Promises Made, Promises Kept Milestone Reached - 100,000 Dead

        Congratulations Mr. President. You've reached your predetermined "very good job" performance level. If this isn't proof that the evangelicals were right about you all along, I don't know what is. 
        Romans 13 makes it clear you can do whatever you like and no one can challenge it because...God!
        You must be so excited!

When Worlds Collide - Trump's disinformation meets Trump's delusion

       

       This is what happens when you put the most scientifically-ignorant, dishonest, self-centered child-like person at the head of what was once the most powerful and scientifically-advanced country in the world. 
       Thanks to Donald Trump's incompetence, even his sycophants are reduced to spouting gibberish at each other. 

"Wartime President" Trump promises 100,000 dead in Coronavirus fight

        In a White House press briefing on Sunday, March 29th, President Trump told the assembled reporters that his holding the body count to 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States means he's done a good job! The death toll today is just under 3,000 Americans. Only 97,000 more to go, Trump.
        Avast, ya swabs...hoist the Black Flag!

Trump cited projection models that said as many as 2.2 million people or more might die. “And so, if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 – it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000 – we all together have done a very good job.” And he's usurping the title 'wartime president' in hopes that his history-ignorant supporters will lump Trump in with actual wartime leaders like Roosevelt, Wilson, and Lincoln.

Everyone remembers Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address where he cited 10,000 sacred battlefield fatalities as a very good job for a first-term president. One of FDR's most evocative, and final, fireside chats in late February 1945 still trigger warm memories when he proudly announced to Americans that 7,000 Marines and sailors killed at Iwo Jima showed what a great wartime leader he'd become. So Trump owning up to his projected death count - that he caused through sheer ineptitude - is somehow presidential. Apparently, all great presidents have to constantly remind everyone how incredible they are. It comes with the territory because memories are so short.

Trump honestly thinks that, due to his delaying any testing or taking serious measures in the U.S. until it was far too late to contain the spread of the virus, he should be congratulated for a death toll that will top 100,000. Well then, if it only kills half of the initial 2.2 million estimate…so 1.1 million dead, can’t Trump still claim success because his delayed efforts only led to half the number of predicted deaths? What does this say about Trump's empathy? What does this say about the Trump-defending GOP that remains silent?

So in less than a half a year, we could have twice the number of deaths the U.S. suffered in 10 years of fighting in Vietnam - a war in which Trump actively avoided service - and yet Trump thinks that means his efforts were successful.

One of the striking features of this virus is it is killing Americans who are from Trump's largest pool of supporters, those 60 and older. Yet Trump seemingly has no compassion for them. One hundred thousand of them dying because of his failure will have no more impact on him than the last breeze. But this kind of impact happening one hundred thousand times should be what he actually receives...

One wonders what ultimate benefit was it for them to vote for Trump? He destroyed the health of the nation by failing to lead when he was first told about the virus in January. That failure led to a catastrophic collapse of the stock market. In a little over one month, Trump's incompetence responding to the spreading pandemic triggered an over 10,000 point loss which completely wiped out his entire economic bragging point for the past 3 1/2 years.

Trump made the bald-faced claim that if not for him and his administration being in charge right now at this time, we "wouldn't even have a country anymore." How does he know this? Conjecture and alternative facts do not equal reality. At the rate he is going, Trump will cause the demise and collapse of the United States just as sure as his negligence back in January led to the massive spread of the coronavirus across the nation.

Remember when Trump asked, regarding electing him, "What have you got to lose?"

Now you know. 

For starters, 100,000 Americans to CoVID-19 is what we've got to lose. But in Trump's mind, that's a good job.  

Trump turns the U.S. into a Ghoul Nation

Thanks to Trump, the United States has become a ghoul nation. Actions taken by this administration seem to be guided by a sinister side of Trump, especially one that feeds on ‘dead bodies.’ The word ghoul is also applicable in the derogatory sense when referring to a person who delights in the macabre, or is indifferent to someone else’s death. Has Trump expressed any sorrow or concern for anyone who has died or been killed on his watch? Not at all.

          Everyone, from CPO William Ryan Owens the Navy SEAL killed in Yemen less than a week into the Trump presidency, the four Green Berets, ambushed and gunned down in Niger on October 4, 2017, to the three U.S. Special Forces soldiers killed by an IED, November 27, 2018, near Ghazni in Afghanistan produced no reaction from Trump. Not one tweet from him about their sacrifice, and in most cases, Trump couldn’t even bother to be at Joint Base Andrews when the bodies were flown home. Ghouls are unconcerned with death.

        Just a few days after 7-year-old Guatemalan Jakelin Caal Maquin died in Border Patrol custody, 8-year old Felipe Gomez Alonso, also a Guatemalan died just before midnight Monday at a government facility in Albuquerque NM. CBP says it doesn’t know the cause of the boy’s death. Records show he was sent to a hospital, diagnosed with a cold, sent back to Border Patrol care and began having seizures soon after arriving there. He died later that evening while being transferred back to the hospital.

Trump supporters are secretly thrilled that these little sub-humans are now dead after illegally entering US territory…and it’s all their parent’s fault. If the immigrants hadn’t entered the U.S. through the desert they wouldn’t have lost their child. “Go die on someone else’s dime” is the Trump supporter’s attitude regarding the children’s deaths while in U.S. custody. There is no sympathy except for how it makes Trump look. That’s where their ghoulish sympathies lie.

A U.S. military report was released in December 2018 stating foreign civilian casualties during U.S. Drone strikes have dramatically increased under the Trump administration. Last year, Trump ordered all caps removed (in a simplified manner, caps were to be the maximum allowable number killed during U.S. actions hopefully restricted to maybe a dozen). Drawing on Defense Department memos and collateral damage assessments, so far in 2018, almost 3,500 civilians have been officially reported as killed - but governments in the countries where the strikes occurred claim the number is substantially higher and that the Trump administration is deliberately under-reporting the civilian slaughter. Meanwhile, the Trump administration pedals it as the price paid for America's freedoms. Ghouls do not care about collateral damage deaths.

In mid September 2018, Yahoo News is the first to report on a release that shows the Trump administration had transferred $13 million from Childhood Cancer Research and over $16 million from Head Start in order to give it to ICE for the supplying and construction of more detention centers and holding facilities for immigrants and their children. Why help kids when you can incarcerate…and possibly accelerate the death of…illegal immigrant children? Only a Ghoul nation would do this.

Even though FEMA has admitted fault for the thousands of pallets of now-undrinkable bottled water left on a runway in Puerto Rico as CBS reported in mid September, FEMA confirmed that it moved the bottled water in a cost-saving measure as a part of its effort to provide “the maximum support to disaster survivors, while also being mindful of our responsibility as stewards of taxpayer dollars.” Leaving it on the runway for months saved FEMA money and Trump gave their effort an A+. The supplied-and-lost-water could have saved some of the lives of the almost 3000 Puerto Ricans who died as a direct result of the effects of Hurricane Maria in the fall of 2017, and the inadequate response of the Trump administration. Trump denied the death toll from Hurricanes Maria and Irma in a series of tweets stating "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths." Trump then blamed Democrats for the figures, "to make me look as bad as possible." It is always…ALWAYS…someone else’s fault, never the Ghoul that was directly responsible for making the tragedy worse.

The world judges the United States by what Trump does. We will pay for this for generations…long after we’ve paid for Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%.

The Late Billy Graham - Seller of a Slicker Brand of Snake Oil

I waited to post this out of a sense of holding any invective until he was boxed up before leveling a broadside at the late Billy Graham.

Last Wednesday the gush gate was thrown wide open…gushing tears over the death of 99 year old purveyor of religious snake oil Billy Graham…and gushing sparkling accolades and tributes to his being what idolizers call the 20^th century’s greatest evangelist. I prefer huckster, but what the heck, evangelist, huckster...same thing.

Fox News immediately crowed “It’s a great day in Heaven.” Yes, a great day in Heaven….They actually spend part of their broadcast claiming it was A.GREAT.DAY.IN.HEAVEN!!!

How do they know? By what method can they know this? They do not have any faculties that the rest of us do not have, so please Fox, share with us how you know that it’s a great day in heaven. Flipping through a bible cannot and could not tell you that. You have indicated no apparatus that extends into the supernatural world so you could tap into the “great day festivities.” How are they even sure of Graham’s arrival there? Many Pentecostal preachers and church members will assure you in NO uncertain terms that Graham did not reach the Pearly Gates on Wednesday February 21st, or will he at any time in the future. The same sentiment would also be expressed by the Westboro Baptist Church.

Billy Graham was not a man any of us should revere or embrace. He built his career on being a bamboozler, or what in the old west was called a snake-oil salesman. He made countless open-ended promises that he never had to deliver on, promises built on heresies…scriptural heresies as interpreted from the Roman Catholic and Jewish points of view. Can you imagine what Torquemada of the Inquisition would have done with someone who preached scripture as Graham did?

But more to the point; who gets to determine which bible interpretation is correct? Is it the Presbyterian version? Methodist? Freewill Baptist? Shakers? Holy Rollers? Disciples of Christ? Mormon? Roman Catholic? Eastern Orthodox? Coptic Christian?

Billy Graham grew up in a Presbyterian home but eventually joined the more unruly evangelical Southern Baptist denomination, a group of regressives who objected to and refused to ordain women as ministers, although Graham eventually revised his thinking and said he could accept women’s ordination even though that appears to be in direct contradiction to 1 Timothy 2:11-12. He even initially opposed his own daughter Anne Graham Lotz from teaching a bible class…but later said she was the family’s best preacher. If his god existed, how would he view that statement given it is quite clear in the bible women are not to teach, assume authority over men, and to “learn in quietness”. If preaching is not teaching, what is it?

Fawning revisionist history blathers on about what a good man Billy Graham was when he actually was on the wrong side of history repeatedly. From his theological outlook that included racism, xenophobia, and homophobia, his passing will not wipe away the hate he helped foment that damaged so many lives. In 1993, he suggested that AIDS was punishment from God. “Is AIDS a judgment of God” he said while preaching in Columbus, Ohio. “l cannot be sure, but I think so.”

Graham was notorious for his anti-Semitic opinions. When the Nixon tapes were released, Graham is heard to reiterate an old conspiracy theory that claimed Jewish-Americans had a “stranglehold” on the media that “has got to be broken.” He also condemned gay marriage and targeted transgender people on his website.

.         Graham missed the boat on racial injustice, too, refusing to walk in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington. Why? Because Graham did not subscribe to racial equality, stating on several occasions that little white boys and girls would only walk hand in hand with little black boys and girls “when Christ returned.” There was no sense in working for it until Jesus’ second coming… so equality be damned. It underlines the fact that Graham was a Civil Rights coward.

Graham became known for his revivals but those revivals basically amounted to Christian buzzwords, mild threats of hellfire and damnation, promises of a better world after this one, condemnation of communism…and a request for money. Love of God and country went hand in hand for him as he preached against the Soviets and Chinese, advocated an American way of life that never existed, and reminded people god expected them to give 10% of their income. In short, the perfect Republican. No wonder Richard Nixon and George W. Bush liked him.

Would those same people at Fox who find Graham’s death a cause for celebrating in heaven have accepted it as truth if, say, Al-Jazeera claimed it was a great day in paradise when 19 new martyrs arrived there on the morning of September 11, 2001 after killing hundreds aboard four aircraft and thousands in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon? What’s the difference other than the religion?

I just consulted my Magic 8 Ball and asked if there really was a celebration going on in heaven due to Graham’s arrival. Its answer was “Outlook Not So Good.” And you can believe my Magic 8 Ball because it is as reliable as that information about it being a great day in heaven. The difference is my Magic 8 Ball actually exists.

The End of a Life

          I found out today that my wife’s cousin's only son (whom my wife called her 'nephew') was killed in a traffic collision on Sunday, March 16^th. He had had a rough life the past 15 years; going AWOL from the U.S. Marines, being caught and dishonorably discharged, being charged with drug possession and as a sex offender, serving seven years in prison on the latter account, not being able to find much work after being released, and finally, being killed when a teenage driver plowed into the back of his SUV. It’s a horrific end to what had seemed a promising life that somehow was interrupted about 20 years ago.

         In the early 1990s, we had gone to his family’s home for a big gathering, and he was proudly talking about how he wanted to join the Air Force and become a pilot after he graduated. At the time, he was a junior in high school, played as a lineman on the football team, and showed real promise as an artist. His bedroom was decorated with posters of sports heroes, airplanes and NASCAR vehicles. What happened to him afterward is still a mystery. I was told he became involved with the wrong crowd at school, began using crystal meth and other drugs, and let his school studies slip. He joined the Marines after he graduated in order to straighten out his life, although I’m not sure if he wanted to, or was ordered to. Marine life proved hard for him and one weekend he went AWOL. The Marines are good at tracking people, so they found him, put him in the brig for a while, and then dishonorably discharged him. His life seemed to spiral further downward after he returned home, became involved with drugs again, moved in with a young girl and got her pregnant. When her parents had had enough, they pressed charges against him since she was underage. He was sentenced to seven years in a medium security prison as a sexual predator. My wife corresponded with him on a number of occasions. I wrote a few times and encouraged his drawing as he seemed to have an eye for detailed artistic work. (I still have several pictures he drew for me while he was in prison.) One of the more bizarre things he wrote to my wife was how being in prison has strengthen his belief in Jesus and he had become a stronger Christian. When my wife showed me his letters, I couldn’t fathom why he professed a belief in something that, from all appearances, hadn’t done him any good. It was like saying his faith in garden fairies had blossomed thanks to the dread he felt all around him. His letters reflected how difficult and hard prison life was, with constant concern about his well-being and safety. If Jesus was comforting him and Christianity was strengthening him, why all that fear and apprehension? We visited him in the prison about a year before his release. It was a strange place to reunite with someone I hadn’t seen in almost 15 years. He had resigned himself to prison life and was just trying to get to the end of his sentence without going crazy. He said he mostly stayed to himself although he had made a couple of ‘friends’ while inside. We weren’t introduced to any but he pointed out one of them. I got a cold, hollow feeling when I looked at the man. The heavily tattooed, scarred, and scowling convict had the appearance of someone who knew far too much about prison life, and why people were there. I could only imagine what kind of effect he was having on my wife’s nephew.

         The last time I saw him was in 2011, just after his release, when we visited with his mom and dad and had a celebratory dinner with the three of them. He was trying to devise a realistic career path after what he acknowledged was a series of extremely bad decisions and poor choices. Shortly after our visit, he was ordered off his parent’s property by the court. As a convicted sex offender, he could not live near the girl who had his child and she happened to occupy a house very close to where his parents lived, so he was forced to stay with a family friend several miles away. Apparently, this put him back in touch with the people who had gotten him involved with drugs in the first place. Subsequently, he reverted to his pre-prison ways and became estranged from his mother and father. At some point, after the girl moved with her son out of state, he was allowed to return and live on his parent’s property in a old mobile home. We had seen it when we were there in 2011 and it was in shambles; needing quite a bit of repair and rebuilding to make it even semi-habitable. When he moved back, he made it his job to get it into a livable condition.

        When my wife’s cousin called last night, she told my wife that he was returning from community service that was required as part of his parole. He was about three miles from his home when he was hit at high speed from behind. According to the Highway Patrol report, he was not wearing his seatbelt and was ejected from the SUV when it rolled over several times. He died at the scene of the crash. The two teens in the car that hit him suffered minor injuries.     
        (I viewed the Facebook pages of the two teens who were in that vehicle. One of them is in the hospital, according to what he wrote online. He claims they had fun, other than the crash; thanks God that he and the driver survived, (Why didn't God just prevent the crash, or save all three of them?) then asks God to bless the other driver (my wife's nephew), that he is sooooo sorry he didn't make it, and he'll be in his prayers forever. (Uh-huh, I'm sure.) Many of his buddies seem to think its cool what happened. At least three entries end with 'LOL', although I can't tell what they are 'laughing' about. There are several entries on one page about beer drinking, cocktails, pot smoking, getting some easy pussy,  and trolling for more action at the beach. If those entries are any indication, the driver will probably face DUI manslaughter charges. That should stifle any further 'LOLs'. - Italics portion added on 3-19-14.)

        On my wife's cousin’s Facebook page today, along with seeking answers to the tragedy, is a Pinterest card she posted that states prayer shouldn’t be your last resort, it should be your first priority, with the tacit suggestion that prayer somehow works. I wonder, how much good does praying do? How did my wife’s nephew’s life change from all the prayers offered by his parents, his minister, or my wife, who prayed for him on numerous occasions? What good are the prayers for him (as people have posted on that Facebook page), now that his life has been snuffed out? How will those prayers ease the heartbreak and misery my wife’s cousin and her husband are experiencing? Do they truly believe God was watching out for their son, but decided on Sunday to let him die by being smashed against the road when he was thrown from his vehicle? If that kind of being exists, they are cruel and sadistic, and not worthy of worship.

        I am sorry for the loss of this man. I would say 'Rest in Peace', but there is nothing to indicate death is anything like a peaceful rest. I am sorry for the devastation it brings to his family. And I am sorry that so many offer up prayers to an invisible being who did nothing for this man while he was alive. It must give comfort to those who are doing the praying, by thinking they're contributing something useful and that the supernatural recipient will now respond in a positive manner. When that being doesn't answer their prayer, people will claim that we just have to wait, or that no reply IS the answer...unless that unseen entity doesn’t exist…which is the actual case. The nonexistence of an other-worldly super-daddy explains why these events happen. There is no one steering the ‘ship of life’. You are in control - whether you like it or not and whether you accept it or not. There is no script to follow. You write your own script every day. You choose what to make of your time while you're here.  Life is a series of random events. Some make us happy, some make us sad, some make us wonder what in the world is going on, but most are ordinary, mundane situations that we usually take little notice of. None of it is influenced by a cosmic invisible puppeteer, or some supreme being that requires prayers - as if they couldn’t figure out what to do unless human beings kept them apprised of things. Life is not a scenario to be acted out like a Shakespeare play...life just unfolds. It's up to each of us to do the best that we can with it. And life can be summed up in three words…it goes on. It just won't include my wife's nephew any longer, and that's a shame because he deserved better.

The Big Difference

                What does the future hold? How does one's vision of the future impact the way they live their life? Beliefs influence how one reacts and how they interact with others. Belief systems seem to boil down to one of two types of world views.

                One system sees a better tomorrow with true human harmony being a reachable goal, even though it may still be distant today. It will be a time when people can, and will, work with each other and find a just, lasting, and symbiotic way to make life better for all who exist here. If we can cooperate in space, at the far reaches of the planet, in technology, health care, finances, and communication; then we can equally cooperate in human progress and in human understanding. We all have more in common than we have that differentiates us. There isn’t a short term solution. It will require a long term commitment on our part. However, we have proven that we have the capability, the reasoning, and the desire to make things better, for ourselves and for those around us. Wouldn’t it be nice if it turned out we’re all only separated by something like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

                The other belief dictates that mankind is naturally evil and sinful. In this country, the predominant belief system is christianity, but it could just as easily apply to islam or judaism. Those who follow the christian belief hope, pray, and work for the biblical Armageddon to happen in their lifetime. They believe Jesus will then come tearing out of the sky to save some of the remaining human beings who will live for a thousand years with Jesus in control of Earth. Finally, for reasons not very clear, the devil (a supernatural being who was thrown into a pit when Jesus came back) will be let loose to destroy things on Earth again. And then, everyone who ever lived on this planet will be tried by God where a vast majority of them will be judged unworthy of anything but damnation, and thrown in a lake of fire for all eternity.

                Does this sound like the design of an intelligent supernatural being that transcends time and space?  Yet, this is the love and mercy of the Christian god, according to their bible, and it is the core of the Christian belief. Defenders of Christianity will try to explain that god doesn’t send people to hell (or the lake of fire); they send themselves to hell (or the lake of fire). Really? Is it any different than this scenario?

The Robber says                                                                               God says

“Give me your money, or I’ll shoot you!”                                   “Worship me, or burn in hell forever!”

People have free will.                                                                    People have free will.                   

They can choose to obey the robber's                                       They can choose to obey God's
commands, or not.                                                                        commands, or not.

So Robbers do not kill people.                                                  So God does not send people to hell.

People choose to die by                                                               People send themselves there, by         
choosing to disobey the robber.                                                choosing to disobey god.
               

Would you excuse and pardon the robber for murdering his victim in this case?

            But the ultimate problem is this; the Christian sees a bleak future that requires a supernatural event to change it, but they don’t explain how or why it will happen as they claim, except to repeat passages from their bible, as if that clarifies everything. You just have to believe, you just have to have faith, you just have to worship their god and trust that he will make everything right.

                The offer to worship the Christian god is not a choice, it is an ultimatum. The whole idea is based on a threat. That’s what terrorists do. That’s what the recent christmas holiday represents; not the birth of a child, but the birth of a method to threaten you with unimaginable horror. In its most concise form, it is ‘Worship me or go to hell forever’ which is no different than pointing a loaded gun at your head and saying “Do as I say, or I’ll pull this trigger.”

                I choose to believe in a very different future for the human race. I do not, for example, believe we’re on auto-pilot destined for total destruction, nor do I believe a supernatural event will occur that will resolve, temporarily, the apparently ghastly conditions we humans have created on Earth. I am certain that humans, with all their flaws and faults, will continue to progress and build toward a better future. There will be set backs and miscues, but we are aiming in the right direction. As long as we don't get sidetracked by allowing religion, ANY religion, to divert our course, we will continue to lay down the building blocks that will lead to a much grander and more equitable future for us and our descendants.

  It’s time for the human race to rise above these two thousand year old superstitions, and throw off the fear, the belief in a forsaken future, and faith in an unseen, unknowable supernatural force. We no longer need to be scared of the 'monster under the bed', because it was never there to begin with; nor do we need magical, invisible friends whom we converse one-sidely with (in prayer). The bible was written as a means of controlling people. In it, we’re condemned as being inherently sinful by the very being that, it is claimed, authored the bible, and we owe that being our lives in perpetuity. Of course, the message of the bible is then touted as the only salvation available, again according to that supernatural being that supposedly authored it. When other religions try to use the same argument with their own holy book, do you believe their claims are true?

The future is far too important to leave to interpretations that are no different from reading Tarot cards, tea leaves, or the entrails of a slaughtered sheep. I choose the vision that does not treat human beings as unworthy and must ultimately be saved by an undefinable supernatural source. We are superior to that and our eventual growth away from religion will only make our lives and our future that much better. The day when humankind’s belief in the supernatural is just a quaint memory, and a footnote in a history book, can’t come soon enough.

Why celebrate Columbus Day?

                                           Left to right, Niña, Santa Maria (Columbus' ship) and the Pinta

             In the early morning hours of October 12, 1492 a lookout named Rodrigo de Triana shouted what every sailor aboard the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria had been hoping to hear for 33 days since leaving the Canary Islands far to the east. The three ships had sailed from Spain on August 3^rd and the men were now on the verge of mutiny. Except for that quick stop for provisions in the Canary’s; after over two months of seeing nothing but the broad expanse of water in front of them, the men wanted to return home, any shortcut to Asia be damned.

“Land, land,” Rodrigo shouted from the crow’s nest of the Pinta. The soft white moon-lit sand of one of the southeasterly islands of the Bahamas beckoned. No one knows exactly which one it was; most often Samana Cay or Watling Island are chosen as possibilities. Rodrigo was also quite excited because Spain’s king Ferdinand and queen Isabella had offered a pension of 10,000 maravedis (around $1,300) for life to the first man who sighted land. At the time, seamen made about 12,000 maravedis in a good year so it was a sizable amount for any of them. Rodrigo was most likely smacking his lips in anticipation of the reward. But rather than compensate the lookout as promised by Spain’s rulers, Christopher Columbus, leader of the expedition, claimed he saw lights on the horizon a few hours previously and kept the reward for himself. It is not recorded if anyone questioned him about how he could see those distant lights, yet they were missed by all the other sailors, and why he never mentioning the sighting to anyone until after Rodrigo’s detecting the shoreline. This glimpse of Columbus tells us a lot about the man who would be crowned Admiral of the Ocean, and provides insight into his dishonesty and cunning.

                            The arrival of Columbus' ships as seen from the Taino's vantage

The natives he was about to meet would have been better off wiping out the ship’s crews as they came ashore. Those who lived on the island swam out to meet the newcomers as their boats neared the beach. The Taínos, as they were dubbed by the Spaniards, were part of a larger group of island natives called Arawaks, and were described as “naïve and free with their possessions” offering to share all they had with Columbus and his crewmen. They also discover the Taínos women were very free with sex as well. Because of small gold ornaments they wore in their ears and noses, several were taken prisoner and ordered by Columbus to lead him to the gold’s source. Columbus’ true reason for his voyage was revealed. It was not for discovery; it was for human and mineral plunder.

          Columbus claims the new land for God and Spain completely ignoring the desires of the natives who live there (seen in unauthentic dress in the background).

We now know that Columbus was not the first European to detect the American continents and nearby islands. Vikings had beaten him to it by around 500 years and there is evidence that other cultures and seafaring men may have stumbled upon the New World in the decades and centuries prior to Columbus’ voyage. Certainly what Columbus’ visit did was set in motion the annihilation of millions of natives who had flourished throughout the Americas. And Columbus’ justification? This is from his diary: "It was the Lord who put it into my mind, (I could feel His hand upon me), the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures.......

I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous Presence.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.
It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah* had prophesied......(probably Isaiah 40:22.
In this scripture passage the prophet Isaiah made reference to "the circle of the earth.) No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Savior, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service. The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will, even though He gives advice. Oh, what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which He holds Himself responsible! Day and night, moment by moment, everyone should express their most devoted gratitude to Him."

Yes, god through the bible told Columbus to go west. And once there, god and the bible were the justification for all sorts of heinous acts committed by the Spaniards in service to Columbus. Since the natives had no recognizable religion, they were considered fair game for anything. A young priest named Bartolome de las Casas recorded what happened to the natives in their interactions with Columbus’ crew of one of his later voyages. The Spaniards “grew more conceited every day and refused to walk, so they rode on the backs of the Indians, or were carried in hammocks by the Indians running in relays. They thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and cutting slices off of them to test the sharpness of their blades.” In another passage he wrote about how “two of these so called Christians met two Indian boys each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.”

                                           The Natives were slaughtered for no reason at all by their Spanish overlords.

                Natives by the thousands were rounded up and forced at sword point to dig for gold in mines while the women were put to work cultivating fields of crops for the Spaniards. Most died within six to eight months. This kind of treatment set the stage for the English, Portuguese, Dutch and French invaders whose treatment of the natives they met was just as harsh as the Spanish. In most every case, they claimed God wanted them to kill all the Native Americans found over here. The land was deeded to Christians and would soon be theirs. One English governor put it succinctly when he wrote “Sickness [in the Indians] was the physical manifestation of the will of God.” In less than 300 years, the American continent’s original inhabitants had been reduced by almost 90%.

                If Christopher Columbus should be remembered for anything, it is not for his guidance, compassion, and honesty, since he deliberately misled his own men with a phony ship’s log so the men didn't know how far they’d traveled on that first voyage. Plus, he had vastly underestimated the circumference of the earth figuring it was about one fourth its actual size. He contemptuously kept the reward for discovering land from the man who actually had sighted it, and his mission turned out to be to claim any land for Spain through God, plundering the new land for riches and capturing the natives as slaves, or just out and out killing them in the name of Christ. He should be remembered for what his actions, grounded in the belief that God has ordained it, unleashed on an unsuspecting population. Genocide.

                Nothing says a religion is true more than death and destruction meted out by its believers.

I'd rather they live

                 

                In several recent e-mails I've received from family members, if they have anything to do with the military, the emails will almost always end with some ridiculous line like this: And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ, and the American Soldier. Putting aside the a priori assumption of the first ‘defining force’, I’d like to address the bald assertion made at the end of that sentence about American soldiers offering to die.

                                        U.S. dead after rocket attack in Afghanistan, but did they offer to die?

               I don’t know about you but I don’t want any of our military people dying for me. I want them to live and kill the enemy combatants who aim to do me harm. It’s a very different thing to attack, defend, and fight, than to just up and die. Is the writer of this assertion claiming that men and women poured into recruiting offices with the goal of dying? Is he insinuating that when they were fully trained they appeared on battlefields and deliberately stood up in an exposed position to commit a planned suicide?  Did ANY of those soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen join up in order to die? Of course not. They may have joined because they felt it was their duty, or it was an adventure, or a chance to fight for their country. Death was possible, but I would wager not one of them said ‘yes, I’m signing up so I can die for the American people.’ It's like claiming that a driver who is killed in a traffic accident actually offered to die behind the wheel of his car for the American people.

             Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest is quoted as saying “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” Notice he doesn’t say dying. Fighting men and women are trained to fight and kill the enemy; they are not trained to die. It may happen in the course of fighting but that is not their purpose, and I am sad to think ANY of them did die. In the hit movie “Patton”  the great General, portrayed by actor George C. Scott, makes a statement that the men are not to ‘lay down your life for your country; you are to make the other poor, dumb bastard lay down his life for his country.' That’s the way it is in every war. Even the famed 300 Spartans who held off the Persian army under Xerxes did not meet them in the mountain passes of northern Sparta in order to die. They knew it was a distinct possibility, but they fought as though they’d survive to see their families and homes again, not assume that they’d be slaughtered to a man. So the statement that U.S. soldiers have offered to ‘die for you’ is not just wrong; it is absurd, it makes a mockery of the life of the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman or woman, and it is patently false. How many wars are won by the soldiers all dying?

                     So many U.S. war dead returned from Iraq, one assumes their mass suicides were successful

               One email even ends with this line: “Of all the gifts you could give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.” A quick test shows this is nonsense. Just as he goes into battle against a heavily armed enemy, if an unarmed American soldier is given the choice of a loaded automatic weapon you are holding out to him, or you offer to just pray for him, which will he choose? We can make this even easier on a more personal level. We’re alone dining and you start choking. You have two choices. One, I can perform the Heimlich maneuver on you…or Two, I can pray for you. Think carefully about your choice before you pass out.

Our military men and women are in my thoughts but I am not wasting time praying for them. I send letters of encouragement, books to read (but not bibles, korans, or other 'holy' publications) and contribute to funds that supply them with body armor and other necessary items to help protect them. I hope you will too.

              As for the Jesus Christ line, if Jesus is alive and now in heaven sitting at the right hand of himself (since christians claim he IS god), how is that death? What did he sacrifice? Regardless of what christians claim, no one died for me or you. It is simply an element of faith on the part of christians that Jesus did what the bible claims; and faith is simply believing in something without evidence. You just want it to be true. That’s not a pathway to truth.