traveler as an enlightened being and stopped the traveler to speak with him. The student asked the traveler, "Master, what is enlightenment?" The traveler stopped, thought a moment, set his heavy load to the ground, and looked at the student with a sly smile on his face. The student realized the leason, and then asked, "Master, but after enlightenment, then what?" At that, the traveler smiled broadly, took up his heavy load, and continued his walk along the path.

Face the Facts

I find it disingenuous when people quote bible verses. They always go for the prosaic ones like, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…”, which is by the way blasphemy if you read all of the bible, or "I am the way the truth and the life...", which is just absurd. These people quote the pretty verses, but completely ignore the verses which institute slavery, which treat women as property, and which order bigotry and unmitigated slaughter. Mind you, none of these biblical institutions has ever been rescinded.

Is it possible people are just unaware? Or is it possible they do not want to face the ugly truth of the bible, which is that it is a stone aged religion lacking any “truth” what so ever.

THINK! The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

The Indefensible Defense of Marriage Act

BIGOTRY: –noun, plural -ries. Defined as a stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

Let’s be honest, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law on September 21, 1996, is in effect legalized bigotry. It should be over turned.

The DOMA has two aspects: It enforces “state’s rights” not to acknowledge marriages made in other states, where that marriage involves the marriage of same sex couples. It also defines marriage as that made between a man and a woman only. So there are two issues here, state’s rights and homosexual marriage.

My post is not about states rights, but I can’t pass this and not say something on the matter. State’s rights, simply put, is about recognizing each state’s right to make its own laws and to govern itself. On the face of it, that sounds like a great thing; maintaining state individuality, local control, and avoiding big brother and all that. But under the surface, it means that any state can continue to do what it wants, say in the case of homosexual marriage. When it comes to discrimination, I think that’s a bad thing and I think that the end of slavery was a great example of the abuse of state’s rights. I’ll leave it at that.

The issue of the federal government “defining” marriage is just plain spurious. The thinking, hypothetically, goes like this; the tradition is that marriage is between a man and a woman, we like that tradition, we will keep that tradition, we will make it law. Hence the DOMA. For some reason, homosexuals are not afforded the same rights as the rest of humanity, and are not allowed to marry.

Seriously, where did this definition come from, if not from tradition, and religious tradition at that? No where and I mean NO WHERE on this planet is there a definition of marriage except within religious books. Marriage is a religious ceremony for crying out loud. The standard definition of marriage is merely a religious view point, held as a tradition among the people. That’s a problem when we define human rights by tradition and not by the law.

Amendment 1 of the Constitution of the United States says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Problem 1: The DOMA in effect makes the religious view point of some; the religious definition of marriage, the law of the land.

Problem 2: The DOMA restricts the religious rights of homosexuals to obtain a legally recognized, religious marriage, anywhere in the United States.

There is also another document that speaks to this issue, which seems to have been over looked, the Declaration of Independence, where in is stated, “…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….”

Equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is the very core of that upon which this country was founded. Human rights for each and every one of us, except for homosexuals? Apparently, its not so “self evident” any longer.

The Blame Game of Who's a Terrorist Now

A report released by the Pentagon on May 26, 2009 disclosed some interesting facts pertaining to the release of Gitmo detainees. As of the date of the report, 530 detainees had been released from Gitmo. According to that report, “14% of those released had turned to or are suspected of having turned to” acts of terrorism.

Now this information has been used by some people to draw negative conclusions on President Obama’s plans to shut down Gitmo, and the on going legal review of the detainees still held there. But there are some facts buried here that need a closer look.

To start with those released, either directly by the U.S., or indirectly through third party countries, were found to have had no credible connection to acts of terrorism. To put that in plain language, they were innocent of the charges against them after years of detention, mistreatment, and out right torture.

In a side point: Mind you this detention was based on the thinnest of excuses, i.e., that we were “at war with terrorism”, and therefore normal justice (and apparently common sense) did not apply. However, terrorism is technically a criminal act when perpetuated by individuals or groups, and a military act when perpetuated by a government or country – but illegal in any sense. In the past, we investigated and arrested criminals and went to war with countries and governments.

So the only way this “war” can be maintained, there by justifying (among other things) detention outside of the justice system, is by focusing on one group instead of the dozens of religious nut jobs waging war against unbelievers. We don’t have a country to wage war against – we did not them and we still do not. Hence, to give us a boogie man to wage war against, its all blamed on Al-Qaeda.

Just after 9-11, Al-Qaeda was a fractured (and according to some failing) group that was, after the act of terrorism called 9-11, denounced by most Jihadist leaders. If only we had let them alone, and hunted them down as criminals. But we did not and we invaded a country, and then another. Within a very short period of time, the very people who refused to take any note of Al-Qaeda to start with, suddenly found Al-Qaeda was a global organization against whom we should wage war. Rather convenient if you ask me. Suddenly, every Islamist faction trying to gain ground in every backwater country around the world, was linked to Al-Qaeda and we are looking at waging “war” in almost every country around the globe. The simple fact is that this should never have been viewed as a war, but as a criminal act and investigated as such. But war fit rather nicely in the plans of some.

But I wander from my point, which is the interesting language used by the Pentagon with regards to the detainees, i.e., “14% of those released had turned to or are suspected of having turned to” acts of terrorism. What that language means is one of two things. Either some one was unable to obtain credible evidence against the detainee, therefore the detainee was released having been a terrorist all along. Or the detainee was actually innocent all along of the charges laid against them, was released accordingly, and then for some reason – oh I don’t know, perhaps they were water boarded one too many times – they turned to terrorism.

One last point is a problem with the numbers. The number of 14% represents both detainees who were confirmed to be acting terrorist after release and those suspected of acts of terrorism. The actual number is 5% of those released have actually been confirmed to have turned to terrorism after their release.

So the question that begs to be asked is were these people terrorist who got away with their crime, or are these terrorists that we created? The language used by the Pentagon would appear to suggest the latter, that these people “turned to” terrorism subsequent to their release. That is a very important point since the accusation is that the Obama administration is releasing terrorist back into the wild – not technically true since Bush released most of them and the reverse (and silly) argument could be made that statistically Bush released the terrorists and not Obama.

The argument is no less thin even if you use the number of 14%. The fact still remains that nothing was found to hold these people and legally and morally, they had to be released. They were found to be innocent, and something happened to change these people’s minds and set them on the path of the terrorist. Humm, what could that have been?

I think it is high time for America to take responsibility for its actions. We cannot hold people for years and expect to avoid the consequence for that action. We cannot invade a country with no valid reason and expect to avoid the consequences of that action. America has, for over 233 years, through one administration after another, continued with the same failed policies in the Middle East. It is time for a new approach to a very old problem.

In God's Hands

Isn't in interesting. When something "good" happens to one person, its god's handiwork. But to the person on the other side of the same situation, who may have lost out on the deal, its satan's handiwork.

What one person defines as good, another can as equally define as bad, and the corresponding diety gets the credit or blame.

We spend so much time defining good and bad, god and not god, we loose sight of the real truth behind it all. There is no good, there is no bad, there is only life which must be embraced for all it has to offer.We spend so much time trying to find god's path in our lives, we fail to see that we have been standing on the path the entire time. Metaphorically speaking, god has been standing just down the path waiting for us to open our eyes and to put one foot in front of the other.

We spend an awful lot of time trying to find that which exists right in front of us, in every birth, in every death, in every sunrise, every storm, in every grain of sand. You may call it god, or like me you may call it the Tao, but it is in us and around us all the time. You do not have to "find" it, because it is you.

Defining God

They call god Jehovah, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, and a thousand other names. Can they all be right? They give god many attributes; "just", "loving", "stern", and a thousand faces as well. Can they all be right? They quote god's words and directions to us in book after book called the bible, the koran, and another thousand other works. Can they all be right? Quite obviously the answer is no.

The problem with trying to define god, is that the moment you you do you loose all ability to see god for what god truely is. If you can only see god through rose colored glasses, then you are blind to anything but rose colored attributes.

But what if god isn't rose colored at all? What if god can only be seen through yellow tint glasses? What if god can't be define by the colors you or I choose? What if god is something beyond human definition completely?

Given the fact that there is no evidence, what so ever, to support the world's religous definition of god, and that there are countless versions all contradicting each other, why do we as humans insist on forcing our definition of god on everyone else? Why do we kill and discriminate against each other over this?

How about we all step back and accept the fact that we just don't know, and allow that perhaps the definition of god, if god needs any definition to begin with, is beyond our capability. Perhaps then we can find god. Perhaps god has been right on the other side of that fence all along.