End of the World - September 23, 2015

              

         Have you said your goodbyes, made your peace, and prepared for the end? According to the latest Christian interpretation of scripture, or maybe cooking the numbers to fit a preconceived outcome they desperately want is a better way to put it, it will happen on September 23, 2015 as described in Acts 2:20 and Revelation 6:12. You want proof? The signs are all over the place.

        The brilliant light falling through the sky that was filmed over Bangkok, Thailand September 7th. It just couldn’t possibly have been a meteor simply burning up in the atmosphere like meteors do every day.

       A huge sand storm swept across the western Middle East September 8^th to 10th, like another did on June 1, 2015, Feb. 10-11, 2015, June 2, 2014, May 7, 2014, April 11-12, 2013…(notice a pattern forming here?) Google the dates and see for yourself. Since this one was larger than usual thanks to less rainfall this year, it is a sure-fire apocalyptic sign. A Christian blogger making a postdiction wrote that “the prophesy that The LORD revealed to me on 19th November 2014, about “a Rain of Sand” coming to the earth, has accurately been fulfilled 10 months later.” I guess God didn't want to rush into things......plus, a rain of sand coming to earth sounds like something originating from above, not from the dry land just to the east of you. He wants to shoehorn this postdiction in among his numerous FAILED predictions as proof that he is one of God’s select.

Allahu Akbar

         The giant crane toppling onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on September 11^th killing 107 worshipers and injuring hundreds more. Yahweh or Jehovah (we aren’t sure which) was purportedly showing the Muslims that Allah is a false god otherwise He would have protected them. For Americans there’s even the added bonus of it happening on the anniversary of 9/11 so God could show us, 14 years too late, that He’s on our side.

The iridescent cloud seen over the mountains of Costa Rica on September 15^th, even though there was a perfectly understandable meteorological cause. Many people in this predominantly Catholic country claimed it was God letting them know the end is nigh.

The earthquake and tsunami off Chile on September 17th…is proof that God’s face ‘moved over the waters’ as it says in Genesis 1:2.

Pope Francis says homosexuals are not evil, abortion is forgivable, and he visits the communist island nation of Cuba…giving further proof that he is actually the antichrist.

Slavery okay, torture okay, rape and incest okay, two men or two women in love and wanting to marry, that’s not okay.

Ultra-Christian homophobe and hypocrite Kim Davis in Rowan County, Kentucky is jailed for five days in early September for defying a Supreme Court ruling and a U.S. District Judge by refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone so she doesn’t have to betray her Christian conscience regarding same sex couples. Putting a Christian bigot behind bars is the last straw before God steps in.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker suspends his presidential race on September 21^st due to low…and I mean really low…polling numbers, which is proof God is prepping him for a quick rapture off the planet so he won’t have to disappoint any of his supporters. (God must like making fools of candidates because didn't He also 'call' Pat Robertson to run for president in 1988?)

And the biggest sign that the end is here…the Cleveland Browns managed to beat the Tennessee Titans 28-14 on Sunday, September 20th. How much more proof do you need?

Well it's a marvelous night for a moondance...

One more thing…there will be a naturally occurring and completely anticipated “Blood Moon” on September 27th-28th when the full moon passes through the Earth's shadow. What this has to do with the end of the world I have no idea but Christians are mentioning it frequently on their websites and in their blogs. I’m betting that nothing will happen on September 23^rd and when it doesn’t the end-of-the-world theorists will shift the focus to this date, claiming they just had the math slightly off. When it doesn’t pan out on the 28th they will select another date somewhere in the near future and keep up the apocalyptic drumbeat. Surely God won’t make them wrong forever…will he?

Remember these predictions that came to pass? Me neither!

(Addendum - September 25th. We are still here...no apocalypse on the 23rd...however, like I wrote above, several Christian websites and blogs, like those of John Hagee, Mark Blitz, and Irvin Baxter, claim the Blood moon on the 27th-28th is an indicator of End Times....Ooooooh, I'm so scared...because this time they got it right.) 

Who is more backward?

I watched a TV show on YouTube Saturday night which had on ‘Aql al-Bahili, who is listed as a Saudi Arabian scholar on several sites, but I have not been able to ascertain that he is. He is a spokesperson for some faction in Saudi Arabia and seems to have the Saudi royal family’s blessing. In the video he makes a very passionate and articulate speech regarding one of the major weaknesses of Islam. Yet it is difficult to believe the royal family would have approved of his views, given their support of one of Islam’s most extreme factions, Wahhabism. ‘Aql al-Bahili was one of three men on the show, but I only heard the other two men shout as he spoke and their words were not translated. So I don’t know if they were agreeing with him or cursing him.

Here is what the TV show claims he said as shown in subtitles at the bottom: “I know and I acknowledge that there is freedom in the Koran. Many Koranic texts state that people are free. But when the political implementation of a certain ideology has failed to accomplish justice for over fourteen hundred years, whereas others [i.e. in the West] have managed to instate justice by means of a [different] political ideology, I believe that even though [Islamic justice] preceded them, this does not detract from the credit due to those who have reformed the path of human society, infusing it with freedom through an ideological platform other than Islam. Today, all the Islamists acknowledge that the freedom enjoyed in the West is a hundred times better than in the Islamic countries.”

He goes on to say that he “knows Islam is all-encompassing, our problem is that sacred texts are being cited by tyrants, by honorable people and by Islamists alike. Today we must adopt general principles by which human society abides: People must obtain their rights, public funds must not be plundered, a doorman may become a minister and a minister may become a doorman, people must have the right to be safe from attack, as well as the right to establish companies and political parties These are the principles of human societies on planet Earth.

Hearing him say that on a TV show that airs in the Middle East made me wonder if he wasn't a provocateur, a charlatan, or a disinformation agent put in front of the cameras to stir up trouble. I couldn't tell if he really meant it.

I sent the link to a family member who follows events in the Middle East, asked them to watch the video and then give me their thoughts via email. I didn't mention any of my doubts. After she watched it, she sent an email which stated, “The speakers point is true….in many key respects.

“Which ones?” I typed back.

“He admits the Muslim culture is years if not centuries behind the west. Nor do they have Western-style freedom.”

“Does that mean they have trouble functioning in a modern world?”

She thought that they contribute nothing to world dialogue, since all their wisdom was tied up in the false teachings of a book that dated back to the 7^th century.

Without pointing to the obvious similarities of Christians basing their lives on a 4^th century book, I typed back “That may be true but their most ardent believers, even thinking as seventh century men, can still fly 21^st century technology into the 20^th century high rise buildings and destroy them. Or strap 21^st century explosives to themselves and blow up dozens of people. Their backwardness is only because their mind is not free; it has been forced into the Muslim shoe box.”

She typed back, “One could also reasonably argue that enslavement to lusts, sins, obsessions, addictions etc. is not real freedom either.”

I typed back “?”

Her response, “The West has fostered the addictions and hedonism that are destroying us. It is the perversion and deliberate trashing of our Judeo-Christian value system which has resulted in such excesses and enslavements.”

“So Islam is right, even if stuck in the 7^th century, and many in the West are wrong and are just as enslaved…but it’s not due to what’s read in some book. It’s due to secular obsessions???”

I don’t think she understood my sarcasm, as she replied “God has a few surprises for them, when they try to build a world on the ashes of Judeo-Christianity. Jesus will see to that.”

I thought “This is how the Crusades started.” The discussion about a backward Middle Eastern religion had suddenly become confirmation about another backward Middle Eastern religion that had to be absolutely true, because my relative simply wanted it to be true. A dozen times I was tempted to put her email address on the screen and hit the delete button. She is still waiting to hear back from me.

Atheists 9/11 cross lawsuit dismissed

A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Atheists that could have affected the 9/11 remembrance display. They had hoped to ban the steel beam cross taken from the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 13, 2001 from being put in the museum as part of the memorial to the 9/11 victims.

Christians assume it is a victory for their beliefs at the federal level, but it is not. The decision does not mean Christian symbols need to be afforded special consideration, that Christianity trumps all other religions, or that whatever Christians want should be deferred to. It’s because allowing the cross in the museum is a devastating indictment of their god. Without any evidence, Christians have decided that the cross was god’s way of showing how much he loves us even in moments of trial and tribulation, and they are desperate for acknowledgement of their religious beliefs. That is why they want the cross in the 9/11 memorial, not realizing that it shows that god, A) Didn’t know what was going to happen, B) Didn’t care what happened, or C) Doesn’t exist. (If they existed, what creator would be that ignorant, capricious or malevolent?) Some could argue that 9/11 shows the believers of Allah triumphed over the believers in Jehovah since it was Muslim extremists who successfully brought the Towers down. And what did Jehovah do? According to the Christians, he sought to console us with basically a scavenger hunt in the debris. So inclusion of the cross at the memorial symbolizes: ‘Nothing protected the people who died here. A vivid imagination doesn’t change what transpired. Only the gullible worshipers of a made up supreme being find this metal crossbar meaningful.’

As a side note, how hard is it to find crossed steel beams in high rise structures? If the building didn’t contain any crossed members and the fallen debris fused and formed a cross, that might be more interesting, but it wouldn’t prove anything. Christians so want god and Jesus to be real, anything, even a human-constructed cross beam, gives their beliefs validity.

Atheists pursued the lawsuit, correctly perceiving that Christians would assume god was giving them a sign that in the middle of tragedy, all would be okay, that death was not final, that the cross' presence in the ruins shows we’re a Christian nation, and that all need to come to Christ through the cross. See, if you're from outside of the Christian faith; you're out of luck...god only favors Christians.

If their god was real, Christians have to concede he watched over the destruction of the World Trade Centers, the strike on the Pentagon, and the deaths of around 3000 people, did nothing to prevent any of it, and then showed his love - after the fact - by arranging one of the thousands of steel crossbeams in the mountains of WTC rubble to be discovered looking vaguely like the cross Jesus was reputedly killed on. That way, all would be inspired by its presence and know god loves us. Does this strike anyone else as absolute madness?

And yet the atheists are the ones who are considered crazy and need to explain their irrational belief.

E Pluribus Unum - Let's return to the original motto

How far we've deviated from our origins in the United States. The innovative idea of our founders was built upon a leader being truly elected of the people, by the people and for the people, NOT being governed by a ruler or regime that was put in place by any supernatural being, or so claimed to be. We would come together as a country and rule ourselves with a representative we chose at the helm of government. Hence, the stirring maxim of our great nation, E Pluribus Unum, From Many, One, makes absolute sense. It was the phrase on the front of the Great Seal of the United States adopted in 1782 by an Act of Congress. The words also appear on the Seals of the President, Vice President, Congress, House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court. 

E Pluribus Unum has never been considered controversial. The motto was intended to represent the federal nature of the new country,  i.e. out of many states came one nation. The framers may have stridently disputed many issues in the formation of the United States, but E Pluribus Unum was not one of them. In fact, as the population grew, the motto took on a secondary meaning as well, reflecting the country's melting pot nature - the interpretation being of many people from different countries and cultures blending together to form a new national identity, that of U.S. citizens. Certainly, if there's one issue we can all agree on, it's that E Pluribus Unum is an excellent statement of America and its values, right? Not if you have a religious goal in mind and want to circumvent the Establishment Clause which separates the church from the state.

In 1956, E Pluribus Unum was unceremoniously replaced by In God We Trust during the Great Red Scare thanks to McCarthyism. It was intended to show those godless communists who bowed down to an oppressive government that crushed any nonconformity and professed atheism that we bow down to a supernatural deity that no one has seen, but still trusted. But whatever god our Congress was hoping to appease apparently wasn't impressed. Or the substitute motto was appealing to the wrong god. The surrogate motto has done nothing to bring cohesion to the nation, or lift it up, and an excellent case can be made that things have gone to hell in a hand-basket since its adoption. (Looking back to 1956, maybe ‘To Hell in a Hand-basket’ would have made a better motto!)

Nowadays, the Religious Right, led by people like Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and the CPC or Congressional Prayer Caucus (yes, our supposedly secular government actually has a Congressional Prayer Caucus. Guess which god they appeal to the most.), insinuate that E Pluribus Unum is, um, well frankly, un-American. The CPC, which is the leading voice of religious conservatism (read Christian) in the capitol, recently wrote a letter to President Obama, chastising him for referring to the motto E Pluribus Unum, suggesting that using it was unpatriotic and amounted to an anti-God statement. The letter stated that he should instead be promoting the motto "In God We Trust". Apparently, E Pluribus Unum is tantamount to sacrilege to the Christian right. They also claim the President isn't mentioning ‘God’ enough in his speeches and that he shouldn't refer to "inalienable rights" without mentioning that they come from God. Try as I might, I can’t find that reference in the Declaration of Independence. A "Creator” does not in any way suggest the Christian god, since it could just as well mean ‘The Universe’ or the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’.

Regardless of how it's presented, In God we Trust does promote theistic religion at the expense of non theism and secularism. The phrase originates from religious texts such as the Bible and has always been supported the strongest by Christian leaders and in a Christian context. Critics argue that it promotes the belief in a single, transcendent deity, that of the main Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But in a nation of ‘out of many – one’, it is foreign to many other religions. Buddhists do not believe in a personal deity, Wiccans believe in two deities, Hindus believe in many, and it is absolutely meaningless to agnostics and atheists. As such, it violates the principle of separation of church and state.  

Maybe few people in this country care about the motto. To those who pay any attention to it, appealing to some ill-defined, nebulous, supernatural entity that doesn’t have the good grace to show itself, or indicate it is pleased to be appealed to, is the axiomatic equivalent of saying ‘How do you do’. Almost no one actually wants to hear how someone is doing when met; it’s just a phrase that rolls off the tongue from overuse. And so it may be. But to the Religious Right it is a pronouncement on a national level, endorsed by the government, that there is a belief in a god figure. To me, it is nonsense to claim the slogan has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court may have ruled that it has ‘lost through rote repetition any significant religious meaning’ but that's hogwash! It is vehemently defended repeatedly by Fundamentalist Christians because they have recognized all along that it was a petition to their particular interpretation of god, the one named Jehovah. Any way you slice that, it demolishes the wall separating church from state.

Imagine how those who approve of the replacement motto would feel if it instead said “In Vishnu We Trust’ or ‘In Allah We Trust’. Would it still have that warm and fuzzy appeal? In God we Trust is a motto that divides us, deeper and deeper, and says nothing about who we are as a nation. E Pluribus Unum has never divided us and describes us as our founding fathers intended. Time to return to the original.

Religious provocation - seriously?

    Some amateurs put a video on YouTube and it has upset a certain segment of Muslims, enough so that, in their perceived offense, they attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya, killing four American’s, and have also launched violent protests in Cairo, Egypt, in Yemen, and in other Middle Eastern countries. How does killing someone salve a purported insult from a movie? People have been poisoned by the words in a book.

                It leads one to believe that certain Muslims are so weak in their faith that a simplistic movie is somehow a risk to that faith. Or is it that they believe Allah, or his messenger Mohammed, are so shallow and easily offended that lowly human-produced movies are a threat to them? It is a sad reflection on certain believer's interpretation of Islam that the only way to react to a video that simply makes fun of it is by rampaging against and killing people who had nothing to do with it. American embassy personnel didn’t produce the movie, nor can they prevent those movies from being uploaded to YouTube.

                In Washington DC, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the crudely made film posted on the internet was "disgusting and reprehensible", although it’s almost a sure bet she hasn’t actually seen it but simply read a brief summary of the video. The short film entitled the "Innocence of Muslims,"  portrays Mohammad as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. But so what? Why is that reason to riot and kill? All this protesting will make the video a big hit, which it never would have been had they not rioted. Here's an idea, why not make a movie that shows just how wrong the producers of 'Innocence of Muslims' are?

  Protests spread further yesterday with US embassies the targets of anger among certain Muslims questioning why the United States has failed to take action against the makers of the film. But by the same reasoning, why not lash out at the internet, or computers, or films in general?

In Yemen’s capital Sanaa, hundreds broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified US embassy shouting "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God." They smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars. A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by gunfire, before government troops surrounded the area.

In the end, how did broken windows and scorched cars appease Mohammed or Allah? What sacrifice was made? Can the protesters answer that without just making something up?

Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Kuwait shouting slogans such as "God is great" and hoisting banners, one in English which read "USA stop the bullshit. Respect us."

Yes, everyone knows that respect is earned by taking offense over a video and rioting.

Even if the Koran said any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous, why is that a reason to kill? (Don’t the words themselves ‘depict’ Mohammed?) Does blasphemy itself kill Muslims? Do they die by the dozens, hundreds, or thousands anytime someone produces a characterization of the Prophet? When the Danish published a series of cartoons depicting Mohammed in September 2005, how many Muslims died as a result of the printing?

Zero.

But when they rioted several weeks and months later, how many died?
Over one hundred. 
Over one hundred fewer Muslims alive because people took offense to a series of drawings. Demonstrators claim it was religious provocation. How so? What is so provocative that other people need to die for it?

The thing to remember is, these demonstrations were not by a majority of the people in each of those countries, but only a small violent minority. Of the millions in those countries, only a few thousand decided Mohammed needed to be defended by destroying property and threatening lives. A few thousand people that looked for anything to offend them or needed an excuse to launch a military-style raid.  And as long as this minority believes death is the answer to words, drawings, and films that simply hurt their feelings, it won’t be the last time this happens. It’s a good example of how religion poisons people.
If your religion is worth killing for, start by killing yourself!

In memory of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the three Americans killed in Libyan riots on 9-11-12