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Good People

Good People

To the uninitiated “religion” is something that “good” people do.

Most people don’t know the difference between religions. Instead they think of religion as a “good” thing. Some of these people are a little more selective. They believe that Christianity is a “good” thing. Or, they think that “Buddha” was a good guy. Or, they think that the prophet Mohammed knew all the answers and they are written in the Koran.

In reality there are very few people that know a lot about many religions. And, there are even fewer people that know a lot about many religions and they are impartial to a particular religion. This is because people who are interested in religion tend to already have a favorite when they go into religious study. Some people may have been raised in a Christian country like the United States and they “shop around” for a religion. But, they shop around to several different Christian religions. It would be quite rare that they would “shop around” at Muslim, Christian, Jewish Hindu and Hebrew, Shinto, Tao and Buddhist religions. Not to mention that this process would be time consuming, because each religion teaches you about their faith over a long period of time, but it is also somewhat disingenuous of someone to claim the commitment required to go forward with the process.

People can learn about different religions by reading about them. They can learn about different religions by attending services. However, going through the indoctrination process is the only way to truly know what is expected of a follower in each faith.

So, the myth continues. People believe that all religions have to do with “good” people trying to do “good” things. So, when a truly evil religious group acquires power the aura of “goodness” shines over they group. It becomes incredibly difficult to expose the true nature of the evil.

Therefore one simply needs to repeat the mantra, “Exclusive Religions are Evil Religions.”

This is simply because no matter what your religion you need to realize that there is some deity that is concerned about all humans. Of course if you don’t believe in a deity at all, you still know that “good” people don’t need a deity to do “good.” And, the true effect of “good” religion is to do “good.”

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

I have been reading the Da Vinci Code recently. I finished Al Franken’s “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.” I highly recommend Al Franken’s book, for anyone who needs a good laugh.

I always have a need to discuss books while I am in the middle of it, instead of waiting until I finish. This is because when I finish I am usually off to read the next one. So, I just got to the place in the Da Vinci Code where they tell us about The Gnostic Gospel of Philip. Well, I am not completely familiar with Dan Brown, so I don’t know if he is completely making stuff up for entertainment value, or is he weaving facts together to create another way to look at the facts.

But Brown makes some extraordinary statements by quoting Philips Gospel. But, I needed to know if they were real quotes or made up quotes. Fortunately in this day and age we can just search the internet and find the truth. So I found a translation of The Gnostic Gospel of Philip: http://reluctant-messenger.com/gospel-of-philip.htm

And, I found the exact quotes that Dan Brown used in the Da Vinci Code.

So, what does this say?

Quote 1:

“There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.”

We already knew of Mary his mother, but we didn’t know that Jesus had any siblings. Because, if he did have a sister or a brother then Mary his mother couldn’t continue to be a virgin. But even more than that, Mary Magdalene was his companion. In ancient times, this means that Jesus was actually married. No wonder the early church wanted this version of the Gospel destroyed. They didn’t want people to know the truth about Jesus.

If there is any doubt, we have quote 2:

“As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."”

Now we have Jesus kissing a woman on the mouth. It just goes to say how Christians today have missed the truth in the life of Jesus....

Conservatives Harm Family Businesses

Conservatives Harm Family Businesses

With all the talk of family values you would think that conservatives would support laws that would help family businesses. However, in the wine business conservatives support the larger wineries. And, why is that?

When a winery wants to sell its wine out of state the sell becomes very confusing. There is quite a bit of paperwork required to sell your wine into another state. Not only is there paperwork, but it is different for every state if it is even allowed. Large wineries use distributors to bring large quantities of wine into a particular state. The wine is then sold to stores that allow people to purchase the product in their store. Small family owned wineries do not make enough wine to justify hiring a distributor. Therefore, small family wineries are stuck at a lower production level and they can’t increase their sells gradually to the point where they could justify hiring a distributor.

The solution is to allow these family wineries to sell their wine directly to the person requesting the wine. Ordering wine through the mail certainly isn’t the cheapest way to buy wine. But conservatives worry that children will get on the phone and buy some wine so they can go out and get drunk at a football game. The news is that the kids are going to buy the “mad dog 20/20” at the “quick rip” before they buy the wine over the phone and wait for it to be delivered. The real reason conservatives don’t want the wine shipped directly to the purchaser is because the state might be cut out of the revenue stream. Greedy conservatives believe the a couple of thousand dollars in revenue may but the states into the red. Other religious conservatives just want to deny alcohol to everyone and this is just another lever to pull.

The truth is conservatives don’t really care about family businesses they care about being elected so they can give tax cuts to the wealthy.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6670741/

Steroids

Steroids

...They are not just for Science or Entertainment anymore. The Nazis experimented with steroids in their effort to build the perfect man. The Russians and the East Germans used them to win Olympic medals. Then they must be evil, right?

Let’s take a step back and look at athletics in general. What is the point of athletics? The ancient Greeks created athletics in an effort to prevent war. They brought many of the city-states together in order to compete with each other so they wouldn’t feel the need to kill one another. The victory in athletics could be substituted for a victory in battle. Superiority no longer depended on death, but on the affirmation of life. The most powerful athletes were victorious.

When archeologists re-discovered the ancient Greek Olympics society was re-discovering athletics in general. Before the late 1800s athletics was a diversion from extremely long work works. People played games to relax. They would never contemplate athletics for the sake of athletics alone. Athletics became a more regular activity among people who could afford to dedicate the extra time to their sport.

Under these circumstances people who had money and loved a sport could play it enough to become very good at it. They more time you had the better you were at your sport. So, winning in sports was a way to display your free time, a symbol of your wealth. At the same time professional sports began to appear. The wealthy that were not in physical shape also wanted to demonstrate their wealth. They did this by created professional teams. The more money that they had the better athletes they could afford, and hence the better the team would be.

This is the way it was until to 1960s. In the cold war the Olympics became a way to demonstrate to the world the superiority of your country. The Soviet block wanted to show how strong the Soviet countries were, so they could claim that their system produced strength. The battle was to win over smaller countries to their way of government. The United States pushed the idea of capitalism, but they also helped sponsor athletes so that our country could prevail over the Soviet block countries. During these years winning became political. Both sides used steroids in an effort to win and show strength. So, we were back to the athletics as an outlet instead of war. Both sides made efforts to retain their advantage.

But, the reality of athletics is that some people are more athletic than others. Why is this? This is because some people produce more natural steroids than other people do. Women produce fewer steroids on average than men do. So, if all things are equal, then the person who has built up more muscle because his/her body produces more natural steroids than the other will win the strength events. So, the strength events are measuring who was born with the ability to develop the most strength. This seems to be a strange thing to be proud about. It is just as bad as a beauty contest. In a beauty contest contestants need to practice walking, controlling their calorie intake, and their manners. In athletics athletes need to practice to build their muscles and develop the skills required for the sport.

So, when a person takes steroids he/she is in essence leveling the playing field. Someone who isn’t born with enough natural steroids takes supplements to get him up to the level of the guy who produces more natural steroids. What difference does it make? Either way the athletes are freaks of human nature. They are the far end of the spectrum in the strength category. Steroids just allow the less freaky people to become athletic freaks. What difference does it make, because the people paying to see these athletes are paying to see athletic freaks do something the normal person could only wish he/she could do?

So, in the long run in professional sports it really doesn’t matter if an athlete takes steroids. This is because people pay to see freaks play sports and the freakier that they are the more money they will pay.

Bush and Cheney Hate Democracy

Bush and Cheney Hate Democracy

Bush and Cheney brought Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi here as a campaign stunt. They wanted him to speak to the UN and to Congress in order to bolster their description of the war in Iraq as a roaring success. Unfortunately Allawi spoke with journalists before he read his speech to the UN and to congress. So, he happened to flip flop on the issue of the current situation in Iraq. At first he told the interviewer that terrorists were over running his country. But suddenly three days later he told us that all was on track in Iraq. We all know that the Bush administration wrote the speeches that he gave to the UN and to congress, so it wouldn’t be surprising that there would be contradictions between the Bush policy on what is happening in Iraq and what is actually happening there.

But, when Bush and Cheney criticized Kerry for pointing out the discrepancy every American should cringe. This is because they are undermining the concept of free speech by doing this. They are saying, “a fair person doesn’t criticize a guest in our country.” And, why don’t they do this? They shouldn’t do this because it hurts our re-election campaign? Because Kerry is criticizing the words put into Allawi’s mouth by the Bush administration. He doesn’t doubt that Allawi spoke the truth before Bush had a chance to get to him.

Bush and Cheney must really want to be re-elected badly in order to undercut democracy this way.

George W Bush Dusts Off the Compassionate Conservative Misnomer

George W Bush Dusts Off the Compassionate Conservative Misnomer

In a speech today George W Bush started talking about compassionate conservatives again. The American people should know that George W Bush doesn’t care for the average man. Few four years we haven’t seen George W Bush do anything compassionate. He has killed thousands in the Middle East, many of them children. He has denied children education funding that they need. He has taken Army Reservists away from their families and sent them to an unnecessary war in Iraq. Through his faulty economic policy George W Bush will be the only president who has lost more jobs than he has created since the Great Depression. That doesn’t sound compassionate. He cut the taxes on dividends, while he cut programs for the poor. He has done everything that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld told him to do. And, none of these guys are compassionate.

Republicans Resort to Cyberterrorism

Republicans Resort to Cyberterrorism

It’s interesting that Republicans say they believe in free speech, but they really don’t want the truth to be known. President Bush continues to distort the things that John Kerry has been saying during the entire election. But it isn’t just President Bush, it’s Dick Cheney, Condolesa Rice, Donald Rumsfeld as well. But, it isn’t just the administration. The Republican bloggers continue to tell people they disagree with to shut-up or worse. Many of these bloggers sign their comments with crude language, even though they claim to be part of the Religious Right. But once again it isn’t just the bloggers. Several very informative web sites have been getting hate mail mainly from Republicans. One web site Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 http://www.electoral-vote.com/ not only got hate mail from Republicans, they were attacked by hackers. They were not attacked only once, but many times over the last several days. This web site does have a Kerry/Democrat leaning commentary, but it also presents the facts from polling services and it shows who is in the lead.

I don’t understand what the point of bringing the system down is. Perhaps, because Kerry was ahead in the electoral college count for the last few days they didn’t want the truth to be known. But, the point is that it doesn’t matter who is ahead in the polls now, it matters on November 2, 2004. I wonder if factcheck.org gets the same hate mail from Republicans that don’t want people to know the truth about George W Bush and Dick Cheney.