Reminder: The leadership of the "Religious" Radical Right is oligarchical. Coral Ridge Ministries has been one of the key organizations at that level.
But something very interesting happened to the RRR Cult recently. Last year, it lost two of its most influential charismatic leaders. One was the actual founder of the cult, Jerry Falwell, who had dubbed it "The Moral Majority." (How interesting that this collection of the hateful and/or ignorant, which has always been steeped in vicious lies, started out with two lies in its very name! They were never even remotely either moral or a majority. For as long as it has existed, the cult has comprised only about 5% of the U.S. population. [Which, unfortunately, still is millions of people, and today numbers about 15 million of the USA's 300 million people.]) And the other one was Dr. D. James Kennedy, who headed Coral Ridge Ministries (CRM), in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The loss of any charismatic leader is earth-shaking to his or her movement. Especially when his/her agendas have not been achieved. It leaves a real power and influence vacuum, and that has happened in both of these cases, because NO noteable and charismatic person was waiting in the wings, for either organization. And that is good news for society, as we continue to battle the loathsome hate-agendas of the RRR Cult. Hopefully, both of those organizations will be seriously hobbled forevermore by those leadership losses.
In the case of CRM, it's interesting to observe that since Kennedy's death, they have continued to air his broadcasts. No one there has the charisma to replace him!
Okay -- that sets the stage. Now let's see just how CRM (just like all the other organizations in the leadership of the cult) continues to demonstrate just how Taliban-like the RRR truly is.
CRM has just released its 18th annual "Spiritual State of the Nation Survey," and almost none of it lacks being drenched in hatefulness and bigotry. The survey is mailed almost exclusively to lemmings of the RRR Cult. A person either has to already be on CRM's mailing list, or respond to an offer to request it, after seeing or hearing it on one of their broadcasts. So you can well imagine just how meaningless such a survey is! That survey is not the least bit representative of the views of the American people in general, and thus, once compiled, it has no more integrity and value than a couple of bales of scrap paper. It would make good birdcage liner, but that's about all. A waste of good trees.
And once collected, those surveys (around 100,000+ or so, typically) are dishonestly presented to our Congressional leaders as though they were meaningful.
Its very first question asks, "Are you concerned that our country as a whole is abandoning biblical values?" Choices: Yes, No, and Undecided. (I can't help but wonder if a "No" answer to that serves as a marker for discarding that person's survey, but I can't substantiate that. As dishonest as the RRR Cult is, though, I wouldn't put it past them to even go that one additional step farther to bias an already-corrupted survey.)
The second question is a list of "concerns" for which the responder is asked to evaluate each as being "Very Dangerous," "Somewhat Dangerous," or "Not Very Dangerous." (I was amused to note that there was no choice called "Not AT ALL Dangerous." Which would have been applicable in almost all cases.)
Here's the list:
Apathetic or uninformed Christians
News Media
Hollywood
Courts
The ACLU and similar groups
Pro-homosexual indoctrination
Abortion
Congress
Public education (K-12)
Colleges and universities
Islamic terrorism
Cults and false religions
Atheism
Darwinism/Evolution
Other: __________
The obvious difference between the mindless RRR Cult and normal & sensible Americans is made astoundingly clear by that very ludicrous list. One can be sure that their warped notion of people who comprise "apathetic or uninformed Christians" are people who are not RRR cult lemmings, and therefore are not supporting their vile, anti-human-rights agendas.
The cult is absolutely convinced that the news media is out to get them. Their perception of that might not be too far off, since journalists tend to be very astute people, and highly-intelligent people usually loathe mindless and irrational bigotry.
Same for Hollywood!
As for the courts -- well, thanks to their toady, "President" GW Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court may already be poisoned beyond repair for decades to come, against personal liberties. For the first time in 80 years! But you can bet that the cult's leaders will keep up the strident drumbeat to even further poison it, and every other appellate court in the land. They want a theocracy, and fair courts have always been America's strongest firewall against that.
Of course, CRM regards the ACLU to be a threat. That organization, and others like it, fair-mindedly and sensibly defend our rights as specified in the U.S. Constitution -- including the rights that the cult is dedicating to destroying! The ACLU is more and more becoming one of the most critically-important organizations in America.
In the case of "pro-homosexual indoctrination," we see one of the RRR's most blatant lies injected into the survey. Just like the blacks, 50 years earlier, in Civil Rights Movement #1, homosexuals in Civil Rights Movement #2 seek nothing more than EQUAL rights with everyone else, and to not be ignorantly and hatefully discriminated-against over such a triviality as sexual orientation. And that includes same-sex marriage. Nothing could possibly be more harmless than that, and it presents absolutely NO threat to opposite-sex marriage. (Fortunately, the American people are steadily recognizing the ludicrousness and hatefulness of the RRR's agendas, and especially those agendas which are aligned against gays.)
The RRR's incredibly ignorant and hateful war against America's girls and women as they seek to destroy their right to access the beneficial remedy of abortion is legendary, and goes almost all the way back to Roe vs. Wade, on January 22, 1973. To see just how loathsome that agenda is, as it desperately seeks to hurl America back into the pre-Roe Dark Ages of forced gestation of UNwanted pregnancies, just see the other articles dealing with that topic within this blog, and in the APIFAR blog. Articles in both of these blogs also deal with the RRR's irrational and hateful attacks on the trivial variation of normalcy known as homosexuality. And this is an especially valuable article to read.
As for Congress -- the RRR won't be happy until it has a veto-proof majority of anti-personal-liberties Representatives and Senators, to promote and sustain their hate-agendas... and as a hedge in case a Democrat can manage to survive the corrupted electronic voting machines gauntlet and actually get into the White House.
The RRR is dedicated to poisoning the Public Education system in two ways. The first is to violate the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state in as many ways as possible, including the corruption and dilution of real science with the pseudo-science of "creationism." (Think, "6,000-year-old earth!") And secondly, to undermine it by giving "vouchers" to people so they can send their kinds to private indoctrination centers (where that same mindless tripe would be taught) or could home-school them thusly. Those vouchers are dangerous to society in two ways. The one just mentioned, and because they also siphon much-needed and critically-important funding away from the public school systems! (Egalitarians need to vigorously oppose those voucher proposals, at all costs!)
The cult is livid about the colleges and universities (especially the state-run ones) that sensibly and intelligently want no part of spewing its ignorance at their students.
The survey says "Islamic terrorism," but that is really a thinly-veiled attack on Islam as a whole, and anyone familiar with the RRR recognizes that in a heartbeat!
As for "Cults and False Religions" -- that's funnier than hell! Talk about being myopic! As America's own home-grown version of the Taliban, all other cults are benign when compared to the RRR Cult. That cult, and the False Teachers that head it, comprise the only truly vicious cult in the USA. (Fortunately for the rest of the world, no other countries are interested in being infested by it!)
The suggestion that "Atheism" poses any sort of threat to anyone is as idiotic as it gets! In line with Jesus' actual commandment, about one in 100 Christians proselytize... but almost NO atheists do. Atheists are very adept at minding their own business!
Isn't it fun to watch CRM calling the evolutionary process, "Darwinism/Evolution?" I wonder if they would call relativity, "Einsteinism/Relativity?" Naw. Probably not. After all, they don't seem to perceive either Einstein or relativity to be a threat to their ignorant mindsets. At least, not yet! The sad thing is that the aspects of real science that deal with evolution pose no threat to Christianity, either. But the RRR's lemmings are too ignorant to figure that out, and for some arcane reason that accomplishes nothing, the RRR's leaders are determined to keep foisting that inane lie on society. (CLUE to all of those cultists: Any God who is omniscient and omnipotent enough to have created a universe at least 40 billion light-years across, which contains hundreds of billions of galaxies, most of which contain hundreds of billions of stars, each, and countless planets -- would have found it duck soup to have created the evolutionary process. And He probably did!)
(Footnote to the above: D. James Kennedy claimed that the Nazis killed millions of people, thanks to Darwin. Wrong! That was another lie. Hitler misused and abused science to fit his horrendous agenda. That wasn't the fault of science. Anyone can misuse science, to their own unethical ends. And that's what Hitler did. If a nuclear weapon ever is used improperly, that won't be the fault of the science dealing with nuclear fission and fusion. That would be the fault of those who abused that science. It's obvious that the RRR Cult's leaders don't have any regard for facts.
Remember -- until the RRR Cult is history, don't underestimate its threat to our freedoms. And its capability to cause our society to devolve into a tyranny like that depicted in "The Handmaid's Tale," or worse yet, of George Orwell's "1984," should we be apathetic enough to allow them to prevail. Because:
RRR Cult : Society :: 5% Arsenic Solution : Glass of Drinking Water I'll end this article by citing the survey's next question, and then conclude the examination of its remaining questions in a later article. That question asks, "Is it too late for a spiritual revival in this nation?" Well, if such a revival would promote the RRR and its agendas, we can only hope and pray that it IS too late for that. We need instead to relegate those agendas to extinction, where they can join the equally ignorant and hateful agenda of segregation in history's dusty boneyard, forevermore!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Coral Ridge Ministries inadvertently Reminds Us
that the UN-Christian RRR Cult is USA's Taliban
Friday, January 11, 2008
"Father McKenzie, writing the words
of a sermon that no one will hear.."
Here's how EUROPE luckily avoided
infestation by the RRR Cult
To appreciate the full magnitude of the content of this article, I encourage you to click on each of its internal links, as you read it.
When the Beatles sang "Eleanor Rigby," it probably just portrayed a lonely recluse that only her pastor took note of anymore, when she died. But just maybe they already were aware of the religious disparity that already existed between Britain and the USA... over 40 years ago.
America's internal terrorists are the leaders and lemmings of the RRR Cult. The UN-Christian "Religious Radical Right." America's very own, personal-liberties hating, home-grown version of the Taliban.
And as unlucky as America is to be infested by it... Europe is lucky enough to have completely escaped it! Talk about dodging a very sociopathic bullet!
Ironically, it is the very structure of the RRR that saved Europe from it! And which will continue to protect the hundreds of millions of people living on that very fortunate continent. Because the RRR Cult is different from all other cults, in one very important way. A factor that enabled it to infest American society and threaten our freedoms -- while simultaneously preventing it from infesting Europe.You see, almost all other cults recruit their lemmings and immediately isolate them with the other lemmings, within the cult. Sometimes so extremely as to isolate them from most of the rest of society. But the RRR's crafty leaders did exactly the opposite, right from Day One, back in the 1970s -- when the late Jerry Falwell (to his eternal shame) started the cult, and called it the "Moral Majority. (What a misnomer that was, since the cult he started was never even remotely a majority... and today still comprises only 5% of the U.S. population. Nor was there anything "moral" about it.) The RRR primarily targets the more ignorant folks who have already been conned into populating the congregations of fundamentist churches. I could have said "Christian fundamentalist churches," but those are often far more UN-Christian than Christian. After all, how Christian can any church or denomination be which rejects Christ's clear command that we show compassion to our neighbors? But instead espouses and promotes such loathsome agendas as the one that seeks to force girls and women to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term against their will? Which would deprive millions of them of countless of their pre-ill-timed-pregnancy future opportunities.
The cult infests those churches from within -- and then, here is the key to its success -- it leaves its lemmings in place, where they can influence and convert their other congregants into adopting the cult's heinous agendas.
The United States has always had a pretty stable percentage of Christian believers, and a solid percentage of those are church-goers. That's a good thing in its own right, and as a Christian myself, I could hardly think otherwise. In fact, per a recent Gallup Poll, fully 83% of Americans profess Christianity. OF that number, 94% are actual, normal, sensible, relatively-intelligent and generally-tolerant, actual Christians. While the remaining 6% are the lemmings of the RRR Cult, who subscribe to the loathsome agendas of the cult's oligarchical leadership and organizations.
No one seems to be sure why there is such a disparity between the Americans and the Europeans with respect to numbers of Christians, and numbers of church-goers. But I have a theory.
European history goes back thousands of years, and except for Native Americans, that of the USA only 400. And the beginning of this nation was hugely influenced by the ultra-conservative (to the point of being downright nutty) Puritans. Any ducking-stool mentality that can be found in today's RRR cultists can likely be traced back through time to that cult.
So Europe was far luckier. At least as far as being threatened by a ubiquitous, continent-wide, liberty-threatening cult is concerned. Because, thanks to its long history and its great diversity, the following important comments and aspects pertain to it:
[Phil Zuckerman wrote]: "The last time I was in Europe, I was told by two different sets of friends that we would be 'going out to the church' for the evening. In both cases (one in Oban, Scotland, and the other in Cologne, Germany) the churches turned out to be religious institutions in facade only; both were former churches that had been gutted and turned into popular pubs and night clubs. Indeed, throughout much of Western Europe--with the unique exception of Ireland -- churches are being turned into bars, discos, warehouses, and laundromats. Not only is church attendance way down, but so is religious belief."
* In Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1851, 60 percent of the adult population attended church; in 1995 that was down to 11 percent (Bruce 1999).
* In 1899, 98 percent of Dutch citizens claimed to belong to a particular church. In 2001, only 40 percent did so (Grotenhuis and Scheepers 2001).
* Only 34 percent of West Germans, 31 percent of Belgians, 24 percent of the British, 17 percent of the French, 11 percent of Finns, and 9 percent of Icelanders attend church at lease monthly (Inglehart, Basanez, and Moreno 1998).
* Only 6 percent of Danes, 7 percent of Swedes, and 9 percent of Norwegians attend church at least monthly (Bruce 2000).
* Only 2 percent of Danes, 2 percent of Swedes, and 2 percent of Norwegians attend church on an average Sunday (Bruce 2000).
* 12 percent of Danes claimed to "never attend church" in 1947; that was up to 34 percent in 1996 (Bruce 1999).
* 32 percent of Swedes and 33 percent of Norwegians claim to "never" attend church (Bruce 2000).
* The percent of the population in the United Kingdom in 1900 which had attended Sunday school as children was 55 percent; in 2000 it was down to 4 percent (Bruce 2002).
* Among West Germans in 1967, 42 percent believed that Jesus is the son of God; this dropped down to 29 percent in 1992; among East Germans, the number drops as low as 17 percent (Shand 1998).
* 43 percent of the British in 1940 claimed to believe in the existence of a personal God; that dropped to 26 percent in 2000 (Bruce 2002).The best available empirical research reveals is that secularization is unambiguously observable in most of Western Europe, but not in the United States. In fact, religion remains remarkably strong in the United States. For instance, more than 95 percent of Americans claim to believe in God or a universal spirit or lifeforce, compared to 61 percent of the British; nearly 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in heaven, compared to 50 percent of the British; 84 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is God or the son of God, compared to 46 percent of the British (Gallup and Lindsay 1999). Comparing additional traditional religious beliefs, over 70 percent of Americans believe in life after death, compared to 46 percent of Italians, 43 percent of the French, and 35 percent of Scandinavians (Gallup 1979). And over 70 percent of Americans believe in bell, compared to only 28 percent of the British (Greeley 1995). Concerning traditional religious participation, nearly 45 percent of Americans attend church more than once a week, compared to 23 percent of Belgians, 19 percent of West Germans, 13 percent of the British, 10 percent of the French, 3 percent of Danes, and only 2 percent of Icelanders (Verweij, Ester, and Nauta 1997).
The referenced sources of the above information, and the data itself, can be found here.
Very interestingly, if one of the Puritans had chopped a hole in the bottom of their ship while it was still in mid-Atlantic, he likely would have been one of the greatest American heroes of all time -- without ever having even reached America! And we'd never even have known his name.
Without the influence of the Puritans at the very inception of American society, it is highly probable that the United States today would be very much like Europe in this regard... and that the RRR Cult would never have existed.
And that if Jerry Falwell had existed, and had tried to organize that loathsome faction under those circumstances, he almost surely would have been told, very properly, to go fly a very large kite.
Finally -- what about Canada? With whom we share a common border over 4,000 miles long. Did it escape the RRR Cult, despite its adjacency and proximity? For the most part, yes! Very fortuitously! As pointed out by Zuckerman:
"Interestingly enough, Canada maintains a sort of middle ground between the United States and Western Europe concerning traditional religious belief: In 1995, 70 percent of Canadians claimed to believe in God or a universal spirit, standing between over 90 percent of Americans and 61 percent of Britons; 61 percent of Canadians claim to believe in heaven, standing between 78 percent of Americans and 50 percent Britons (Gallup and Lindsay 1999). Concerning church participation, 30 percent of Canadians attend church weekly (Bruce 1999), standing between 45 percent of Americans, 19 percent of West Germans, and 13 percent of Britons."
It wasn't as good as having a vast ocean seperating them from the land of the Puritans, as was the case for the Europeans. But developing as a separate nation undoubtedly afforded the lucky Canadians a great deal of protection against such repressive and irrational hatefulness. A strong enough filter, through which an insufficient amount of the cult's poison was able to pass, to result in an infestation.
For example -- there is nothing more harmless than same-sex marriage (SSM). It doesn't make people gay. It doesn't cause gay people to have sex any more often than they already do. (Not that that's anyone else's business than theirs; RRR cultists are some of the world's worst busybodies. And busybodyism & abject ignorance go together!) And there is no way in the world that SSM could do on one whit of harm to opposite-sex marriage, or to the marriage of any opposite-sex couple. Any notion that opposite-sex marriage somehow needs to be "defended" against it is one of the RRR Cult's most blatant and loathsome lies. Yet -- in the still-too-Puritanical USA, that hateful cult has scared Congress and state legislatures into passing so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws and state constitutional amendments. How utterly MINDLESS!
But by stark comparison, Canada fully legalized same-sex marriage. With no significant opposition from within its borders. As has a growing number of European nations. Intelligence and the RRR Cult are mutually-exclusive. Nor does the RRR emanate any compassion. Just a ducking-stool mentality and hateful irrationality.
There is very little that is Christian about America's very own Taliban.
And as long as that cult continues to infest America, and weild its influence upon our courts and our elected representatives, it is imperative that we keep this analogy in mind:
Just as segregation infested and poisoned the South, 50 years ago, this insidous, loathsome, and ignorance-laden cult threatens vital and important liberties of tens of millions of Americans today. Blacks were the targets before. Today, it's gays and girls & women.
And just as society outgrew and rejected segregation, we need to fight, outgrow, and reject the toxic RRR Cult and its hate-laden agenda today. What a sad commentary on America that such an infestation can still manifest itself and survive into the 21st century!
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Abortion-on-Request Talking Points:
Reproductive Rights as they have
existed in the USA since Jan. 22, 1973
that are devastating to the Anti-Choice agenda of the RRR Cult.
Please note: The host of this blog site's programming makes it difficult or impossible to indent. And that doesn't bode well for posting outlines, in which indentations are vital! Therefore, I have inserted asterisks (*) before each subgroup. More asterisks = deeper subgroups.
Terminology note: The term, "abortion-on-request," is employed herein because that is exactly what it IS. The more commonly-used term, "abortion on demand," may have been coined by Anti-Choicers, in an effort to imply that abortion should be hard to obtain. Thankfully, for most girls and women, it still is easy to access. It is as easy to walk into a clinic and obtain this remedy as it is to buy an over-the-counter medicine in a drug store, other than filling out some forms, in most cases.
The RRR Cultists have succeeded over the years, however, in pressuring ignorant people and fearful legislators into erecting some roadblocks that have complicated matters for teenage girls in many states. Such as requirements of parental notification or permission. Those who are responsible for having done that really need to ask themselves which option would be more likely to negatively impact a girl's future... forcing her to gestate to term, which could be devastating to countless of her future opportunities... or allowing her to easily have her full range of future opportunities restored via the remedy of abortion?
Brainwashing the ignorant is a key strategy employed by the dishonest and hateful leaders of the RRR Cult. The answer to the above question is as obvious as obtaining the answer when adding two plus two!
The worst threat to reproductive rights as 2008 dawns is the eventual fate of Roe vs. Wade. Thanks to "President" Bush's stuffing the U.S. Supreme Court with RRR cultists, we no longer have an egalitarian, personal-liberties-oriented High Court for the first time in 80 years. It is very likely that the only chance America may still have to avoid tyranny in the future is to ensure that a Democrat is elected President in November. And that the White House is not again stolen by the unscrupulous and dishonest Republican Party! Please see other articles in this blog, and in my APIFAR blog, for a greater understanding of this. Both contain detailed articles addressing these dangers. Especially in the APIFAR blog.
Here's the fact-filled outline. Please feel free to copy this entire document, and distribute it far and wide by all means at your disposal. It is not copyrighted. Nor is any other article in any of my blogs that were authored by me.
Abortion terminates entities (z/e/fs: zygotes, embryoes & Although the exact figures may be impossible to derive, the
fetuses, up until the 7th month of gestation) which have ALL
of these characteristics in common with sperm and ova:
-- Human
-- Unique
-- As a stage of development, indispensable to future birth
-- Have NEVER experienced conscious awareness^
-- Alive
...which makes it hypocritical when abortion opponents
try to defend zygotes, embryos, and fetuses (z/e/fs) but not
gametes (sperm and ova). Which comprise Stage One of the
reproductive process
^ (After the 7th month of gestation begins, conscious
awareness may be possible, but all the other of the above-
listed attributes still apply.)
And the Bible, which is the primary moral authority for the
majority of Americans:
-- In NO way condemns abortion
-- Doesn't even MENTION abortion
*-- By Jesus' day, abortion had been around for 1,000 yrs.
-- Contains NO defenses of any RPEs, as people.
*-- Reserves all of its protection for already-born people
*-- That the Bible regards personhood to begin at birth is
made clear by it's immense emphasis on the importance
of BIRTH order, BIRTHrights. and first-BORNS.
-- In certain cases, condemned babies to horrible deaths
-- Never indicates that there is anything "special" about
fertilization
*-- Thus making z/e/f and sperm & ova of EQUAL worth
Abortion-on-request enables women to:
-- Put their lives back on track immediately
-- Restore their well-being to pre-unplanned pregnancy levels
*-- The vast majority of women are happy with this decision
*-- Most women have no regrets
-- Restore their full range of future opportunities
-- Avoid physical difficulties of a 9-month pregnancy
*-- Especially important for young girls, ~12-16
-- Statistically 6-10 times safer than carrying-to-term
-- Avoid the trauma of adopting-out, and wondering later
-- Avoid possibility of changing mind about adopting-out
-- Reduce likelihood of long-term economic deprivation
-- Avoid bringing child into less-loving home
-- Avoid bringing child into unstable environment
-- Wait until timing is better before having children
*-- Who then are MORE likely to be loved
*-- Who then are MORE likely to be in stable home
**-- And thus are LESS like to have troubled childhoods
**-- And therefore more likely NOT to become criminals
*-- And thus are MORE likely to become successful
Legal abortion-on-request:
-- Is exponentially safer than illegal abortions
*-- Thus saving the lives of hundreds or thousands of women/yr.
-- Has been available throughout the USA since early 1973
*-- Between 1973 and 2008, 33 million women have had them
*-- Between 1973 and 2008, 45 million abortions have been done
Other related facts include:
-- MOST women who have abortions go on to HAVE kids later,
when the timing is better
*-- Those children would NOT have been born if the abortions
had not taken place earlier, because the same gametes
would not have matched up.
**-- Those "2nd-round" kids STARTED reaching age 13 in
significant numbers by 1988. By the early 1990s,
millionsof those "2nd-round" kids were in their
mid-teens by the early 1990s.
**-- Mid-teens is the highest risk age for crime, and
this continues into the early 20s.
***-- As pointed out above, wanted and loved children
are LESS prone to criminal behavior.
**-- By 1995, millions of "2nd-round kids" were entering
the workforce. Perhaps a million-plus MORE have entered it
every year SINCE. By 2000, the oldest ones had reached
the age where they could be getting quite successful.
***-- Since the early 1990s, the rate of violent crime in the USA
has declined dramatically, and by 2000 was at 40-year
lows in many categories.
***-- The decade of the 1990s, and the 21st century to date,
in the USA, has been the most economically-dynamic
period of time for any nation in the entire history of the
world. Except for the 1990s. The Clinton years.
Which were even better. GW Bush has done grievous
damage to the nation.
probability that abortion-on-request has substantially benefitted all of American society in terms of the crime rate and the economy is quite strong, despite the temporary anomaly caused by the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, and subsequent problems caused by the thieving rip-offs to consumers by Big Oil, and by the criminal impact of sub-prime loans to the housing market. Like the Energizer Bunny, American consumers just keep right on buying! And that counts for 2/3 of the entire U.S. economy. And a strong U.S. economy benefits the entire world.
Update on the economy, as of March 30, 2008: America has surely entered a recession in recent weeks (despite Bush's failure to acknowledge that). But this has come about as a result of factors that overwhelmed all beneficial ones mentioned above, thanks to the greed and mismanagement that led the nation into the sub-prime mortgage crisis. More than 2 million houses face foreclosure during the rest of 2008, and this recession is expected to last until at least 2010. IF consumers stop buying in droves, that could lead to an acual depression. All of these new developments have happened in spite of the benefits that have been derived from abortion-on-request. And might have ultimately become even more serious if we hadn't been spared from forced gestation over the last 34 years.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Interesting political ad currently running in Iowa--
Mitt Romney ADMITS that Both He & Huckabee
are Anti-Choice & Anti-Gay-Rights BIGOTS!
The ad has been on TV ad nauseum all over Iowa for about two weeks now, as crunch time for the crucial Iowa Caucuses has arrived. The purpose of Romney's hugely-negative (translate: "desperation!") ad is to politically disembowel Mike Huckabee -- the candidate that suddenly has jumped well in front of him in the polls.
Poor multi-multi-millionare Romney. Despite the countless dollars of his own that he's throwing at trying to buy the Presidency, he's in the process of being trounced by a guy who only has 1/20th as much to spend. Hilarious!
The only problem is that both of those Republican candidates (like every other candidate in that party, including even Rudy Giuliani, who has pledged to appoint only "conservatives" (i.e., bigots) to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would surely further poison it against personal liberties beyond the point of redemption, for decades to come) are loathsome bigots with respect to abortion and equal rights for gays. Both of them seek to see girls and women forced against their will to gestate all preganancies, whether they want to or not. And both of them hatefully (and ignorantly) seek to deny marriage of gays to their same-sex partners -- even though same-sex marriage is totally harmless!
Their hateful and ignorant stances on both of this highly-important social issues is revealed in the very first seconds of Romney's TV ad.
Works for me! Nothing like a good, constant reminder to almost all Iowans that neither of those bigoted losers is worth a damn! (I hope Romney is running the same ad in New Hampshire... where even more Republicans than in Iowa want nothing to do with such hateful idiocy!)Thus, we viewers (and caucus-and primary-going voters!) have been treated to the spectacle of Romney's politically disembowling Huckabee in the TV spot, as he'd planned -- and of simultaneously politically disemboweling himself!
Finally, Huckabee was on "Meet the Press" this morning, and in the course of that interview he clearly showed, once again, his profound ignorance of the human reproductive process. By claiming that life "begins" at fertilization. Isn't it fascinating that he's never yet managed to learn that gametes (sperm and ova) are alive? As well as comprising Stage ONE of the human reproductive process?
Huckabee seeks to make the lives of a million American women per year utterly miserable (and have them relegated again to second-class citizens) -- and to destroy their pre-ill-timed-pregnancy full range of future opportunities -- all in the name of supposedly "defending" Stage 2, 3, and 4 RPEs. (Zygotes, embryos, and fetuses -- the last three Reproductive-Process Entities.) While mindlessly, hatefully, and hypocritically ignoring the quadrillion-plus gametes that are being electively aborted daily, worldwide, by men. Those Stage One RPEs, just like those of the other three stages, also are human, alive, and potential people. Kill one sperm, and the unique person that it otherwise could have become will never be born. (The "H" word obviously is lost on the bigots of Anti-Choice.)
Clearly, the ONLY human life that counts (and thus, logically, the only human life that the Bible ever defends, as people) are... people. Who have been BORN.
Both Romney and Huckabee have a LOT to learn about good sense, fairness, compassion, and demonstrating the Christianity that they both claim to profess. By their fruits are Christians known, according to the Bible. Shamefully, the fruits of both of these candidates, and their other Republican counterparts, are spoiled and rancid!
Both Romney and Huckabee are utterly without excuse, and their bigotry should be a deal-breaker for every American at the ballot box. The last thing America needs is yet another hateful and mindless bigot in the White House! It's current resident (GW Bush) has already done grievous, and possibly even irreparable, damage to the nation.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Abortion's Truths.
Debunking the Vicious LIES
Spewed by "Focus on the Family."
In the January 2008 issue of their magazine is an insidious little article, which, true to form for FOF, which wouldn't know the truth about abortion if they tripped over it, tells lie after lie about it. It was supposedly written by a "senior director of Issues Analysis" for that organization, named Carrie Gordon Earll. Well, she may be a real person, and that may be her real name, but in any case, she's clearly delusional on this topic.
So we've decided to have some constructive and informative fun, and -- as a public service -- re-write her article so that it contains nothing but TRUE statements about abortion. The initial paragraphs are just as "Carrie" originally wrote them... before she proceeded to leap off the deep end and start spewing lies. From there on, we've corrected her lies, and presented them as the TRUTHS that actually pertain to abortion. We'll call the author of the corrected version, below, by the fictional name of "Sandy Jackson." And that will be the only fictional aspect of the article.Abortion's Truths
by "Sandy Jackson"
"I'll have an abortion, of course."
Those were my words about 20 years ago when the pregnancy test came back positive, threatening to put my plans for graduate school and career development on hold. I was a woman of the 1980s -- empowered and liberated by the right to abortion.
Abortion was legal, advertised in the telephone book by physicians with the government's implied stamp of approval.
Abortion empowered me to face an unexpected pregnancy with clarity, decisiveness, and self-respect.
At the time, I recognized that abortion was a reasonable solution for an unmarried woman, even for me -- a pastor's daughter attending a Christian university.
The termination of my unwanted pregnancy was a decision that I have never regretted. It immediately put my whole life back on track, and re-opened all the future opportunities that had been available to me before the ill-timed pregnancy had threatened them. It reversed a very bad situation, and simply made it as though the sperm and ovum had never met in the first place!
Truth No. 1:
Abortion is the cure-all for an unwanted pregnancyI correctly believed that my abortion would erase my pregnancy and make my life as it was before. And that is just what happened. It was simply a case of keeping it in it's proper perspective: abortion is nothing but a hugely-valuable cure for an unwanted medical condition. Just as aspirin alleviates the unwanted medical condition of headache. And it is just as pointless to dwell on it afterward as it would be in the case of curing a headache. Who can remember the last time they took an aspirin to end a headache? Same thing, since abortion is a perfectly harmless and usually simple medical procedure. The only thing memorable about it is the unusualness of it. Since taking aspirin is done more routinely and more often, and one doesn't have to see a doctor to accomplish it.
Over the years since I restored my life options, I've heard the term, "post-abortion syndrome" from many Anti-Choice sources, so I took a look at studies dealing with it, and soon found that it is nothing but a lying fabrication on the part of people who are hateful and ignorant enough to actually seek to force full gestation upon girls and women having UNwanted pregnancies, against their will. So-called "post-abortion syndrome" is nothing but a vicious myth, perpetuated for the purpose of scaring women out of obtaining this valuable remedy.
There are almost never any "consequences" experienced by women following abortion, and the very few who have had regrets or misgivings afterward tended almost every time to be women who'd had misgivings before getting the abortion.
Truth No. 2:
Abortion is about choice.The word, "choice," has become very closely identified with abortion, and very rightfully so. Since the ability of girls and women to choose between gestating to term and the remedy of abortion is one of the most vital rights in American society. When the benevolent justices of the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in women's favor on January 22, 1973, it was the greatest act of emancipation since Lincoln freed the slaves. It enabled girls and women who did not want to be enlaved against their will to reproductive-process entities (RPE) that they did not want to gestate, to be free of that unconscionable stricture, in all 50 states. Overnight, the ignorant and hateful anti-abortion laws were struck down from coast to coast, and liberty has prevailed ever since.
The forces of Anti-Choice have viciously attacked this right for over 30 years, and their objective is to leave women with NO choice but to be FORCED to gestate ALL pregnancies to term, whether they want to or not. The term, "choice," is meaningless to them. The leaders of that movement are the cunning and hateful pseudo-Christians of the "Religious" Radical Right, which comprises a very real cult. Call it the "RRR Cult," for best descriptiveness. And like any other cult, it depends upon brainwashing a host of lemmings with constantly-repeated lies. The targets of that brainwashing generally are fundamentalist-oriented Christians of lower intellect, since more-intelligent Christians in the mainstream denominations, who recognize that much of the Bible is allegorical, usually want nothing to do with the RRR's ignorant lies and hateful repressiveness. Interestingly, the RRR cultists number only about 15 million is the USA, which is only about 6% of Americans who profess Christianity. And the other 94% are mostly actual, sensible, and tolerant Christians who want no part of the RRR or its loathsome, anti-personal-liberties agendas.
Reliable polls, such as Gallup, Harris, and others, have found over the last 30 years that 2/3 of Americans have very consistently been PRO-Choice. Since 83% of all Americans profess Christianity, it doesn't take a math whiz to see that the majority of Christians are sensibly and compassionately Pro-Choice.
Truth No. 3:
Abortion empowers women.This important fact emerged during the 1960s, as Americans were awakening to the abject unfairness and hatefulness of forcing women to gestate to term against their will. Sensible and intelligent feminists sounded the clarion call that ready access to safe and legal abortion would enable women to have better control of their lives, and of their future opportunities. And that this freedom would further empower women with new opportunities in business, education, and society.
Many women like me believed this would be true, and indeed, that is precisely what has happened. Thousands of "glass ceilings" have been shattered in business, industry, and government, as women achieved more and more equality and opportunity with men on countless fronts. And for the first time, we are seeing the real possibility that a woman (Hillary Clinton) can be elected President of the United States. We truly have come a LONG way, baby! And the Emancipation we received in 1973 was a vital KEY to achieving that wondrous progress!
The RRR Cult has an oligarchical leadership of fewer than a dozen key people. Two of whom left the scene (and the planet) in 2007. It's founder, the late Jerry Falwell, who initiated the loathsome cult by brainwashing a couple of million fundamentalists into thinking they comprised a "Moral Majority," back in the mid-1970s. The cult, right from its inception, was not even remotely moral, nor a majority. And the head of Coral Ridge Ministries, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the late D. James Kennedy. Other surviving leaders include James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, former Watergate felon, Chuck Colson, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. As well as Beverly La Haye, of Concerned Women for America (what a misnomer; "Concerned Women Against America" would be more factual), Gary Bauer, former head of Family Research Council, and Donald Wildmon, of American Family Association, in Tupelo, Mississippi. Those leaders are hatefully dedicated, 24/7, to the destruction of legal access to the remedy of abortion. And thanks to the cooperation of the cult's primary toady, President G.W. Bush, who has poisoned the Supreme Court against personal liberties for the first time in 80 years by appointing two repressive justices to it, they might well succeed in that goal, unless we work very hard to prevent it!
Freedom isn't free! If women wish to remain empowered, they'll need to fight for it! And sensibly-egalitarian men will need to join in that effort as their allies!
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Merry Christmas to ALL! Tha above article of Christian affirmation of human rights is our Christmas Gift to you!
Sunday, December 9, 2007
RRR Cult Loses Again. <<chuckle!>>
Movie, "The Golden Compass," is No. 1 at Box Office.
The extremist pseudo-Christians of the RRR Cult have been whining for weeks, now, about "The Golden Compass" -- just as they did in the past about "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "The Da Vinci Code."
So it was fun to watch as that film soared to the top spot at the box office when it opened this weekend. No doubt at least in part due to the curiosity aroused in the populace by their whinings!
The nice thing about such whinings is that it does no one any harm! The films they take on almost always do better than they would have without their boistrous grousings... and thus even more people get to enjoy those movies.
Best of all is this: the time and resources they expend on such mindless and specious whinings dilutes their efforts to deny or destroy such liberties as abortion rights, and equal rights for gays. It's nice to see them waste their time and treasure that way.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
RUIN an RRR Cult Bigot's Whole Year!
Ask Him THIS Question.
I doubt if you will ever find a homophobe (and pretty much all RRR Cultists are homophobes) who can give a rational answer to this question. It'll put him right on the spot! Don't be surpised if he sputters and blusters a lot, and even gets angry with you. But guaranteed -- he will not be able to give you a good answer. (It's one of the most fun things you can do to a bigot! Enjoy!!)
SCENARIO: Assume that there's a gay couple that has been cohabiting in a state for 20 years. Then, the day finally comes when they are able to get legally married to each other, and they go ahead and do so.
QUESTION: HOW would their getting married have any negative impact on the marriage of any opposite-sex married couple in that community, or anywhere else? I mean -- remember all those so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws that were passed? Just WHAT did those so-called "traditional" marriages need "defending" from?
This may just be one of the BEST ways to exemplify both the hatefulness and the ignorance that pervades the pseudo-Christian "Religious" Radical Right. Then, just to rub it in even further, remind the person that same-sex marriage has been legal throughout all of Canada for a couple of years, now -- and that it has been totally harmless. Canada is doing just FINE!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Well, fellow Christians, if the Bible is to be believed,
it looks like everyone on earth is DOOMED!
Including us!
It's time to play "devil's advocate." Have some food for thought. Your comments are invited!
Many, many actual Christians, both mainstream and fundamentalist, believe that the Bible contains no contradictions. But that's such an extreme case of living in denial as to be ludicrous. If a person does a Google search for: "Bible" "contradictions" -- he'll find that there are hundreds of contradictions -- most of which cannot be explained away by even the most far-fetched and clutching-at-straws attempts to do so.
And here is a KEY example of that: Rev. 21:8 vis-a-vis the New Testament's promises of salvation."But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
There you go! "ALL liars."
Have you ever met any person who doesn't at least tell "white" lies? Every sentient and conscious person older than infancy on the planet lies some of the time. So -- pretty much everyone on earth, whether Christian or not, is inexorably doomed to hellfire, according to this passage, which provides for NO exceptions.
So if you're not an infant, then tough luck, gang! That's the... way it goes...
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Hey! Sudan!! I just named my DOG "Muhammad."
After yer PROPHET. Whatcha gonna DO about it?
If there is any major religion in the world that has more loony WACKOS infesting it than Christianity, it's gotta be Islam! Christianity is infested by the pseudo-Christian RRR Cult (whose False-Teacher leaders and lemmings are almost all found within the USA; the rest of the world really lucked out on that one!), which seems to be primarily interested -- so far -- in mindlessly executing the personal liberties of millions of people. But in Islam, we find thousands of idiots running around seeking to execute people. And in this latest instance, it's a teacher from Britain who completely innocently named a teddy bear, "Muhammad," after a student -- not after the prophet. And crowds of idiotic loons in Sudan are screeching for her to be executed for that!
How utterly DUMB can people be?
Answer: In the USA, dumb enough to be RRR cultists. And in much of the rest of the world, dumb enough to be Islamic extremists.
All of them crazier than barn owls.
And all of them giving their religions, and their normal adherents, a very bad name. I have the utmost respect for reasonable people who practice sensible religions fairly. Trampling on NO one else's rights or personal liberties. But I have NO respect for extremists. (In the USA, the RRR Cult is our own, home-grown version of the Taliban. They are utterly without excuse!)
So -- Tough luck, extremists in Sudan!! My DOG now is named "Muhammad" -- after your PROPHET! Not "innocently." On PURPOSE! And he's a nice young dog. He'll have that name for the rest of his life. And then I'll name my next dog "Muhammad." (Or maybe I'll make that a pot-bellied PIG.) Again, after the prophet!
And there's not one single damned thing you can do about it! (Picture me laughing right in your faces!)
READERS -- I invite you to JOIN me in doing that. With your pets and your stuffed animals. And then do your best to let the world know that you did it -- and why.
Monday, November 26, 2007
There are Christians and there are PSEUDO-Christians.
It's important to know the critical difference!
The first, unfortunately, is often painted with a hateful brush that only the latter deserve.
Interestingly, whenever anyone complains that "Christians are being bashed in the media," those complaints (usually more in the form of plaintive whines) emanate not from normal Christians, but from pseudo-Christiams. And the media is very properly critical of them for their extremist agendas. Or would "properly" be, except...
There's just one problem with that. The media (news, TV sitcoms, dramas, etc., and articles & commentaries in print) all too often come down on "Christians" in general. I'm not at all sure that the media even realizes that there's a huge difference between those whom they actually are targeting with derisiveness or criticism, and the vastly-larger number of professing Christians who don't deserve a bit of that treatment. Many of the mefia folks may actually believe that ALL professing Christians are extremists. (And boy, is it ever a good thing that they are very wrong if they make that assumption, for reasons you're about to see!)
In order for the unfairness to end, it is very important that society comes to the full realization that there's a dichotomy in professing Christians that has a day-and-night difference!
Normal Christians are everyone's sensible, fair-minded, pretty intelligent, usually tolerant, ordinary, unobtrusive, work-a-day next-door neighbors. Unlike their counterpart, they are quiet, low-profile, and friendly people who usually have a live-and-let-live attitude with respect to the personal affairs and behaviors of other people. Very few of them ever engage in any form of busybodyism or discrimination.
In America, 83% of the population professes Christianity. Only a mere 6% of those are the obnoxious and bigoted counterparts of the Normal Christians... a group that can very aptly be called the RRR Cult. The psueudo-Religious Radical Right. Which has an oligarchical leadership and about 15 million lemming-like adherents who follow their pronouncements and agendas in unquestioning lockstep. Like the good little cultists that they truly are.
The tenets of the RRR Cult are frequently unbiblical, but are presented to the lemmings so as to seem to be Biblical. One of the key objectives of the leadership is to cause their followers to believe that it is their duty to act as enforcers of the cult's agendas upon society in general -- as a whole. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Because there is one key passage in the Bible that prohibits anyone from doing that. 1 Cor. 5:12-13. A passage that the cult's leaders will never cite to their lemmings.
You see, there is only one way that the Bible authorizes peer pressure or enforcement of its precepts by a person or group of people, against anyone else, and that is church discipline. Which is non-violent "punishment" of a "sinning" person (or group of people) within a church's own congregation -- by fellow members of that congregation. As for society in general? Well -- if it gets out of line, then it is God's business to deal with that -- and no one else's. As the passage makes very clear, in the NIV Bible:1 Cor. 5:12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside.
Neither God nor the Bible appoints or authorizes a Gestapo. But that's what the RRR Cult is trying to emulate. A self-styled and self-appointed Gestapo.
It should be pointed out that not all of the RRR cultists are pseudo-Christians. Many of them are limited-mentality actual Christians (most of whom were already fundamentalists) who have been conned by their crafty leaders to believe that the cult's agendas are worthwhile. The cult's agendas are so extreme, however, and so ludicrous, that the leaders need to target the lower-IQ folks. Since people who are more astute would see through their nonsensical and hateful shams and lies in a heartbeat! False Teachers don't have to con everyone. To be successful, they need only to appear to be benign and Christian to those whom they delude -- and to deceive enough people to be powerfully influential within society.
For example, President GW Bush, who is Number One Toady to the cult, has probably destroyed the U.S. Supreme Court for the rest of all of our lifetimes, by appointing two anti-personal-liberties justices to it. Those are lifetime appointments, and both of them are fairly young! Up until now, that Court has had a pro-human-rights majority for the last 80 years... but many of those decisions that protected our rights did so by hair's-breadth 5-4 majorities. Almost no one alive today has ever experienced anything BUT a benevolent and egalitarian Supreme Court. But we have the opposite now -- and that may constitute the camel's nose under America's tent, leading ultimately to tyranny.
HOW dangerous is the RRR Cult? Consider this analogy --RRR : Society :: 5% arsenic solution : glass of drinking water
Until their loathsome agendas can be relegated to the boneyard of extinction, to join the equally-ignorant and hateful agendas of the segregationists of 50 years earlier, America is seriously threatened. Far more that the above-cited poisoning of the U.S. Supreme Court (as though that weren't more than enough, in its own right.)
Fortunately for America... and the infestation of the RRR is pretty much confined just to this country (lucky us! )... the RRR's False Teachers (they fit the prophecies of those perfectly!) and their lemmings are outnumbered almost 20-1 by tolerant, common-sense, and compassionate Normal Christians. Now if we can just get the media, and society in general (which listens to the media), to recognize the clear-cut dichotomy between the two groups! Most Normal Christians (who make up most of society) aren't even aware why they are being targeted and accused of hatefulness -- and most of them actually are unaware that they even are being painted with that brush. They're too busy pursuing their own, individual, work-a-day lives.
That other 94% of Christians -- the Normal Christians who are sensible and tolerant people -- make up about 250,000,000 of the USA's 300 million people. IF they were anything like the RRR cultists, America would already be a tyrannical theocracy that would make Iran look benign by comparison. So PLEASE -- keep these two completely opposite groups of people straight in your minds, and don't blame "Christians" when you see hatefulness and bigotry. We do not deserve to be wrongfully painted with the RRR Cult's brush. (And one more thing... the RRR loves to proclaim that "Christians oppose abortion." That's a major LIE. Fully 2/3 of Americans support the right to choose, and reliable polls have shown that to be consistently true for over 30 years. And 5/6 of Americans are Normal Christians. Do the math. Most of us are sensibly Pro-Choice! Ironically, when it comes to breaking that Commandment against lying, RRR cultists are experts at it. And their leaders are past masters of deception, propaganda, and the practice of cafeteria theology. When the Bible and the RRR's agendas conflict, that's ignored. And when the leaders think they can get some mileage out of a passage -- no matter how tenuous! -- they employ it.)
The RRR Cult can best be summed up as America's internal, sociopathic terrorists. They seek to deny or destroy vital personal liberties of tens of millions of girls, women, and gays for NO good reason. They would love to impose theocratic rule upon America, and that is their ultimate objective. They are the USA's very own home-grown version of the Taliban.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
How LONG is Eternity? How will we spend it?
Eternity is incomprehensibly long. Our lifetimes here on earth are almost literally nothing by comparison, since eternity is endless. But just for fun, let's look at some numbers.
A googleplex is a 1, followed by 100 zeros. Looks like this:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000This is a bit problematical, since 3 doesn't divide evenly into 100, so what we really have is 10 of something else (gosh knows what its name is) that equals a googleplex.
But consider this -- the time you've spent by then is only the first split-second of endless eternity.
But that's neither here nor there. Because if, after you die and your new eternal life gets underway, you find at some point that you've been out and about in the universe for the above number of years, and you'll know that's been a very long time.Let's jump ahead in time. To the time when you've spent a googleplex of years TIMES a googleplex, of your eternal existence. That's still only the first split-second of eternity! Which will never end.
If there's some math in your background, try to imagine that latest number of years we've just discussed... to the google-times-a-google power... factorial! And after your eternal life has gone on for that long -- you STILL are only within the first split-second of eternity!
Now, let's suppose your job in the next life is astro-geographer-historian, and your task is to personally explore, map, learn, and record every salient fact about every single astronomical body in God's entire universe. Would you have time? Sure! Because eternity will never end!
This is a photo of the Eta Nebula, right here in our own galaxy. It could easily contain a million or more stars. How long would it take for you to explore, map, and describe all the salient details of each of those stars, and all their associated planets, planetoids, asteroids, comets, and all material and gaseous particles that are at large in space, of all sizes, all the way down to the size of a molecule?
Okay. Let's say you've finished with that task. Of course, that photo shows only an infinitesimally-small portion of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Maybe only a millionth or so of it. Since this galaxy contains around 300 billion stars. (With a "B.") And you still have the whole rest of the galaxy to go.
Science thinks the known universe contains around 250 BILLION additional galaxies, most of them comparable in size to our own. So as you move on to the rest of them, one-by-one, you just know that you really have a LOT of job security!
One day though, an unspeakably-huge number of years later, you'll have completed the last survey.
But you've really only just started. Because in all those eons, the universe has completely changed, and the stars and worlds you first explored and studied don't even exist any more, and new ones... and galaxies... now exist in their place. So you start all over again.
LOTS of job security!!
But not to worry. After you have completed this entire task a googleplex of times -- you STILL will only be within the first split-second of eternity!(I wonder if we'll get to change jobs, during the course of eternity? Or will our astro-geographer-historian have to continue doing that same task an infinite number of times? Forever!?! We won't know 'til we get there. Talk about God's keeping us all in suspense! The Book of Revelation really needed at least one, very detailed, additional chapter at its end!)
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Regarding Abortion -- God's "WIN-WIN-WIN" Situation
God is omniscient and omnipotent. That means that He has always known everything about everything, past present and future. And that He may freely interact, uniquely, with any person, group, or all humanity, however and whenever He chooses.
And then, there also is the very real possibility that God chooses to instill souls only in the entities that He knows, beforehand, will be born. Then there are no free passes to heaven, except for infants and children below each one's age of accountability. Presumably. But that's no loss to the quadrillion human reproductive-process entities (RPEs) at Stage One which are electively aborted daily, worldwide, by men. Which, like the later-stage RPEs, never experienced conscious awareness, so never knew the difference.Trillions (indeed, even octillions) of years ago, God knew just which human entities from gametes on -- sperm & ova, inclusive) would be born, and which ones would NOT, for whatever reason. In the case of Jeremiah, He interacted before Jeremiah reached the womb -- while Jeremiah was still at the sperm-and-ovum stage! (Jer. 1:5). In that particular case, at least, Jeremiah had been instilled with his soul while he was still at the sperm-and-egg stage -- the stage at which the Bible says God interacted with Jeremiah. So it's very possible that God instills all souls at that stage... since God already knows which of them will later become people, and which ones will not. And if He does choose to instill souls in all of those, then heaven must be a very populated place. And any potential people that happened to have been aborted then got a free pass to heaven. And missed the risk of not making it there, that's faced by all of us here on earth... God's "basic training grounds."
These pillars are incomprehensibly huge! It takes four years for light to travel, at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, from one end to the other of the taller one! But this is only an infinitesimal part of the universe. Think... perhaps akin to one molecule within one grain of sand vs. all such molecules from all the other grains of sand in the world.
Atheists UNITE to Fight the RRR Cult. Will this awaken Actual Christians to the need to JOIN them against that common foe?
E. Iowa atheists speak up.
They unite to fight sway of religion over government.
by Molly Rossiter
The Cedar Rapids GazetteJaime Sabel and her husband, Brian, started Iowa Secularists in 2004 to form ‘‘a community of non-believers’’ in the Iowa City area. Now their non-profit organization has 150 members statewide and 50 more on mailing lists. They are part of a growing group of atheists across the country becoming more vocal fighting what they call a budding ‘‘theocracy,’’ caused by an increase in religious issues they say are being injected into government.
Made up mostly of atheists Jaime Sabel Started Iowa Secularists and agnostics, Sabel said, Iowa Secularists has provided a forum to ‘‘fight for the separation of church and state.’’
‘‘Last year there was proposed legislation that didn’t go anywhere saying that the Pledge (of Allegiance) had to be recited, and those who didn’t want to say it had to keep a respectful silence,’’ said Sabel, 29, of Iowa City.
‘‘That was in contrast to what atheists and secularists in general want to keep separate. I think secularists are more aware of what they have to lose because of this push by the religious right.’’ According to a new study by the Barna Research Group, about 9 percent of the American population, or roughly 20 million people, openly identify themselves as an atheist, agnostic or having "no faith." Of those, 56 percent say radical Christianity is a threat to the United States.
Meanwhile, 63 percent of Christians perceive the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.
‘From many points of view, the militant atheists and the militant evangelicals are peas in a pod — they both advance an array of question-begging arguments and act uncharitably toward their opponents,’’ said Howard Rhodes, a University of Iowa professor of religion, ethics and politics.
‘‘Given that most of the underlying issues are political, this kind of public discussion runs the risk of undermining essential aspects of democracy. Each side seems to say the other is not welcome in this society.’’ Membership in organizations geared toward non-believers is rising, and books touting the non-existence of God, such as ‘‘The God Delusion,’’ are hitting best-seller lists across the country. ‘
‘The fact that many educated persons of a certain class simply regard theism as unbelievable is not new,’’ Rhodes said. ‘‘What is new is the fact that many of them have felt compelled to denounce aggressively and in public the beliefs of their fellow theistic citizens.’’ Kirkwood for Reason, a student group for atheists, agnostics and secularists at Kirkwood Community College, is in its first year with 14 active members. Chairman Mike Ireland, 26, has started a Secular Student Alliance chapter on campus, as well. ‘‘A certain amount of the momentum can be attributed to a response to the increased pressure fundamentalist Christians are putting on government,’’ Ireland said.
Lydia Hartunian, faculty adviser for Kirkwood for Reason, has just started a nonprofit group, Iowa Atheist Alliance.
‘‘When President Bush got re-elected, the country seemed to be more divided. Now it is kind of a war between whether we want to be a theocracy or whether we want to be a secularized nation as the founders intended,’’ said Hartunian, who teaches humanities and philosophy at the Cedar Rapids community college.
• Contact the writer: (319) 398-8288 or molly.rossiter@gazettecommunications.com.
COMMENTARY
This blog supports the religions (or lack thereof) of ALL people, including atheists. The only thing we oppose in that regard is when thoughtless and hateful people use it as an excuse to attempt to discriminate against any people or groups, or deny or erode civil/human rights and personal liberties.
Fascinatingly, most atheists, just like an incredibly large number of normal (actual) Christians, are amazingly unaware of the huge dichotomy that exists between two groups of professing Christians. MOST of society has no idea that in the USA, professing Christians exist as (1) actual Christians who are mostly everyone's quiet, sensible, unobtrusive, tolerant, relatively-intelligent, work-a-day and egalitarian next-door neighbors. Fully 94% of the USA's professing Christians, and the group to which I belong... and (2) the pseudo-Christians and low-IQ propaganda-brainwashed actual Christians, and their cunning and deceitful leaders, who together comprise the RRR Cult... the "Religious" Radical Right. Only a mere 6% of Americans who profess Christianity. But they comprise one very obnoxious, control-freakish, busybodyish, rights-disrespecting and -hating, high-profile, strident, and noisome faction. America hasn't been infested with a more dangerous crowd of bigoted losers since the agendas of the segregationists swirled down the Drain of Extinction over 40 years ago. And they are so much like the segregationists, in terms of their level of abject ignorance, hatefulness, and warped mindset against legitimate liberties as to be downright scary.So this is a microcosm of a very interesting new development. Atheists, who have mostly been without much in the way of organizations, are now beginning to come together all over America in a dramatic fashion to oppose bigotry. It's not just happening in Iowa!
I mean -- didn't America outgrow such abject stupidity when the segregationists either grew up or crawled into closets, to defend themselves against public scorn? Tragically, I don't think we did. Sadly, I'm afraid that when Jerry Falwell started the so-called "Moral Majority" (to his everlasting disgrace!), a million or more former segregationists, still as ignorant and hateful as ever, scurried over there and found a new home! NOW they could have a NEW and more "respectable" ste of targets for their vitriolic hate: women and gays. The RRR Cult is a repressive crowd of losers in many ways, but their primary goals are to destroy forever the right of girls and women to have safe and legal access to the hugely-beneficial remedy for the unwanted medical condition of ill-timed pregnancy -- the reversal of that condition. Abortion. Despite the fact that:
Reproductive-Process Entities (RPEs) : People :: Acorns : Oak Trees And to deprive homosexuals of the SAME rights that heterosexuals have with respect to housing, the workplace, military service, and to marry their partner of choice. (Nothing in the Constitution governs the gender composition of married couples.) The RRR Cult lyingly calls all of those equal rights "special" rights, when it's homosexuals who are seek them. How ludicrous and stupid! And the RRR Cult leaders' lemmings swallow all of that mindless and hateful tripe, hook, line, and sinker!
Fortunately for America, society is awakening to their idiotic bigotries, and is starting to fight back, as we saw in the story above. And it's a good thing, too! UNchallenged, the RRR Cult -- the USA's very own home-grown version of the TALIBAN -- could be gravely dangerous to America and it's future. They would absolutely love to turn this nation into a tyrannical theocracy, no matter how much they may pretend to be patriotic.Homosexuality is merely a variation of NORMALCY. Just like handedness, race, and eye color. It takes a very ignorant person to seek to discriminate against anyone on the basis of any such variations.
Consider this. 83% of Americans profess Christianity. 6% of them (the RRR) works out to be just 5% of the nation's population as a whole. And as long as that cult survives to infest society, we must keep THIS analogy in mind:
RRR Cult : Society :: 5% Arsenic solution : Glass of drinking water So BRAVO to the atheists, who recognize this awful threat, and are organizing to oppose it! May they become very effective in achiving this goal. But while they are doing it, they need to remember that they are not fighting "Christians." The 94% of us that are their good and fair-minded neighbors. They are fighting a small percentage of pseudo-Christian bigots who lyingly claim to be Christian, but couldn't be more UN-Christian in the way they behave.
MEANWHILE, it's time for the actual Christians to awaken to the threat, and JOIN the atheists against this common enemy. There are 250,000,000 of us in America. And there are 20 million atheists and agnostics. For a total of 270 million. And those of other faiths can join us. 15 million more. For a total of 285 million, opposing the RRR Cult's mere 15 million. Together, we can easily relegate the RRR's loathsome agendas to the dustbin of history, to moulder with those of the segregationists, overnight! The time for apathy is over. It's time to spread the word, and educate society (which mostly is comprised of actual Christians who don't know these facts yet) about this. It's time for a call to arms against America's liberty-hating internal Taliban.
