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Today’s Daily Blog is in recognition of Independence Day. One argument that I get from some particularly stupid fundamentalist Christians surprisingly a lot is that Christianity  must be true because we use Christ’s alleged birth as the basis for our dating system; BC meaning “Before Christ” and AD meaning “Anno Domini” (in the year or our lord).

Scholars have rejected that dating system is favor of another more politically correct dating system of BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era). However, for some strange and surely completely coincidental reason the Common Era happens to coincide perfectly with the Christian dating system based around the alleged birth of Jesus. What a copout. Personally, I don’t really like that, but for lack of another dating-system it is definitely preferable to the Christian one.

Next, I have noticed that most of the fundamentalists seem to think of themselves as super patriotic despite the fact that more often than not, they have zero clue about the Constitution, US History, and think that patriotism means wearing and waving the American Flag 24/7. Many of them are supporters of the failed attempt to rebellion against the United States known as the Confederacy. But I digress.

So, it is time for an experiment. Let’s make the fundamentalists choose. Are they more loyal to America or to Christianity? On this Independence Day weekend, I am announcing my extremely ambitious plan to remake the dating system yet again. The 12 month calendar can stay the same, but the new year zero will no longer be the alleged birth of Jesus. Instead, it will be the Signing of the American Declaration of Independence (Formerly 1776 AD or CE). That means that effective immediately today’s date will be Thursday, July 2rd 233 AE (American Era). For those not gifted in math, all you have to do is take the year you want to convert and subtract 1776 from that year on our calculating device.

Now I know that America isn’t the center of the world and the Earth is a big place. But let’s face facts the American Declaration of Independence did reshape the world first by putting the seeds in motion for the creation of our current super power status. Second, The Declaration re-popularized democracy and third by making governments accountable to their people and inspiring people of all nations to rebel against unjust rule. The American Revolution was the revolution for the entire world. Besides, this is after all an experiment to test the loyalties of fundamentalist Christians in America.

Call to Action: Please contact your Congressperson and both of your Senators and let them know that you support the American Dating System and that they should propose the bill. The year is 233 AE (American Era) and anything before that would be BAE (Before the American Era). Let’s see if the uber-patriotic fundamentalists will put their religion over their patriotic need to put America first.

Below, I have drafted a letter that I am sending out and am encouraging you to also send out to your Senators and congressperson. They usually respond to every letter they receive first with a form letter of acknowledgement and then a few weeks later with a more in depth letter. When you do get that in depth letter back, please come back to this blog and let us know what your elected official has said.

Dear [elected official],
As Independence Day is right around the corner I was thinking about our dating system. What I mean by this is the way Americans and people around the world denote years. Traditionally, we use the BC/AD system which is a blatant endorsement of the Christian religion. BC as you are no doubt aware, means “Before Christ” and AD means “Anno Domini,” Latin for “In the Year of Our Lord.” I am a non-Christian patriotic American who strongly believes in the principle of Church/State separation, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s legal precedent of Lemon v. Kurtzman.

While we could opt for the more scholarly dating system of BCE/CE, I still think this is an endorsement of the Christian religion since the “Common Era” is just a politically correct way of saying the Christian Era. America should not use the alleged birth of a particular religious figure as the basis for our dating system.

I have a proposal to make and it is somewhat controversial. I propose that you make a bill in favor of a new American dating system which uses the signing of the Declaration of Independence as the basis. The year 1776 would now be the year 0. We would currently be in the year 233 AE (American Era). Anything before the Declaration would be BAE (Before the American Era).

This is a serious proposal with obvious Constitutional support. But it is also a controversial proposal and so I can understand that if you don’t want your name all over the media you might not be the person to bring this proposal to life. But I ask you to consider it on this Independence Day weekend.
Thank you,

Politicians should not make sex tapes. I think we need to add that to the Constitution or something. It appears that former presidential candidate John Edwards may have made a sex tape with his “videographer,” Rielle Hunter. I know she was supposed to video tape his every move and everything, but I think she might have taken the job description too literally.

I just am glad this guy didn’t become President and then have this tape come out. Normally, I couldn’t care less if a politician is having sex outside of marriage. He or she could video tape it and stick it up on one of the many porn equivalents to YouTube for all I care. I don’t really even care how kinky it might be. Aside from the “wow” factor, it doesn’t necessarily affect the politician’s job in my opinion.

However, like in the case of Republicans Vitter, Craig, Ensign, Sanford and Democrat Spitzer and now Edwards, if the politician goes around bragging about what a great family man he is and how everyone else should be as holy as he is, than that politician needs to go down. John Edwards now joins the crew of political hypocrites.

Personally, I can’t wait to watch the Edwards tape, not because I want to actually see the tape, but because I want to be able to say, “I saw the tape.” I bet Edwards is a bit of a diva in the bedroom too. He probably has a mirror nearby to make sure his hair doesn’t move out of place.

If Bill and Hillary Clinton came out with a sex tape, I wouldn’t be so hostile. We all know Bill is a lady’s man and while we might be shocked that the tape was with Hillary, neither of them have played the “holier than thou” card. And if a Clinton tape didn’t have Hillary, we wouldn’t be shocked at all. While Bill and Hillary claim to have a marriage, I don’t think they ever preach about how great their marriage is and how everyone else should be just like them.

For the most part, unless a politician goes out of their way to push some kind of family values agenda or preach about their holier than thou family, I don’t really care what they do behind closed doors. I don’t think there should be a sexual litmus test for public office. In fact, I think the dirtier and kinkier our politicians are the better they will probably be. Don’t get me wrong, cheating is a bad thing but as long as it doesn’t impact the job it shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

Just think of all the great Presidents we have had who have cheated. Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy are just the two that come to mind the quickest. Ben Franklin wasn’t a President, but he certainly was a powerful politician who had a pretty strong kinky side (although he surprisingly probably didn’t cheat on his wife).

These days, when someone is interested in running for office, the first thing they have to think about is whether or not they ever had kinky sex which an ex-lover may bring to the public light. Have they ever cheated or even flirted with someone other than their spouse? I am against the sexual litmus test and the politicians who play the sexual purity game only to get caught with their pants down… sometimes even on video tape.

Over the weekend, I wrote two articles for the Examiner on the Ark of the Covenant. The first dealt with the possibility that the Ark was found and the second dealt with it staying hidden. I don’t want to revisit those articles here, but I have linked to them if anyone wants to read them.

What I am fascinated about today is how religious people react to the possibility that a religious artifact may have been found. I have gotten a lot of comments on those two articles from people posting responses and from private e-mails.

Some Christians jump at it without any verification and say “See, the Bible is true.” Others say that the Bible is true and that God won’t allow the artifact to be revealed… unless he wants it to be. And others claim that this artifact is probably fake, but the real one is out there somewhere.

Few if any actually want to test whether such an artifact even came from the time it was alleged to be from. When asked about testing, some Christians have claimed that it can’t be tested. The tests can’t measure it because it is from God or that the tests are evil science. Some have even stated that God won’t allow it to be tested.

Most of these types of Biblical artifacts are alleged to be magical. The Ark of the Covenant is just one such magical artifact. The magic manna inside is another and a few years ago, people claimed to have found part of Noah’s Magic Ark (it had to be magical to carry at least two of every animal on Earth and enough food to feed them for 40 days and 40 nights). It seems that most Christians don’t like it when their artifacts are called “magical.” They prefer “miraculous.” Miraculous doesn’t sound as make-believe as magical. When people hear the term, “magical” they think of fairytales and childish stories. And even though the Bible is a fairytale and a childish story, Christians don’t like to see it in those terms.

The fact is that magic and miracles don’t exist. The Ark of the Covenant will not melt people’s faces off like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The more Christians claim such nonsense the more ridiculous their religion seems to me and almost everyone else.

Many Christians don’t understand why I was so excited about the Ark of the Covenant. I really hope that the Ethiopians do let the public see it. When it doesn’t melt people’s faces off and is dated to be from the middle ages, I will be laughing my ass off. Besides, these artifacts always bring out the Christians making the wackiest claims and then they argue over competing wacky claims. One guy commented on one of the stories claiming that the Ark was from aliens. A few people stated that God didn’t make the Ark, but the head of the Ethiopian Church claimed that God did make the Ark. A few people warned about the dangers of seeing or touching the Ark, while others said it was just a box. Each of course had biblical verses to back up their claims.

I love it when a new magical Christian artifact is “discovered.” It is so much fun to watch how various Christians react. Just wait until someone finds Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map.

Recently, my more religious sister criticized me for speaking out against theistic belief. Instead of discussing my criticisms of theistic belief, she simply stated that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I have actually heard this claim made by a lot of people and not all of them were theists. A few silent atheists have also be critical of speaking out against ancient superstitions stating that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I problem here is that I don’t disagree that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and yet these people seem to be implying that I do. I never said people aren’t entitled to their own opinions. In fact, not only have I repeatedly talked about my support for the freedom of religion, I have actually gone to congress and personally lobbied in favor of free speech. The second some Congress-person, Senator, or even the President tries to push a law restricting people’s right to have their own opinion, I will be right there to fight for those rights. Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

What they are not entitled to however, is for their opinions to be protected from criticism. The fact is that we all acknowledge this. We all not only criticize other people’s opinions on a daily basis, but no one in their right mind would claim that it was immoral to do so. No one has a problem criticizing what Hitler did to the Jews. Nor do people have an issue criticizing the KKK for their views. Tom Cruise is continually criticized for his religious beliefs and mainstream Christians and Jews are usually right there at my side criticizing the more fundamentalist believers in their own religions. But the moment anyone criticizes their beliefs, they attempt to over dramatize the criticism with claims of intolerance and/or hate. Insinuations are made that their free speech is being taken away. I don’t hate Christians. I have many Christian friends. I certainly don’t hate Jews. For starters, I am a Jew. Plus my family is Jewish and I love them very much… even my overly religious sister. But I do take issue with what these people believe and so while I will fight for their rights to have their own opinion on religious matter no matter how ridiculous and silly those opinions might be, I will also criticize those opinions if they are ridiculous, silly, and/or dangerous.

In my view, dangerous opinions lead to dangerous actions. And when they do, we need to stand up and strongly criticize those dangerous actions and be critical of the beliefs which lead to those actions. Now again, I am not talking about outlawing those dangerous opinions and beliefs, but I am talking about being critical of those opinions and beliefs. I supported the ACLU when they defended the KKK’s right to march peacefully. But if the KKK wanted to march peacefully in my town, I would be on the sidelines being very critical of their beliefs and arguing against those views.

I think it is pretty hypocritical of theists to claim some special protection from criticism for their beliefs when they seem so willing to criticize other people’s beliefs. Why is it that they think that criticizing political opinions is okay, but criticizing religious views should be forbidden? As I stated before it isn’t even all religious views that they seem to think should be protected; just their religious views and the religions which are closely related to their religious views. Judaism and Christianity should be protected and maybe Islam, but not necessarily. Other religions it seems like should definitely not be protected like Scientology, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Satanists, Wiccans, etc.

In my view however, no opinions should be above criticism. I believe in the market place of ideas and in that market place all ideas and beliefs are welcome and should be equally open to criticism. Let the best ideas and beliefs win. But it seems that the believers in the Abrahamic religions know that their beliefs are ridiculous, silly, and have no valid evidence supporting them. So they don’t want to compete in the market place of ideas because they know their ideas will lose. So instead they try to protect their failed ideas from any and all criticism. How sad.

Father’s Day was recently and so I thought about the alleged “Holy Father” himself, God. Aside from other roles for their deity of choice, Christians also claim that their imaginary god holds the role of father.

It seems that society has changed the way we view the responsibilities of a father. It wasn’t long ago that the role of the father was to be a bread-winner and a strict disciplinarian. Fathers were expected to be distant and to provide the “tough love.” In some households those are still the roles that a father is expected to take. But in most of modern society both parents are the bread-winners and strict discipline and tough love has been replaced with nurturing understanding. While discipline is still in the household, parents no longer beat their children or whip them at the slightest sign of disobedience.

The image of God the Father on the other hand hasn’t changed. The Biblical view of God is still as the strict disciplinarian who we are all expected to obey without question or else! Or else what? Or else God will send us to Hell where we will be tortured for all eternity.

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff talks about how this very issue influences our politics in his books, “Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think” and “Don’t Think of an Elephant.”

In any case, while God is seen as the father, humans are seen as the children of God. In a strange way, I kind of like this metaphor because in the last 2000 years humans have grown up. We are no longer children and have become adults ourselves. When we were children, we looked at our parents with amazement and dogmatically believed that they were perfect. We saw our father as all powerful and capable of protecting us against any and all threats. But then as we grew up, we started to be able to protect ourselves and we started to think for ourselves. Sometime we would even disagree with our fathers. Sometimes we were wrong, but sometimes we were right.

As we grew up, it became clear to us that our father wasn’t all-powerful, nor was he all-knowing and he certainly wasn’t always right. So if we are to take the analogy of God the father to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the God of the Bible isn’t all those things either.

Besides, the idea that as a species we are growing up is a very liberating idea. It is an idea which we should really think about and consider. What kind of adult with humanity be? How can we as individuals shape our collective growth?

I think this metaphor of God the father is someway helps make the case against Christian belief and in favor of a more science oriented world-view. Even if we were to believe in the God of the Bible, it is clear from this metaphor that we can’t stay children forever and we must make our own way in the world. It is time to leave home and say good-bye to daddy.

In the last few weeks, two prominent Republicans have been a tad hypocritical. Senator John Ensign from Nevada is part of the fundamentalist Christian group “Promise Keepers” which preaches the “family values” angle. Ensign was also one of the possible contenders for the Republican Party’s Presidential pick for 2012. Well, as you have no doubt heard, he recently admitted to no only cheating on his wife (breaking his promise), but doing so with a married women. Instead of coming clean about this affair, he hid it and continued to preach. Ensign, I should remind people, was one of the leading voices for the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton because he got a blow-job in the White House. Ensign also pushed to try to get fellow Republican Larry Craig to resign after Craig was caught in his own sex scandal/affair.

While Senator Ensign has stepped down from his leadership position in the Senate, I think he needs to step down as Senator. Senator Ensign should resign. I wouldn’t be so hard on Senator Ensign except that he has made his political career touting his strong family values, his Christian purity, and trying to push out all those he felt were not as pure as he was. The same is true for Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina who last week “disappeared.” His staff at first claimed that while they didn’t know where he was, that they were sure he was safe. They later lied to reporters and said that he was on the Appalachian Trail. As it turned out, he was in the Vagina Trail in Argentina.

Yesterday Governor Sanford admitted to having an affair. While he has stepped down as the head of the Republican Governors Association, I think he should also step down as the Governor of South Carolina. While as Governor he seems to have gone out of his way not to play the family values card to his mostly fundamentalist base, as a Congressman, he not only voted for the Clinton impeachment, he also pushed for it on the grounds that Clinton’s blow-job of an affair was a violation of the public’s trust. So why is it that Governor Sanford thinks that Clinton’s blow job was a violation of the public’s trust, but not his affair with an Argentinean woman? Both lied about what they did right up to when they got caught. I just think that it is funny that in the last few weeks two top GOP contenders for 2012 have had affairs which should destroy their careers.

But don’t think that I only pick on the poor Republicans. I was just as critical of Governor Elliot Spitzer for cracking down on prostitution rings and then being caught with a prostitute. And then there was former Senator and Presidential hopeful John Edwards who was on the campaign trail bragging about his Christian family values and strong marriage before he was caught cheating on his wife. Lesson to be learned is, don’t be a hypocrite. I don’t have a problem with politicians who cheat on their wives as long as they aren’t the politicians preaching the immorality of cheating. Former President Clinton is off the hook because he never touted his strong marriage to get elected or condemned other politicians for having affairs. The hypocrites on the other hand should be pushed to resign!

Guest Blog from The A-Team:
Also check out The A-Team at the Examiner:

One thing that always bugged me about Christians is their stance on death. Christians hold the viewpoint that death is a positive thing so long as you’re on Jesus’ saved list, since now you’re with God in paradise. But if this is the case, why do Christians respond to death and tragedy as if they’re a bad thing, the same way an atheist would? I morn the deaths of loved ones and view events like 9/11 as bad things because I believe that I’ll never see these loved ones again and these lives are lost forever.

Christians, on the other hand, believe they will see their fellow Christians again and that they’re going to a better place. So why don’t they react the same to death as they would if they were simply moving away and not going to see these people again for just a few years? Why do Christians even bother to go to the hospital when they’re sick if they believe death will take them to a better place? Why do they lock their doors at night?

Christians still haven’t satisfactorily answered this paradox. Hypothetically, why don’t Christians kill other Christians just so that they can get to heaven faster? If the only reason is it violates the 10 commandments, is that really the most moral reason? According to this supposed system of belief, it seems like you’d be doing people a favor. And if you’re a Catholic, then you no longer believe in limbo, which means souls are saved by default, and therefore have a sure thing in heaven unless they screw up during their life. So wouldn’t a moral Christian risk his own soul to kill babies so that they don’t have to run the risk of screwing up the salvation of their soul in life? Why do Christians oppose abortion and condemn what they perceive as the murder of babies if the babies are going to a better place? If life is just God’s waiting room and you view a fetus as a life, why not abort fetuses? If life is but a joke, why not spare already saved people from living it?

I asked a Christian in a text comment on YouTube why she’s so scared of dying and why she goes to such great lengths to avoid death if she is so convinced she’d go to better place? She couldn’t answer the question so employed a dodge by insisting that that’s “testing” God and only Satan tests God. Believers just believe and testing God shows they lack faith. I insisted that what I describe is not a test. If she’s so certain God exists and that she’s going to Heaven, then where’s the test? And leaving your door unlocked at night is hardly suicide. Choosing to rely on God wisdom rather than medical science is a show of faith, not doubt. So again. I told her to stop dodging and to just answer the question:

Why are you scared of death?

I still haven’t gotten an answer.

During the Bush years, it became painfully obvious that our modern media had lost it’s collective balls. The days of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein are long over.

Recently there has been some election fraud in Iran followed by massive protests and possibly a revolution (only time will tell). The current Iranian government has restricted western journalists from the country so the only news seems to be coming from Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace… and the BBC. Wait a minute, the BBC are western journalists, aren’t they? CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, and all the other American news stations and shows reported that they weren’t allowed to report.

CNN’s Roland Martin and I even got into it on Twitter. He assured me that “journalists are not allowed to report on the protests,” and “we only know what’s going on there because of Twitter!”

Journalism isn’t what it once was. What if Nixon told Woodward and Bernstein that they couldn’t report on Watergate and they said, “Oh well,” and went home? The network did tell Murrow that he couldn’t keep challenging Senator McCarthy, but he didn’t care. He did his job because that is what a journalist does. Real journalists take the risks and find ways of getting the story told. They don’t sit at their computers waiting for Twitter to give them the news so they can regurgitate it to the public.

Americans can learn something from what is going on in Iran too. We have gotten lazy. In 2000 when there was massive voter fraud and the Supreme Court had to pick our President (adding that this case could not be used as legal precedent in the future), what did Americans do? Nothing! We sat at home and let Bush destroy our country for eight years.

Maybe we need to get some fire back in our bellies. Maybe we should have taken to the streets and the rooftops. Maybe America needs a good revolution or at least the threat of one. A good start in reasserting our control might be to get to know your congress person. Don’t just call or e-mail, or Tweet, but make an appointment and go down to their office and let them know what is on your mind. Get them to know you and build a voice in your community. Use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube to help gain support in your local area so you can put some real pressure on our elected officials.

One of the reasons why I opposed Barack Obama in the primary was because he strongly believes in compromise. While I also believe in the spirit of compromise, I realize that there is a time to compromise and a time not to compromise. Obama is always trying to compromise and that doesn’t work too well when the other side is never willing to compromise.

One example of this is with the torture photos. Progresses like myself have been pushing to have transparency and for them to be released while the Republicans wanted to keep them hidden claiming that the photos put our soldiers in danger. Of course it was what the photos depicted which puts our soldiers in harms way, but that isn’t the point. The point is that Obama “compromised” and didn’t release the photos. Guess what the Republicans did? They criticized him anyway. So they got what hey wanted and were still not happy.

Last week, I talked about the Palin/Letterman feud and this week Letterman under pressure from his network no doubt caved in and apologized just as Palin wanted him to. He made a very sincere apology too. No joke. Guess what? The Republicans still protested his studio yesterday despite his Monday night apology. The fact is that it didn’t matter that David Letterman had to look like an idiot and apologize for something he shouldn’t have to apologize for in the first place. It didn’t make any difference. There is no compromise with these fanatics.

The fact is that the Republicans lost the last two elections in a big way. They lost because their economic ideas suck and their religious fanatics have made their party look ignorant and stupid. Republicans today don’t seem to have any good ideas on anything and that is why they concern themselves with trivial issues like Obama’s dinner date to New York and Letterman’s jokes. Maybe if they spend more time working out real compromises with the President and less time whining about Cheney’s hurt feelings over the CIA director’s comment that Cheney “almost wishes for another terrorist attack” they might actually win some elections again. For now though, I don’t think anyone should be trying to initiate a compromise with a Republicans on anything. We don’t need their votes on anything, so the time for compromise is over.

In my conversations with Christians, many times they will tell me about how I must obey their deity of choice. When I ask why I must obey, they often tell me that God created me. For the sake of argument, let us say that were true even though there is no valid evidence suggesting that it is anything more than ancient fiction. How does my being a creation of this particular god obligate me to obedience?

“Well…” they tell me, “he created you.”

“Okay, so what? Why should I obey this deity?” I again ask. It seems that most of the Christians I talk to don’t seem to understand what I am asking. They seem to think that creation some how demands obedience and quite frankly I don’t see that. If Hitler created a robot, would the robot be somehow obligated to obey Hitler even after it had developed a conscience? This is of course an impossible scenario, but it is just an example of how creation does not necessitate obedience.

While it is usually good for children to obey their parents, it is not always a good thing. And it is only a good thing to a point. It is only a good thing in so much as the parent is a good parent. Children aren’t slaves to their creators (i.e. parents) nor should humans be slaves to a god. While this is really a moot point since God is a character in a book and not real, the point is that even if God were real, creation alone does not necessitate obedience.

Traditionally Political Correctness has been viewed as a liberal thing but quite frankly, I don’t see it. While it is true that Democrats usually try to play nice and look down on those who use racial and sexual slurs, Democrats don’t usually push for laws restricting free speech and when they do whine about “hurtful words” I tend to denounce that point of view in favor of free speech.

If you remember Janet Jackson’s now infamous “wardrobe malfunction,” it was the Republicans leading the censorship charge on that day. Religious fundamentalists whined about moral standards with righteous indignation. I will grant you that Democrats went along with that, but the effort was lead by Republicans.

When Congress wanted to raise FCC fines against broadcasters for “indecency” it was again Religious Right Republicans whined and cried about dirty words and sexually explicit language who lead the effort to increase those fines astronomically. At a time of war, they even tacked this resolution on a defense spending bill to insure 100% support from the Senate.

Now, Governor Sarah Palin is leading the latest anti-free speech campaign against jokes she considers in “poor taste.” After late night talk show comedian and host David Letterman told a few jokes about Palin, her daughter, and Democrat Eliot Spitzer, Governor Palin went on the warpath. Aside from her blatant mischaracterization of Letterman’s joke, Palin then insinuated that Letterman was a pedophile.

Here are the jokes that Sarah Palin found “offensive”:
Joke 1: “[Sarah Palin] Bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her ’slutty flight attendant’ look.”
Joke 2: “An awkward moment during the seventh inning, her [Palin] daughter [Bristol] was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Joke 3: Palin having problems keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter [Bristol].

Palin claims that the jokes were focused on her 14-year-old daughter Willow, but Willow wasn’t the one who has been in the news for being “knocked up” out of wedlock. That would be Bristol. So while Willow was the daughter at the game, the joke was clearly in reference to the older daughter. The joke just wouldn’t make sense if it were about Willow Palin. Governor Palin (who didn’t even understand the joke by her own admission) claims that it was aimed at Willow so that she can use the joke to claim that Letterman was joking about rape (presumably she meant statutory rape) and then insinuating that he could be a pedophile. When questioned about that insinuation, Palin attempted to back off that statement with the claim that her daughter Willow might use violence toward the talk show host. It was a pretty weak back track since her original meaning was very clear and obvious and even the new spin could be considered “over the line.”

While we could just laugh this off as that wacky Sarah Palin trying to get back in the news, she has gotten other Republicans to speak out against Letterman and his jokes. The head of the Republican Party is even calling for a boycott of Letterman’s show and I won’t be surprised if some sort of legislation is introduced because of Letterman’s jokes.

While Letterman tried to explain himself and defuse the controversy by inviting Palin on his show, Palin won’t have it. Instead, she and her religious fundamentalist base have stepped up the rhetoric and have taken the rest of the Republican establishment with them. It seems that the Alaskan Governor sees this as an issue she can capitalize on to elevate her status within the GOP.

As a free speech activist, I support David Letterman and his jokes. If Letterman had made jokes about the President’s daughters, I wouldn’t have a problem with that either if they were in the news. When Bush’s daughters were in the news for binge drinking, there were plenty of jokes being thrown around. Bristol Palin has become a public figure because of her mother’s abstinence only policies. Bristol of course got “knocked up” and paraded around during her mother’s failed VP campaign. Willow on the other hand has not made the news and had Letterman’s joke attacked her, I might be more inclined to take to her defense.

Now however, Sarah Palin has moved Willow into the spotlight so she is now fair game. What did the Alaskan Governor say to the mob of homosexuals when her witchdoctor pastor was visiting? “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.” -Genesis 19:8

Earlier this week, James von Brunn went into the National Holocaust Museum and shot and killed Security Officer Steven T. Johns. This was news all over the country and if you want to find out more details on this story, just step outside cave you must be living in. The point of today’s blog isn’t to tell people about the story, but to analysis the reason for it.

James von Brunn is a well known white supremacist and while Officer Steven Johns was black, that was not the reason for the shooting. Von Brunn hated Jews and last I looked in the mirror, Jews are white… at least this Jew is (pale would be a more accurate term). So the real question is why would Von Brunn hate Jews?

I want to separate two things here because the term “Jew” describes two different things which in most cases are lumped together. There is the religion and there is the ethnicity. While I am ethnically Jewish, I am no longer religiously Jewish. In that respect, I am an ex-Jew. I have no problem attacking the Jewish religion and have done so many times. I consider the Jewish religion on par with the Nazi ideology in that both believe that they are the chosen people of God and I find that type of righteous superiority to be immoral.

Religious beliefs can change but ethnicity cannot. The fact is that the Nazis did not care whether someone was ethnically Jewish or religiously Jewish; they wanted to throw all Jews into the ovens. James von Brunn didn’t care either. He had a hate for all Jews based mainly on his view of God and of his Christianity. The fact is that Von Brunn’s hate for Jews stemmed from the same source as the Nazi hate for Jews and Mel Gibson’s hate for Jews.

In the Bible, the Jews killed Jesus. While mainstream Christians obviously don’t hold that view, many fundamentalist Christians (although not all) disagree. Von Brunn was one of those who disagreed. He believed that the Jews killed God in the Flesh. He strongly believed based on his interpretation of the Bible that God’s chosen people have fallen from grace in the eyes of God and are now doing the Devil’s work. While his website (HolyWesternEmpire.org) has now been taken down, the site did contain conspiracy theories about how the Jews now control the government and the media. Clearly I would not classify this guy as a sane individual despite the fact that many sane people hold similar grand conspiracy theories.

The point here is that anti-Semitism is a direct result of an understandable interpretation of the Bible. I say “understandable” because it isn’t an interpretation that is unrecognizable from reading the text. In other words, someone doesn’t have to perform a series of mental gymnastics or change word meanings in order to get that interpretation. That interpretation wouldn’t be an irrational stretch from a reading of the text. Without the Bible, these people still might hate Jews, but they would have far less grounding for such hate. In fact, without the Bible, such hate for Jews would be baseless.

While no one has ever made such comments to me, I know Jews who have told me that Christians have asked them about their horns or their tails. Even in this day and age, a surprising number of Christians still think that Jews have horns and tails. Why would someone think that a Jewish person would have horns and a tail? Clearly the reasoning for this lies in the view that Jews are agents of the Devil and are Christ killers.

While I have talked about this topic before in my column turned blog post titled “Will the Real Christians Please Stand Up,” It seems that I have to go into a little bit more detail here. Every Christian (I can’t think of one exception) that I talk to seems to claim to have the monopoly on how to interpret God’s divine message. That in and of itself is not the problem, I claim to have the monopoly of understanding on many issues. The difference here is that so many Christians have so many different and even opposing interpretations of the God’s divine message.

Obviously it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that all these Christians can’t be correct in their understanding. So how do we figure out whose interpretation is correct and whose interpretation is inaccurate? Well that is the problem. There is good reason to support almost all of the claims that various Christians make. The Bible is so open-ended and contradictory that it has become a spiritual Rorschach Test.

The Bible has become a mirror in a sense. If someone is a good person who believes in people and in compassion than they focus on the parts of the Bible in which Jesus talks about turning the other cheek and are completely oblivious to the parts of the Bible where Jesus talks about cutting out an eye or chopping of a hand if those parts of your body “cause you to sin.” If someone is a hateful person, they focus on homosexuality being an abomination, but ignore the parts where God talks about other more positive aspects of the Bible.

The fact is that there is far more cruelty and bad morality in the Bible than there is positive moral values. But most people aren’t evil enough to really treat women as property in today’s modern society. No one today focuses on the parts of the Bible which advocate stoning non-believers, adulterers, non-virgins on their wedding night, and divorcees. No one in today’s modern materialistic society is willing to give away all of their money and possessions the way Jesus commands.

Christians all pick and choose which Bible verses they already agree with and then use those Bible verses to justify their actions whether those actions are positive or negative. That’s fine though. I have no problem with picking and choosing. I pick and choose which moral lessons I choose to follow from many different philosophy books. The problem is that the philosophy books that I pick and choose from weren’t alleged to have been written by the perfect Creator of the Universe.

Now that I have pointed out some of the parts of the Bible that no one follows, I am bond to get comments claiming that I don’t understand the “True” meaning of those parts of the Bible or that I am not taking those verses in their “True” context. Again, every Christian claims to have the monopoly on what the “Truth” is in regards to the Bible and its “True” meaning. You see, when the Bible says slavery is okay, it doesn’t really mean that slavery is okay. If you change the meaning of the word slavery to mean something else or if you change okay to mean morally wrong, than it all makes perfect sense.

One particular aspect of Religious Right Christianity which sometimes trickles into the mainstream of Christianity is the idea that all sins (or wrongs) are equal. I remember when I was younger, a Christian explained it to me with the following analogy:

God is pure and can’t tolerate anything other than purity. Sin is like an ink spot on purity. Even the littlest sin in intolerable to God. And once the black ink of sin is on the pure whiteness of the soul, nothing can get it out… except of course Jesus.

With this analogy, Jesus is the ultimate laundry man and sin is God’s Kryptonite. I always found that part a little strange. If God is supposed to be so all powerful, why can’t he tolerate sin? But that is another issue for another blog. The issue of today’s blog is that within the Christian mythology, the littlest sin stains the soul just as much as a large sin. Both are equally as intolerable to God and both will land you in ETERNAL HELL; in for a pinch, in for a pound. Whether one lusts in his or her heart or murders someone, it makes no difference to the Biblical God. Homosexuality is just as much of an abomination to God as stealing or working on Saturday.

Now of course for those who embrace this mythology, there is the up side that Jesus is the ultimate stain remover/laundry man. That means that Christians don’t have to worry about committing those little sins and since those little sins are equal to those big sins, Biblical Christians don’t have to worry about those either. Catholics learned that a long time ago and that is why the idea of weekly and even daily confession started.

All sins are the same in Christianity. All sins are equally offensive to God. So next a woman asks you if she looks fat in something or a man asks you if you think he is sexy, before you tell that little white lie, think about it. Lying is a sin and just as bad as murdering someone. So if you have already sinned, why not just murder someone anyway? If you are a Christian who has accepted Jesus into your “heart of hearts” (whatever that means), you are forgiven in advance anyway.

Don’t give me that crap about Christians not supposed to sin either, because we all know that everyone sins. We are all evil sinners according to the Biblical God, right? And just in case you do some how manage to follow all the rules, God gets you with the Original Sin. God’s got that shit covered. So if a sin is a sin is a sin, than why not murder and steal like crazy.

If you were to take a poll of Christians from 1700 years ago, I bet that about 95-98 percent of those polled probably couldn’t have a problem with slavery. If that same poll were taken 1000 years ago, the results probably wouldn’t change all that much. 200 years ago, that number would probably be closer to 70 percent however. And during the Civil War, it would have probably been about 50 percent. Of course today that number would probably be close to zero. I think someone would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to admit that they think slavery is morally okay in today’s society.

If we asked all those Christians we have imaginarily polled why they supported slavery, they would no doubt tell us that it was in the Bible. And if we polled those who opposed slavery, they too would tell us that their beliefs were biblical in nature. But the purpose of today’s blog isn’t to debate slavery and it certainly isn’t to debate whether or not slavery is supported in the Bible or not. My point here is that Christians once believed that it was supported by the Bible and so Christian opinion about slavery has in fact shifted. Many Christians today will claim that those Christians in the past who supported slavery either weren’t real Christians or didn’t properly understand what God was saying.

If we polled Christians 1700 years ago about homosexuality, most people wouldn’t even know what we were even talking about. But those that did would almost certainly be against it. In fact, we wouldn’t even see a shift in the percentage of Christians who are against homosexuality until sometime toward the end of the last century. Now, it is probably about 60-40 against homosexuality among modern Christians and I am being generous to the pro-homosexuality Christians in that number.

The thing is that that number is changing. More and more Christians are accepting of homosexuality, homosexuals, and even homosexual marriage. In fact, following that trend, we can look into the future and see that the Christians of the future might look back at those Christians today who stand against gay marriage and consider homosexuality a sin and claim that those Christians weren’t real Christians or didn’t properly understand what God was saying.

In modern society, the idea of the right to privacy is something that most Americans value. Liberals fight to keep government laws out of the bedroom and right wing groups are strongly support the idea of government non-interference. Whether someone is right or left, privacy seems to be a value that we all hold.

So why is it that there are both liberal and conservative Christians who on one hand value the right to privacy, but on the other hand value the right of their God to watch everything you do 24/7? This seems like another example in which the God of old doesn’t quite fit with our modern day values.

Whenever I think about the idea that God watches people all the time, I mind always goes right to the gutter so to speak. Does God watch people in the shower? Does he watch them masturbate? Does God watch people having sex? Does he care if they are two very attractive people having sex or if they are two unattractive people? I mean if I were God, I might watch Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have sex, but that ugly couple a few blocks over, would not be a pretty sight. But yet I guess God would have to watch that too right?

Can God choose not to watch people have sex? I mean he is supposed to be all seeing, so if he chose to not watch for a moment, can he still claim to be all seeing? The idea that God is this all-powerful pervert is a little disturbing to me. And knowing that God can’t not watch is just perverse. It would be like creating a rock so heavy that God can’t move it.

But back to the point, if we as Americans value privacy how is it that 80% of us can also value an all-powerful peeping Tom? It just seems like the traits that God possesses are traits valued in a different time and are not traits that we as Americans value today. So just remember Jesus knows your sexual fantasies and every time you even think an unclear thought, God kills a baby.

In the winter of 2002, I met with my Republican Congressman to discuss several issues that concerned me and my listeners at WCUR. My Congressman at the time was a member of the Armed Forces Committee and bragged about his foreign policy knowledge. I asked him if America should be involved in trying to create peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. He told me that it wasn’t America’s concern and that they can handle their own problems. Two weeks later, the Israeli and Palestinian conflict exploded to front page news on almost every newspaper in the world and it continued to grab the headlines for the months that followed. This conflict is still the central conflict in the so called “war on terror.”

There is no doubt that Al Qaeda gets a large amount of recruiting mileage out of claims of hardship and struggle suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of “evil Israeli oppressors.” And so the stage was set for Barack Obama’s big Cairo speech on Thursday. After listening to his hour long speech, I understood what he was doing. Obama’s speech was an attack on Osama bin Laden and sought to seriously limit the ability of Al Qaeda to recruit more foot soldiers. In fact, Obama’s speech may even cause some of the current members of Al Qaeda to loose faith in the Al Qaeda mission and to defect (possibly providing us with valuable intelligence).

In that context, it was a good speech. I however had wished that he had mentioned other religious aside from the Abrahamic faiths when talking about diversity. It would have also been nice if he had talked about those who don’t hold faith-based beliefs. And while I am glad that our President quoted from the Treaty of Tripoli, I wish he would have reiterated what he said in Turkey about how America is not a Christian nation.  Instead, it seemed from Obama’s speech that America is a Christian nation, Israel is Jewish nation, and the people of the Middle East are Muslims. This perception only reinforces the Crusade mentality which we are trying hard to dismiss.

But my biggest issue with Obama’s speech was this continued insistence to “stay the course” with the “two state solution.” When I first heard about the two-state solution plan, it seemed reasonable enough, but after much conversation with those in and out of the military and a great deal of though on the topic, it became clear that such a solution would only escalate the problem after a short respite. Instead of a conflict, we would be setting the stage for a war between two nation-states.

When two groups of people have such hate and distrust for each other, separating them out for anything less than a brief cease-fire only serves to foster distrust and hate. Only with a one state solution in which the Israeli and Palestinian people are forced to live side by side as neighbors will they be able to get to know each other as people who have the same hopes and needs as they do. Such a bold plan would certainly be more difficult, but it would also have a more long lasting effect which would create stability in the region and in the world.

Another aspect of this conflict that Obama failed to approach is that there are lots of people in the world that don’t want there to be peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. There are religious fanatics in the world who believe that war between these two parties is a sign of the End of Days. And while most reasonable people might see the end of the world as a bad thing, these religious extremists on both sides see it as a glorious day in which their savior (Jesus or Mohammad) will return to take all the “real” Muslims or “real” Christians to Heaven. Osama bin Laden is one of those extremists and so he does not want peace. Al Qaeda does not want peace and neither did the Bush Administration.

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” – Genesis 11:4

I was recently reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel and more particularly this verse. There is of course the central issue of this story which to me is an attempt by bronze-aged people to understand why it is that people speak different languages. Today, sociology makes it pretty clear that since people live in different areas of the world, they develop their own languages and when communities interact, languages between them share different aspects, words, and root words. Most of the western languages are off shoots of Latin for example and so English tends to share common root words with French, Spanish, etc.

But back in the day, those bronze-aged people had not studied sociology or language and had to account for the fact that different nations and tribes had different languages. And so the story of the Tower of Babel came about. Obviously it would be pretty ridiculous for Christians to take this story literally today. Most of the mainstream Christians recognize that it is simply a story with no basis in historical fact. However, there are still a surprisingly large number of people especially in America who hold that this is an actual historical account of how different languages developed.

Those who do believe that this was an actual historical account also have to address the issue that has come up in this particular verse. That issue being that the writers of this verse clearly thought that God lives in Heaven and that Heaven is not in some sort of different dimension or plain of existence, but rather is up there is the sky. The Tower was to be built as high as possible so that the top should reach into Heaven.

According to this account, Heaven is in space. It is a physical place which can be reached by building a high enough tower. The problem is that since that time, we have build ships that can reach as high as Heaven and yet no God was to be found.

To deal with this problem, the apologists might try to turn to word games. These apologists might quickly claim that the Hebrew word used in this passage is Shamayim, which literally means “sky” or “The Heavens” referring to the physical universe and not to the Kingdom of God. However, this argument really doesn’t work out for the apologist since there are passages in the Bible which are clearly referring to the place where God dwells as Shamayim. The fact is that the Hebrew word Shamayim means both “The Heavens” and “Heaven” because the ancient Hebrews thought they were the same thing.

Even Paul thought that when we die, it wasn’t just our souls that were going up to Heaven, but our entire body. Heaven was thought to be a physical place up there in the sky. Now of course, we have been there up in the sky and so Christian apologists who take this passage literally need to change what the Bible meant.

Another point to consider is that God was angry because humans of different tribes all got together to build this tower out of pride. They wanted to reach God. God punished them by giving them different languages so that they could not work together. Today, we have Google. Google allows us to translate languages from one to another so that we are no longer “babbling” to each other. Now humans can work together. And we have done so in the form of the International Space Station currently in the Heavens. We have done this out of the pride of humanity just like in the story. Where is God now? Why hasn’t he taken Google away and stopped us from building our modern day Tower of Babel?

If you ask me, the International Space Station is a giant fuck you to the Christian God. Our pride in science and human achievement is much greater than that of those in the story of Babel. The fact that people can read this blog from China in Chinese using the Google Translator is evidence that the story of Babel is fiction.

Of course as I stated in the beginning of this blog, mainstream Christians already know that it is fiction and yet those same mainstream Christians still often claim that other aspects of the Bible (which are ridiculously more unbelievable than this story) are real historical facts. That is like saying that while we all know that planet Kypton doesn’t exist, Superman is still real.

While most Christians believe that he Bible was divinely written by God, some Christians that I talk to, reject the idea that the Creator of the Universe actually sat down and wrote a book. It seems that I am not the only one who thinks this is utterly ridiculous. If the Creator of the Universe did write the Bible, then it would contain far fewer errors and atrocities and hopefully far more wisdom and morality and would certainly be far more scientifically and historically accurate. So if these Christians agree with me that the Bible was definitely not written by the Creator of the Universe, then how can they be Christians who hold the Bible as a sacred book?

The claim is that the Creator of the Universe “inspired” it’s writing. What does that mean exactly? Gene Roddenberry inspires me, but I don’t think I am using the word “inspires” in quite the same way as some of my Christian friends. For me, inspiration is something that I think about which moves my intellect and emotion causing me to act in a creative fashion such as a poet being inspired by a sunset.

When some of these Christians use the term in relation to the Bible, they seem to mean more than that. They seem to be suggesting that a divine influence has been at work in the form of a metaphysical Holy Spirit which has qualified him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation. In other words the Bible wasn’t just inspired by the idea of God, but was actually influenced through the Holy Spirit’s interactions with men by God literally.

It isn’t that my moderate and liberal Christian friends think that some guys thousands of years ago were thinking about some vague higher power concept and then became inspired and wrote the Bible all on their own. These Christians seem to believe that the Creator of the Universe literally put the thoughts into the heads of these writers and so the Bible while physically written by men, was spiritually written by God… in part.

If the Bible were merely inspired by the idea of God the same way that Star Trek was inspired by the adventures of Horatio Hornblower, than the Bible should be considered wholly fictional except in places where the historical accounts are collaborated by non-biblical writers. People are then free to pick and choose (i.e. without contradiction) parts of the Bible they feel give them wisdom and reject the parts of the Bible which are immoral and silly. We would treat the Bible the same way we treat any great work of fiction.

On the other hand, if the Bible was inspired in a more metaphysical manner through some sort of literal divine influence, than we should expect nothing less than absolute perfection in every detail. This book should be the most brilliant book ever written and should not only be clearly written, but should transcend space and time the way it’s author God is alleged to transcend space and time. Either the book’s content should be the stuff which stands up to the test of time, or God should have added a “To be continued” clause at the end of it so that when we get to a certain level of wisdom, morality, or scientific advancement, God could guide us further.

The problem is that the content of the Bible does not stand the test of time and the Bible states that no additions will be made. This book is the end all and be all of God’s collective wisdom to humanity. So how do we deal with this obvious contradiction? Christians have figured it out. God despite creating humans in his own image doesn’t seem to have hands. So God send this Holy Spirit to indeed metaphysically inspire the writing of the Bible. The problem was that he had to inspire flawed humans and while God is by definition supposed to be perfect, it seems that he couldn’t communicate his divine thoughts to these men perfectly at all. So man’s interpretation somehow got mixed into God’s spiritually inspired magnum opus. To make a long story short, God wrote the Bible perfectly in the minds of men and those men fucked it up.

So what we are reading as the Bible isn’t fully accurate according to these Christians. The ideas are the ideas of the Creator of the Universe, but the details are a little fuzzy. Oh, and most importantly, anything that we as a society might consider to be morally repulsive that was written in the Bible was not God’s infallible morality, but was rather the parts that men screwed up. Slavery, stoning, mass rape, genocide, holy wars, etc. were not God’s ideas. In fact, if you read the Bible and find that you disagree with something, then you can rest easy knowing that God probably didn’t write that part. That part was written by some evil, greedy, self-centered, sinner. But if you find a part of the Bible that you do agree with… that was God… apparently.

Many people today seem to be concerned about discrimination based on religion. Some how religion has become a protected class and I have to wonder why that is. Personally, I don’t support discrimination based on religion because that makes it seem like someone is being discriminated against based on some natural quality of that person.

I discriminate against people based on their beliefs. I don’t care if those beliefs are religious beliefs, political beliefs, mythological beliefs, grand conspiracy related beliefs, etc. Beliefs can change. People aren’t born with beliefs. If someone applied for a job at a bookstore and told the interviewer that he or she believes in burning books, I think the bookstore should discriminate against that person and not hire him or her.

Discriminating against someone based on some aspect that they cannot alter more times than not is immoral. Mainly, the reason for that is because they can’t alter that trait. This is why discriminating against someone’s gender, ethnic background, skin color, or sexual orientation is generally considered wrong. But religious beliefs are not based on gender or ethnic background or skin color or sexual orientation. So why is religious belief a protected class?

People are generally brainwashed from birth into religion. Which religion is largely depends on someone’s ethnic background. Since ethnic background is a protected class, the assumption is that religion should be a protected class. The thing is that today, more and more people are breaking free from their religions while still holding to their individual ethnic backgrounds. Since ethnic backgrounds are rightfully a protected class, there is no valid reason why religious beliefs or any beliefs for that matter should be a protected class.

People are entitled to believe whatever they want in this country, but they are not entitled to act on those beliefs nor are there beliefs entitled to protection from the consequences of those beliefs. Someone is free to believe that black people should still be slaves, but if they act on that belief, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Also, if they voice that belief in certain settings, they should be discriminated against based on that belief.

I would never support discriminating against Christians, but I do support discriminating against Christian belief. I’m sorry, but if someone is going to believe in the infallibility of an obviously flawed ancient text and that there is some all-powerful dictator who raped a young lady in a way so that she could still remain a virgin in order to give birth to himself so he could kill himself to some how redeem the wrongdoings of everyone who believes this crazy tale, than I am going to discriminate against you because that is ridiculous.

But not all Christians today hold this belief as fundamental to their lives. Many Christians can still live mostly secular lives and then go to Church on Sunday and believe. If I owned a retail business, I would have no problem hiring such a person. But if someone told me in an interview that they believe all unsaved people are going to be tortured for all eternity and since he or she was a loving person, he or she would attempt to save every customer who walked in the door, I would and should discriminate against them and give the job to someone else. That’s not bigoted, that’s just common sense.

Without getting into the abortion debate, I want to talk about the terrorist attack on American soil that happened yesterday in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed inside a church of all places. Tiller is an abortion doctor who runs a clinic which performs the controversial late-term abortion.

I do find it interesting that a medical doctor was killed inside a church by a fellow believer. Christians can’t seem to be non-violent with other Christians and yet many people expect them to be non-violent to those who the Bible states are doomed to eternal torture.

Police have detained an anti-abortion activist named Scott Roeder in connection with this latest shooting. Roeder was attested in 1996 for having a car loaded with explosives components, but was released on a technicality. My question to all the anti-abortionists who also are supportive of the former Vice-President’s “enhanced interrogation” is should we use those methods on Mr. Roeder? Should we water board this “homegrown terrorist” to find out if he was working with anyone else? If there are other doctors being targeted? Is there a connection between him and Iraq?

Seriously though, this is yet another example of someone acting violently because they believed that the all-powerful Creator of the Universe needed their help. The Bible says that every sperm is sacred and warns against “spilling the seed.” There are multiple places in the Bible where believers are called upon to stone others to death. In today’s society, the argument could be made that guns are the new stoning. So will Christians stand with this terrorist or will they stand against him? Personally, I think many will try to blame the victim here and talk about the evils of abortion instead of addressing the real issue. Scott Roeder allegedly murdered Dr. George Tiller directly because of his religious belief.

Christians are always telling me that I need to worship their deity of choice. When I ask why, they warn me of eternal punishment and damnation in the fires of Hell. Sometimes, they will entice me into worshipping their deity with promises of eternal bliss in Heaven. But all threats and bribes aside, they still haven’t really answered my question. Why should I worship their god?

Then Christians will often inform me that God created me. That’s great and all, but how does that answer my question? Am I expected to worship my creator or something? My parents created me and while I respect them most of the time, I certainly don’t worship them. Many people have parents who are not even worthy of respect let alone worship. If I someone creates a robot, should he or she demand that the robot worship him or her? That seems awfully vain. In my mind, such a trait would make the person less praiseworthy, not more praiseworthy. Clearly a creation should not be the slave of the created. So even if I were to accept the premise that God existed and created me (which I don’t) that still wouldn’t compel me to worship such a being. We are still left with the question, why should I worship the Christian God?

Next, many Christians I talk to appeal to power. They tell me that their God is all powerful and that is why he should be worshipped. This to me goes back to the threat of Hell and the bribe of Heaven. “God can do anything and is all powerful, you better get in line.” I don’t accept the appeal to power as a reason to worship. Taking this argument to the extreme, if Hitler were all powerful, would that make him praise worthy and more worship worthy? I really don’t think it does and I doubt that anyone would if they really thought about it. This appeal to power is quite honestly insulting.

In fact, the only reason to worship anyone that I could even remotely understand would be based on morality. At this point my Christian friends tend to smile and tell me that their god has that too. He is the very definition of moral goodness they claim. But as someone who has read the Bible, I just don’t see it. One cannot just claim to be moral, one must demonstrate that morality. If God wrote or spiritually inspired the writing of the Bible and if that book is an accurate picture of who God is, than I can’t see myself worshipping that being at all. This is where the excuses and justifications come in. “God doesn’t need to explain his morality to a mere human like me,” “God’s ways are mysterious,” “God is good because he says he is good,” “Without God there is no moral grounding,” etc.

The truth is that I really don’t believe in worshipping anyone, God or otherwise. I worship ideas not personalities. While I might say that I would follow an Aristotelian “person of practical wisdom.” I would stop following such a person the moment they proposed something which I considered to be immoral. I might start following them again when they proposed something more reasonable. Take our current President Barack Obama for example. I respect him and admire him. I think he is a smart person who is trying to do what he can to help people. I’ll follow him on most things, but I will also be critical of him when he refuses to stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians. I am critical of him for reaching out to religious fanatics and hoping that they will support hi even when he doesn’t need their support and will not get their support. So while I admire the President and will follow his lead on many things, I most certainly don’t worship him or follow him blindly.

I can’t think o a single reason why I would possibly worship any god let alone the Christian God. I certainly am not a coward who is afraid of eternal torture in Hell, nor am I a greedy person who would accept the bribe of Heaven. I don’t think the Christian God created me and even if I did, I still don’t see that as any reason to worship such a deity. The awesome all-powerfulness of God doesn’t really concern me since I don’t consider power to be a reason for worship. And the Christian God of the Bible doesn’t seem very moral to me either. So my question still stands, why should I worship the Christian God?

President Barack Obama has announced his nomination for the Supreme Court. Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a mixed bag. She is a well known political moderate and as the first Latina nominee, she puts the Republican is a tough place since they would like to gain support within the Latin American community. She has been described as an intellectual and a bit of a bully on the bench like Supreme Court Judge Scalia. Those last two traits are in my opinion positive traits. I am bothered that she is more moderate than I would like. Let’s look at some of her case history.

On the plus side, in Pappas v. Giuliani she sided with Free Speech even though that speech was bigoted and racist. I have always held that popular speech doesn’t need protection, but unpopular speech does. In this case, Judge Sotomayor and I are in agreement. Since speaking out against religion is generally considered to be unpopular, Judge Sotomayor seems to be the type of Judge who will protect our Free Speech to be critical of religion.

In Rosario v. Does, substitute teacher Sonia Rosario spoke for several minutes about her religious views in the classroom. She told her students that according to the Bible, “Jesus was the son of God” and that “one must come through Jesus to get to God.” Rosario also approached each student, placing her hand on their foreheads, and asked God to protect them and their families. In this case, Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the school that fired her. This too is a ruling which I support and agree with. It shows that Judge Sotomayor understands that schools are not to be a forum for religious proselytizing by those in authority.

Friedman v. Clarkstown Central School District dealt with science and medicine. In this case, Judge Sotomayor ruled that the plaintive did not meet the requirements for religious exception for vaccine immunization. Here she pulled off a classic Supreme Court maneuver of not really dealing with the issue, but still managing on ruling in the case. If this case is any indication, she will certainly fit in on the High Court, but at least she supported science somewhat.

Now I will discuss the cases in which I had issue with her rulings like in Hankins v. Lyght. In this case the Methodist Church wanted to force the retirement of John Paul Hankins. While Hankins had reached the retirement age of 70, he did not wish to retire. Judge Sotomayor ruled against Hankins and stated that the Court should “not [to] apply to employment suits brought against religious institutions by their spiritual leaders.” In other words, she was basically stating that because of the Separation of Church and State that the Church does not have to comply with the law and can pretty much do whatever it wants. In my opinion, that sets up a dangerous precedent for the future and I hope that she does not keep that reasoning if she makes it to the High Court.

In Flamer v. City of White Plains, the city of White Plains denied permission to display a menorah in a city park in light of a city council resolution barring fixed outdoor displays of religious or political symbols in parks. Rabbi Flamer’s suit challenged the resolution as unconstitutional. Judge Sotomayor agreed and struck down the resolution as a content-based regulation of speech that discriminated against religious speech. Here the soon to be Supreme Court Justice and I disagree. Because the resolution barred all religions it does not show a bias or favoritism of any religion. The City was not prohibiting free speech on private property based on content. As the park is public owned land, such a restriction aims to keep the wall of separation rather than turn the public property into a battleground for religious proselytizing. This sends the dangerous precedent, which could give religion a blanket invitation to use all public property as a de facto Church. It also stands in contradiction to her position in Rosario v. Does.

The Republicans are already calling her an “Activist Judge” which I define as any Judge who they don’t agree with. I do not think Judge Sotomayor is an activist at all and to date, her two cases, which slightly dealt with the Abortion issue, she sided more on the anti-choice side than the pro-choice side. The Republicans aren’t looking for a “Non-activist Judge” as they claim, but rather I think that the Republicans are looking for Agenda Judges like Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Scalia.

While yesterday was Memorial Day, it was also Star Wars Day. It was May 25th 1977 that Star Wars first premiered on the Big Screen and the world took its first steps into a much larger world. I take my Star Wars very seriously. I have often said that while I am an agnostic atheist, my religion is Star Wars.

There is a Holy Book in the form of films. That book has 6 episodes, which I have often referred to as the Holy Saga. It has am Old Testament (Episodes IV through VI) and a New Testament (Episodes I through III). Some people like my wife only follow the Old Testament, but I see value in both.

I believe in Star Wars and while no one can disprove that these events did not in fact occur a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, that is not what I mean by belief in this case (although I dare any Christian to try to disprove it). What I mean by belief here is not that these event and character actually happened and existed, but rather that the stories that are told here are metaphors for life. If only Christians realized that their stories were fictional and yet still could find meaning in them, the world would be a much better place.

Star Wars deals with so many issues. For a six-volume set of two and a half hour films, it is incredibly dense in content. From politics to religion, the Star Wars Saga covers it all. George Lucas took the best of mythology and created a new religion for a new generation.  For those who never really put much thought into just how great the Holy Saga is, I want to proselytize and tell you to take the time to watch these films again, but this time really think about what is being said. Watch the deeper meaning and learn the ways of the Force.

Memorial Day is here and that means only one thing, the official start of Hollywood’s movie season! Oh wait, that has already started a few weeks ago. Never mind, I guess it means something else.

Over America’s 200 plus years, we as a nation have been called to service to defend our home and our freedoms. Many Americans have answered that call in various different ways. While more often than not, people think of our soldiers who have put themselves in harms way. Even soldiers who have fought in unjust wars deserve to be respected. But we should also realize that sometimes Americans don’t join up out of bravery, but instead out of am immoral desire to legally kill others. These are hopefully a minority of people and for those individuals; I have little to no respect. I am sure that most of our soldiers have joined the Armed Forces out of a sense of honor and a duty to protect freedom. Those are the soldiers who I choose to pay tribute to on this Memorial Day.

We should also remember on this Memorial Day that soldiers must continually question questionable orders. Those who have tortured or who have committed immoral acts should be held accountable as well as those who gave those orders. Soldiers are not and should not be unthinking killing machines. Those soldiers who stand up and fight against the injustices that they see on the battlefield should be honored even more because it takes more courage to fight the injustice of ones peers than the injustices of the enemy.

Americans today should also honor those who fight off the battlefield for the freedom and security of our way of life. There are many military analyses, translators, office personnel, Red Cross workers, doctors, etc. that are also fighting for freedom in less visible ways. These support personnel often get forgotten on Memorial Day and this year I think we should all remember them and honor them.

There are also those social activists who fight to keep our policymakers honest and who continually push for freedom and transparency in our government and military. While they are not dodging bullets, they do take a lot of heat for their efforts to protect the integrity of our nation and the rights of all Americans. But keeping America honest, they are also keeping America safe. This nations greatest weapon is not our large nuclear arsenal, nor is it our brave and well-trained soldiers. Our greatest weapon is our moral high-ground and the respect we hold within the community of nations. Our citizen soldiers are there for us fighting to maintain that weapon.

From soldier, to support personnel, to activist, all of these Americans fight in their own ways to keep America safe, free, and true to our values. In my view, we should honor our citizen soldiers as well as our brave military soldiers on this Memorial Day. Eternal vigilance is the price we must continually pay to remain free.

America has to decide whether we are a nation of laws or a nation of men. If we are a nation of laws, than no body is above the law. If we are a nation of laws, than the United States Government must respect and comply with the rule of law. Now that the Bush Administration is over, we are finding more and more that many involved in that administration have broken the law. Many Americans knew this before and were calling for impeachment then, but at that time the Bush Administration seemed too powerful and the Democrats were too afraid.

The latest issue of immoral and unlawful Bush Administration policies to make it to the mainstream media has been the issue of torture. The Bush Administration ordered it our men and women in uniform carried it out. First the Dick Cheney claimed that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not torture. But that clearly didn’t fly. Once the photos of what went on surfaced, it was very clear that those techniques were so “enhanced” that they are considered torture. Pulling out the Orwellian dictionary didn’t work. While a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, torture by any other name is just as immoral and just as illegal.

The next trick up Dick Cheney’s ass was to claim that it worked. “Who cares if it was illegal or immoral, it got the job done.” Well, that is the same thing that the terrorists say every time they kill innocent people in order to advance their goals. And for the record, according to many in the CIA and FBI, these torture techniques didn’t work. In fact, they got bad information from torturing. They got the information that they needed when they used honey so to speak. But that aside, even if torture did work, should we as a nation of laws use it? Our elected officials have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and clearly torture violates that oath. The Constitution protects people against the use of torture.

Some hold to the opinion that since many of those in Guantanamo were not Americans, they should not be protected under the Constitution. This is a very Nazi-like statement in my opinion. It expresses the view that Americans are fundamentally better than everyone else and so we deserve “special” rights that other people should not have. Here again, America has a decision to make; either we are superior people deserving of better laws or our laws are better deserving of all people. If our laws are better, as I believe they are, than they protect everyone who we have jurisdiction over whether they are American citizens or not.

As a nation of laws, we have to be the example of those laws and we must not torture. Torture is immoral and illegal. Those who did it should be held accountable and those who ordered it should be held accountable. No one should be above the law.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Cheney next decided to drag Democrat Nancy Pelosi into this. I think he thought that Democrats would back off if they thought that one of their leaders would probably be caught up in this if they went forward with an investigation. Now, every time someone says we should investigate Dick Cheney, some right wing hack says, “What about Pelosi? What did she know and when did she know it?” Sure let’s investigate her too. I think we will find that she didn’t understand what was going on and just nodded her head. That isn’t because she is stupid or anything, just that the Bush Administration probably went out of their way to make the issue as complicated as possible so that no one would understand it.

Now President Obama has caved to pressure not to release the photos of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” out of fear that it might insight more violence. Well shit, cartoons of Mohammad will insight more violence, that doesn’t mean we should pass laws prohibiting the freedom of speech. The photos aren’t what would insight the violence, the acts of torture that were photographed are what would insight the violence.

Maybe covering up for the Bush Administration isn’t the best thing to do here. We are a nation of laws and no one is above the law, not even Dick Cheney!

I heard on the news yesterday that the Republicans were planning on introducing a resolution to rename the Democratic Party the “Socialist-Democratic Party.” At first I thought they were actually planning on introducing this resolution in the House where it would almost certainly fail since there are more Democrats in the House than there are Republicans. But then I realized that this resolution was only going to be made to the Republican National Committee. As it turns out, the Republicans decided not to go this route and to instead just make their resolution to ask the Democrats to “stop pushing our country toward socialism.”

I think it is to bad that the Republicans didn’t go with their first idea. Because if the Republicans had pushed to rename the Democratic Party the “Socialist-Democratic Party” it would be meaningless anyway. The thing that I kept thinking as I read the story on the various news sites was how incredibly stupid such a resolution would be. For one thing, it again brands the Republican Party as the party of obstruction, hate, and mean spirited partisanship. Second, it shows just how irrelevant the Republican Party is that even if they pass such a resolution, it changes nothing. And third, if the Democrats decided to go tit-for-tat on this, the Republicans would be in real trouble.

Let me address that last point a little bit more. Let’s say that the Democrats decided that we think the Republican Party should be renamed the “Bush Party” or perhaps the “Republican-Nazi Party.” The Democrats wouldn’t make such a resolution within the Democratic National Committee. Let’s say that the Democrats instead made this resolution in the United States Congress. Chances are such a resolution would actually pass. It would be legally binding. In the 2012 Presidential Election there would be the Democratic Party candidate and the Republican-Nazi Party candidate. It would be on the ballots and people would be registered as members of the Republican-Nazi Party or maybe just the Nazi Party. In short, the Democrats could pass this! But they won’t because the Democrats ar